Innkeep
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2008
- Messages
- 1,273
- Reaction score
- 8
I've been spending lots of time looking at B&B websites as I contemplate upgrading mine. We've had recent threads about what "extras" might be helpful to include, and we've all made comments about how hard it is to find room rates or other navigation type problems on some sites. Tweaking that sort of stuff is my first priority.
It's past my bedtime, so I probably shouldn't even be posting this now, but the thought ran through my head that perhaps the things we innmates (or at least me in particular) look for are of much less interest to the travelling public. For instance, I love to see really great photography, and enjoy seeing how lots of sites have a big flash show on the home page. There's even one with a cartoon bunny rabbit hopping around the photograph of the inn's front yard. It caught my eye. I've even selected photos I think would work well in flash for my website.
We've all had people on the phone who claim to be looking at our sites but can't seem to find our online reservations, or our room descriptions, or our policies, or whatever. "They just don't read". Is it possible that they really don't pay attention to the flash, either? So, does a nice flash show keep people from bouncing away or does it just make me feel better about my site, 'cause I've "upgraded"? My assumption has been that the better quality the photos, the better the website, the more often they'll book. Do we for sure know that the photos are what makes them book? Flash really doesn't help SEO, does it?
I understand that if your market includes 50 other B&B's you do whatever you can. With the cost of gas and the economy, I'm working with my "gurus" to see if I can get search terms that might get people in metropolitan areas 70-150 miles away for "one tank weekend getaways" which in essence means that I might actually be competing with other B&B's for the first time.
It's past my bedtime, so I probably shouldn't even be posting this now, but the thought ran through my head that perhaps the things we innmates (or at least me in particular) look for are of much less interest to the travelling public. For instance, I love to see really great photography, and enjoy seeing how lots of sites have a big flash show on the home page. There's even one with a cartoon bunny rabbit hopping around the photograph of the inn's front yard. It caught my eye. I've even selected photos I think would work well in flash for my website.
We've all had people on the phone who claim to be looking at our sites but can't seem to find our online reservations, or our room descriptions, or our policies, or whatever. "They just don't read". Is it possible that they really don't pay attention to the flash, either? So, does a nice flash show keep people from bouncing away or does it just make me feel better about my site, 'cause I've "upgraded"? My assumption has been that the better quality the photos, the better the website, the more often they'll book. Do we for sure know that the photos are what makes them book? Flash really doesn't help SEO, does it?
I understand that if your market includes 50 other B&B's you do whatever you can. With the cost of gas and the economy, I'm working with my "gurus" to see if I can get search terms that might get people in metropolitan areas 70-150 miles away for "one tank weekend getaways" which in essence means that I might actually be competing with other B&B's for the first time.