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Creating
a Successful Website
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As we receive feedback from visitors
to our site, create entries in our guide, and view numerous innkeepers'
web pages, we have a chance to determine what techniques work
well in the design of a successful website. As a result, we have
come up with the following tips to help bed and breakfasts succeed
on the Internet:
Organize
your information:
Most visitors find websites through
search engines or other links. When visitors arrive at your page,
they want to know how to contact you, what your accommodation
looks like, and a price. So,
- Start each page of your website with
a descriptive sentence. Many search engines use the beginning
text of your site for descriptions in their listings.
- Use short paragraphs on each page for
easy scanning. Research has shown that a person reads online
information 20% slower than hardcopy.
- Place all important information at
the top half of your website so that visitors can determine where
you are located and how to contact you by either email or telephone.
- Place the most important graphics first.
In our conversations with travelers, 85% said that they chose
an accommodation from a photo of the B&B's exterior and a
typical room.
Carefully evaluate new technologies:
New technologies that provide rolling
video, animation, and sound should be carefully evaluated as
they increase load time, block the visitor from quickly accessing
information, and may cause your site to drop out of search engines.
So,
- Keep animation and video clips short
and make sure to test the load time over a slow connection.
- Count the clicks it takes to get to
the real information. It shouldn't take more than two clicks
to navigate through flash menus to access room and ratings information.
- Test your site on all platforms (Macintosh
and PC). Animation or menus that work wonderful on a PC, may
not work at all on a Macintosh.
- Avoid using background music as many
visitors are looking for their getaway while at work.
Create
fast-loading graphics:
Design your web page for low-end computer
systems and slow modem rates (28.8 kbps).The average visitor
waits between 10 and 15 seconds for a page to download; if your
page doesn't load quickly, a visitor may not wait for the load
to complete. So,
- Save your photos in jpeg format. This
file format creates a smaller file size (faster load time) than
that of a gif image.
- Save jpeg files at 72 dots per inch.
Computer screens don't support higher resolutions, so don't waste
the load time.
- Size your graphics in an outside graphics
editor before importing it into your html file. Don't use the
sizing tool that your web composer provides. This changes only
the size of the photos as they appear on the page, but does not
reduce the original photo's file size.
- Don't use large photos on your website.
If you want to include a large photo, have a link from your main
page to the photos.
- Design the page to please your users,
not to please your web page designer. Avoid "cute"
graphic images and blinking icons, and overuse of colors. Leave
alot of white space.
- Check your load time with one of the
free web inspection utilities. One that we like is NetMechanic at http://www.netmechanic.com/
Create
websites for international travelers:
- If you are targeting your pages to
international travelers, consider the language, use of icons,
and how information is presented.
- Avoid using any words or phrases that
are regional.
- Use simple rather than complex words
and expressions. (e.g., instead of saying "you have the
ability to," say instead "you can.")
- Avoid slang words that are regional
to the USA, the United Kingdom, or Australia.
- Keep sentences short and to the point.
- Accompany icons with an identifier
(e.g., a right-pointing arrow should be accompanied by the word
next).
- Avoid using icons that are regional
(e.g., an envelope or mailbox icon may not have the same meaning
for an international audience).
- Avoid using icons that may have an
unsavory meaning in another country. For example, a pointing
finger.
- Provide all information on your accommodation
on a separate page that can be printed and viewed offline. Many
international travelers share computer time.
- Use one of the translation programs
to provide your information in other languages. The translation
is rough, but travelers can get the gist of your message. A translation
program to try is located at:
<http://www.systransoft.com/>
Promote
your website:
Register your website with search engines,
free directories, and paid directories. However, there are numerous
other promotions that will bring visitors to your site. Here
are a few.
- Exchange links with other bed and breakfast
websites. Fifty percent of website visitors arrive from links
from other sites, rather than directly from search engines.
- Consider giving away a free weekend
or night's stay at your B&B, or give away a local gourmet
product once a month. This is a great way to entice visitors
to return to your website.
- Create your own opt-in newsletter.
This is one of the best ways to build loyalty, trust, and return
visits to your site.
- Look at your local online newspaper.
Many publications provide local businesses with a free link section.
- Make sure that your hardcopy brochure,
business cards, and answering machine all mention your website.
Monitor
your website:
To see what promotions are working for
you, track where leads are coming from.
- Place Extreme Tracker on your website;
you can get it from http://www.extreme-dm.com/tracking/?reg
This free program takes only minutes to
set up. Once installed, Extreme Tracker will provide you with
the number of visitors, where visitors are logging on, as well
as a other useful information.
- Create guide-specific email aliases
if you have your own domain name. For example, when registering
with ibbp.com, use ibbp@<yourdomainname>.com. When a visitor
sends mail from a guide, the from line will tell you where the
lead came from. Check whether your service provider supports
multiple mail aliases.
- Ask travel guides that you list with
to put in your email a phrase that creates a subject line that
indicates where the email is coming from. For example,
mailto:innkeeper@mariahouse.com?subject=IBBP
Accommodation Request
will create a subject line that identifies
ibbp as the source in an email that a visitor sends you from
the International Bed and Breakfast Pages guide.
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