Marketing my website...

**IMHO** · 27-Jun-12, 02:45 PM

Mark, that may be true for holiday destinations, but not for the market Marq and myself is in. This market is very much price driven, expecting all the bells and whistles as well. There is a constant price war going on and half your calls received is from opposition doing price checks.

The other problem we face is that people expect a guest house to be on call 24/7 like a hotel. They do not realize you have to sleep as well, not talking about uninterrupted time for yourself. I can understand that, but then expect to pay for the service. Hotels charge what they do for a reason.

**Mark Atkinson** · 27-Jun-12, 03:03 PM

That may be so, but if you and a competitor are equally priced, you still need to be doing something else better than your competitor. Assuming your clients do their due diligence, that is. (Which I'm sure they do if they all their decisions are price-focused)

**Raymond Smit** · 27-Jun-12, 04:04 PM

IMHO - you are exactly right. Most people search online for a b&b. For example: "b&b your city" - to locate a bed and breakfast.

You have a 3rd option available to you - rank in Google places (that little map that pops up when someone does a local search). Right now it is easier to rank in Google places than for
normal SEO. Even better is you stand a much, much better chance at beating the more capitalized bullies with Places than with SEO or adwords.

[The downside is you can only rank for about 5 keywords b&b, bed and breakfast, accommodation, guest house and lodging for example]

I'll send you a PM and help you set up a listing or at least point you in the right direction.

**IMHO** · 27-Jun-12, 04:14 PM

Originally Posted by Raymond Smit

I'll send you a PM and help you set up a listing or at least point you in the right direction.

I think I have done so already, but send me the PM, so I can check. Thanks.

**IMHO** · 27-Jun-12, 04:15 PM

Originally Posted by Mark Atkinson

That may be so, but if you and a competitor are equally priced, you still need to be doing something else better than your competitor.

You are right. Thats why I want to re-do my website in the first place.

**IMHO** · 27-Jun-12, 04:25 PM

Mark, I am still considering getting Dreamweaver, but that is going to take time. I am also considering getting someone like yourself to do the initial thing for me and I just maintain or add on to it like I feel. (My problem is I am not very artistic) I host it myself on Telkomsa and own my domain name through them. So what will it cost to develop a new site from scratch? You have seen it now and have a good idea of what it is all about. I will also PM you the name of the new place that opened up that I talked about. They are very well ranked, so I want to know why...

Just checking if you noticed. The website is advertising two guest houses. They are run as one, just two branches with two names, as the settings is very different.

**Dave A** · 28-Jun-12, 07:34 AM

Originally Posted by Raymond Smit

You have a 3rd option available to you - rank in Google places (that little map that pops up when someone does a local search). Right now it is easier to rank in Google places than for normal SEO. Even better is you stand a much, much better chance at beating the more capitalized bullies with Places than with SEO or adwords.

Absolutely agree with this - I'd put getting a listing on Google Places at the top of your to-do list if you're in the accomodation business.

IMHO, I've had a look at your website, and boet I reckon you'd be way better off using Wordpress than what you've got there. Here's why.

Wordpress is a very popular publishing platform that Google knows, understands and really likes.
It's easy to learn (certainly relative to Dreamweaver ) and it comes with rock solid SEO built in.
You can drop external scripts into pages, such as Google Maps for your directions page - waaaay better than the old way of inserting a sketchy map image.
You can drop in all the fancy "online shopping" related meta tags too if you're that way inclined.

Basicly, you get a solid base to build on instead of starting pretty much from scratch. And you get all this for free! Damn hard to beat that deal.

Originally Posted by IMHO

So, clicks is vanity, conversions is sanity.

I suggest the same philosophy applies when it comes to simple websites. Building them from scratch in Dreamweaver is vanity, doing it with Wordpress instead is sanity

Register a second domain and take Wordpress for a spin. I don't think you'll regret it.

**Mark Atkinson** · 28-Jun-12, 09:17 AM

I see he already has a local places listing.

Agree with Dave, you are definitely better off using Wordpress as a base. Just please, don't use free templates.

I've sent you a PM detailing what I can do for you, as well as other advice. For the benefit of everybody else, I will consolidate everything I've already spoken to IMHO about and post it in this thread when I get a chance.

IMHO, I did notice that it is two guest houses. Only after my third look through, though. You'll probably want to clarify that with your new site.

**Marq** · 28-Jun-12, 09:33 AM

So I look on SafariNow this morning. I entered in the search box that I am looking for accommodation in Durban - first choice gave me 521 establishments.
So then I thought I would be more selective - so choose Durban City North = 241 establishments - mine came up number 40 this time.
Why do I say this time = cause they use a randomly generated list thats tailored towards a few tweaks along the lines of most used/most reviewed/highest points etc - they used to include (and I do not know if they still do) a factor of how many hours/minutes you took to answer your enquiries. In the early days when there where only 50 on the site, I used to have us at the top regularly and had a potential of quoting guests all the time. No its once in a blue moon, if I am lucky.
The point is here that you are in a cast of thousands playing casino odds at being found. Who is going to page through 500 potentials. Thats assuming that I know which area I would like to be in. The majority and especially overseas visitors do not know the various suburbs and which should be preferred. So the choice's are plenty and the potential of being found minimal. Still like you say Mark, we need a ticket to play, and thats the only reason we are there - same as the other 16,000 establishments that they have listed on their site.

Secondly - the price. I have discovered one thing over the years. Potential Guests do not think like I do. So yes not everybody shops on price or website looks.......but......the huge majority do. Also they surf the net and finding you on SafariNow (if they ever do) and after comparing SafariNow rate with the rate on your own website, finding that there is a difference is a huge issue. We field calls on a daily basis giving us a hard time cause a rate on some site is different to the rate on my official site etc. Like I said there is a stage where your margins just do not allow you to do the business. I do my own research on this regularly and it is a subject that usually comes up at association meetings and get-togethers. Pricing is big and being in the right ballpark definitely creates a difference in occupancy. The question is at what margin.

I have not done an adwords campaign so cannot tell you if it has the same margin as being on a site that gives you a luck looks view on marketing your business. It is something I have considered now that numbers are looking down so may be able to report back on this in the near future.

A note to IMHO - I get a comment often when guests arrive that my place is exactly like the pictures they have seen. If they arrive at a place where realty does not look like the demo then you have an unhappy guest from the start. No amount of service and good looking hosts can save you from that. They will not return and that is one of the keys to this business - returning guests. If you do not have that type of business then a bad review can also ruin your potential.

**Mark Atkinson** · 28-Jun-12, 09:57 AM

I can understand how in a major city you would find a whole lot of competition on Safarinow and such sites. It must be frustrating, but yes, you probably can't afford not to be on there anyway. I guess the solution is just to diversify your marketing now. So get listed on as many of those sites as possible, especially the ones that actually link back to your website. (Like sa-venues.com) Invest in your website, run an Adwords campaign, etc.

In this day and age no business can afford to rely on one form of marketing to succeed. It's the same issue with "Internet Marketers" who stuff rubbish backlinks to their site and have no other form of traffic generation such as social media. Next thing Google changes its algorithms and your income stream goes from sustaining you to absolutely nothing. That's a major theme coming through in online marketing lately - diversify or you're risking your livelihood.

Regarding Adwords, because you're in Durban and IMHO is in Klerksdorp I believe we'll see a big difference in terms of ROI and Adwords spend. You can expect yours to be a whole lot higher than his will be, simply due to the number of competitors. I've looked at IMHO's competition and noted to him that beating his competition shouldn't be too difficult at all, simply because their online strategies aren't very strong and there aren't (comparatively) very many competitors. It's definitely an avenue for you to consider, Marq. (If you have a decent website up)