Marketing

As mentioned in the section on basic web site design, it is important to question of the purpose of the web site; who it is for and what you would like it to achieve.

Some holiday accommodation businesses rely on internet listing/booking agencies for everything; web page marketing and on-line booking. This approach is relatively hassle free but has several drawbacks. There will be constraints on the content and appearance of your agency web page. It can also somewhat inflexible, with limited options for changing text or making last-minute deals. You may also find it an expensive option with an annual fee and/or commission. Combined listing/booking agencies for the self-catering holiday cottage sector, for example, result in 20 weeks occupancy. Independent marketing can do better than this:

Independent Marketing

We favour the independent marketing approach. Here, you use as many external links as possible to drive relevant visitors to your own web site. Your own site becomes the primary marketing tool and is used to make your establishment as appealing as possible and to convert a good proportion into confirmed bookings. Interactive availability calendars with on-line booking help in this respect. The independent marketing approach offers much greater flexibility and results in more bookings.

Croft House Barn, for example use several internet based accommodation listing agencies including Let's Stay Peak-District to generate significant levels of ‘click-through-link’ traffic. Visitors can then peruse the web site, check availability and make a reservation. A referral tracking system monitors which agencies generate the most traffic and what keywords have been used.

Consultancy

We can also provide a website design and marketing consultancy service. We can for example, look in detail at your current website and the links to it. We will examine the search engine performance, graphic design, page content text and images, typography, navigation, ease of use, page load times, cross browser compatibility, screen size issues etc. We will then produce a report which details the various ways in which the number of visitors to your site might be raised and the conversion rate to confirmed bookings improved.

Providing PMEWeb make the required changes, then we do not charge for this service. Otherwise a small fee may be charged for the report.