Microsites for Vacation Rental Managers – A Warning

June 5, 2012 by 1BlizzAdmin

I regularly get asked by vacation rental managers about starting a second or third website to promote their business. It seems they usually want to be told it is a good idea and that it will help them in Google. Typically microsites are a dangerous distraction and should be approached carefully.

There are two reasons why a microsite may not be a good idea:

Google doesn’t want you to create multiple websites selling the same stuff. Many of their algorithm changes over the last few years have been targeted and penalizing websites that are not unique and valuable.
Most VRMs struggle to make their primary website perform at a high level. Why spread yourself even thinner and create a second website? Focus on making your primary website better optimized, more user friendly and more content rich!

What is a a Microsite in the Vacation Rental Manager’s World? It could run the gamut of large to small, but here are the general ones I hear about: [Read more...]

Filed Under: Design, Travel Marketing

Is Your Website Mobile Friendly?

September 9, 2011 by 1BlizzAdmin

If you haven’t noticed, people really like to use their cell phones.

Whether it’s emailing, video chatting, finding directions, or wording with friends, there are very few things that you can’t do on a cell phone and very few people who could live without it. (Is there a support group for that? I should probably find one.)

As cell phones have become more advanced surfing online has become easier to do as well. Consequently there has been large and steady increase in mobile users visiting websites.

In July and August, 2011, the average lodging website received 10% of its traffic via a mobile device, and during the same months in 2010 that was only 4%.

Here is a chart from BlizzardTracker showing this growth in mobile visitors over the past year:

During August, 2011, the average lodging website (based on 190 websites) received:

4,759 visits from mobile users
Over 13,000 page views
A length of visit of nearly 4 minutes

Whether you do or not, people are searching on their phone for lodging options. If your site doesn’t work well on a mobile browser, visitors will get annoyed and go to your competitor’s site.

You don’t necessarily need a full functioning site, but you do need something to satisfy 10% of your traffic.

Have you checked your site lately?

How well does it work in a mobile browser?

Filed Under: Design, Mobile

Best of Online Marketing from VRMA

April 26, 2011 by 1BlizzAdmin

This post began as a presentation given at two recent Vacation Rental Manager Association conferences.

The goal was to create a list of great online marketing examples to help other vacation rental managers plan their next great website or marketing effort.

So without further ado…

A Showcase of our favorite Online Marketing examples by VRMA Members

Your Website matters, especially your booking engine.

We looked at 10 vacation rental websites and found that 73.4% of the guest’s website interaction happened in the booking engine (measured by pageviews).

Certainly it is worth it for the average VR manager to pay close attention to the usability and overall effectiveness of their booking engine.

Next we used BlizzardTracker to determine that in March 2011, 68 vacation rental manager websites averaged a 36% bounce rate:

Of those websites, 29 were engaged in eCommerce with a .42% conversion rate on average. In other words, they got 1 online booking for every 233 visitors to their website.

Anything you can do to get that bounce rate down and that conversion rate UP is good.

Here is a sample sales funnel where you can see, for this particular VRM, a .68% conversion rate, with the sales funnels starting at the property page. (At bottom of the chart it shows a .63% funnel, but that is starting from the search results page, which was cropped from this image.) [Read more...]

Filed Under: Design, Facebook, Perfect By Design, Trophy Case

Form Formalities – Are You Making Your Website Forms Too Complicated?

October 27, 2010 by 1BlizzAdmin

I’m a huge fan of Anne Holland’s “Which Test Won” blog, where you can vote on which version of an A/B Test performed better and was declared a winner.

Today’s offering was all about forms, and how to make them more profitable for your business: Which Test Won: Required vs. All-Optional Form Fields – Which Version Got A 31% Lift In Lead Gen Form Submissions

Many of you have online booking capabilities, but require forms for contact us pages, or RFPs for meetings and events. Sometimes, these forms get monstrous and look like job applications. The general rule is – the more information you ask for, the less likely you are to have someone fill out the form.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Design, Marketing Musts

WordCamp San Francisco

May 5, 2010 by 1BlizzAdmin

WordCamp San Francisco 2010

I have had the pleasure of traveling to San Francisco to attend the 2010 WordCamp SF. It is a conference dedicated to WordPress, Blizzard’s preferred platform to use for both a Content Management System (CMS) and Blogging.

There are WordCamp’s held all around the world, in 2009 there were 48 WordCamps, but San Francisco is historically the largest gathering as it is the headquarters of Automattic, the parent company of WordPress.

The presentation I was looking forward to the most was the “State of the Word” speech by WordPress co-founder and lead developer Matt Mullenweg. Matt has a great way of connecting with the audience, sharing a lot of information, and managing to bring in some comedy.

The biggest item on everyone’s mind, including Matt’s, is the upcoming release of WordPress 3.0. There is a lot for developers to look forward to in 3.0.

Some highlight of 3.0 include:

Menus
Custom post types
WPMU Code Merger
Bulk upgrade of plug-ins (yay!)

Matt was smart and wouldn’t promise any official 3.0 release date since it originally was scheduled for April. I’d be surprised if [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blogging, Design, SEM

New Outer Banks Vacation Rental Website Launched for Corolla Classic Vacations

March 11, 2010 by 1BlizzAdmin

Blizzard Internet Marketing, Inc is proud to unveil a newly designed and developed website for Corolla Classic Vacations of the Northern Outer Banks.

Corolla Classic Vacations’ business mantra and goal is to be “Deliberately and Selectively Smaller,” only managing Northern Outer Banks vacation homes that meet their high standard of luxury and quality.

The company selected Blizzard Internet Marketing, Inc. to redesign their website based on Blizzard Internet’s longstanding reputation of successfully designing and marketing websites that rank well in search engines, attract quality traffic in competitive markets, and drive more traffic through the booking process.

The new website is designed using WordPress; a design platform that is naturally search engine friendly, easy to update, and compliments Corolla Classic Vacations’ brand. Corolla Classic Vacations’ vision for the new website design is to reflect that of their business: for guests to experience a personal level of service, laid back simplicity, and to enjoy the uniqueness and quality that each of their Northern Outer Banks vacation homes offer. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blizzard News, Design, SEM