Taken from a conversation on the old forum:
One way to evaluate your bed and breakfast website is to have a fresh set of eyes look at it. Friends and guests will often tell you what you want to hear.
Members of a bed and breakfast forum like this one, are more likely to be more honest and direct. It also helps that some of the “fresh eyes” around here have seen a lot of B&B websites, so the advice can be very useful. Feel free to share your site, the only risk is getting some useful advice.
Dear Swirt
Most of our business is generated through our website. Therefore I want to be sure that it is maximized.
Our Website is http://www.kilburnie.com
Any critic or comments are appreciated.
Hi Kilburnie,
Your inn looks great and your website does a pretty good job of representing it.
Pros:
1. Great information on your area. I would separate the dining from the shopping and expand the dining part. Some guest may shop, but almost all guests will dine out. Providing more info on dining is a great service to your potential guests.
2. Well done providing directions and a map. Even better providing gps coordinates for people traveling with GPS units. Cool I would suggest that you turn your directions into a bulletted list or numbered list so it is easier to follow while driving (its hard to pick up where you left off in the middle of a paragraph of text) I also think the way changing the zoom on the map takes you to a website with no easy way to get back to yours could be re-worked to provide an easy way to get back to your site.
3. Overall you provide good clear information and your photos are clean and crisp.
4. I love the concept you have of offering your inn for photoshoots. That’s brilliant. Cool
Cons: or at least things to consider
1. Your home page is what’s considered a “splash page”. It contains very little content and forces people to click to get to something helpful.
Kit addresses some issues with splash pages from a user point of view in an article here. From a search engine point of they are bad news. Search engines can only read words, splash pages lack content for search engines. More details can be found in a B&B splash page article I wrote. The basic idea is that they restrict your traffic. Yours looks good, but it lacks even simple efforts at optimization for search engines. (more about that to come)
2. Basic optimization of your pages does not exist on your pages. This is an indication that your designer didn’t give it much thought. (Side note: most designers give little consideration to how sites they build perform in search engines. They are concerned with appearance and ease of use, which are important only after people get to your site. ) Basic optimization for search engines (and I do mean basic) is to focus on the title of each page. The page title is the words that appear in the top blue bar of the web browser. Currently this is the most important element you can place on a web page to be found. Your pages currently say things like “Guest rooms” or “Your Host” This may help you show up for a search for “your host” but does nothing to help you in a search for “South Carolina Bed and Breakfast”
Usually the major search engines frown on information hidden from the view of people. Many actually penalize for it. There are however two hidden places they do allow. These are called metatags for a “description” and “keywords”. Description should be a sentence that describes the information that is on that page. Keywords is a list of words related to the information found on the page. Some search engines ignore the keywords as many websites abused them, but they do still read the description use it to determine your placement within a search. Your particular site has none of these. They were never put in. An opportunity ignored translates to potential guests who will never find you. – Being found in a search is very important…consider it free advertising. Here is more information on basic B&B website optimization
3. On your public rooms and guest rooms pages you have small photos at the bottom that when you click on them a bigger version is displayed. They are good quality pictures but they are too big. They are bigger than the majority of computer screens being used, so many viewers will not be able to see the whole image without scrolling up and down and side to side. People using Internet explorer may not see a problem because recent versions of that browser will automatically shrink images to the size of the browser, but that will not happen for many users.
4. Your contact us page says to “fill out the reservation request below and click the submit button” but the form is not on that page.
5. Your request form is fairly easy to use but I would suggest looking in to an online reservation system that includes an availability calendar. It helps a lot of those impatient travellers who don’t want to wait around for you to write back and tell them whether a room is available. A large portion of potential guests will ignore your form and keep searching for some place that can confirm an opening immediately. Some people have patience and are willing to wait, but many don’t.
I hope this gives you enough to work with for a while.
_________________
Steve Wirt
Wine Country Cabins Bed and Breakfast in the Finger Lakes
and Inngenious Bed and Breakfast Website Promotion
Dear Swirt,
Thank you very much for your evaluation of our website. Your time and effort are very much appreciated. I’ll read all about “splash” and will get together with my website designer to discuss your suggestions and will let you know once the adjustments are made.
Just know that I value your professional and knowledgeable input highly. You are provided a great service to those of us who want a great website but lack the know-how and experience in website design.
I certainly can see the value of automatic web reservations for larger inns. However I am somewhat uncomfortable with an automatic reservation system for Kilburnie because it seems to me that it takes away the first communication opportunity with the guest. I enjoy taking reservations directly, because it gives me an advanced sense of the potential guest(s) and it personalizes the booking.
Another questionable part is the “tentative” holds. I limit tentative bookings to one week for lodging and 2 weeks for weddings. If a tentative fails to come through I might lose business because on the automatic system the room(s) would have been shown as sold. When I get inquiries on my manual system for tentative booked room(s), I have the opportunity to call the tentative guest(s) and make them commit or cancel their holding, thereby guaranteeing that the room revenue is not lost, which would have been lost with an automatic system.
.
With thanks, Kilburnie
Our B&B is small (3 guest rooms). More than half of our reservations come electronically. It does take away some of the “initial contact” part, but it adds the “more guests” part. People looking for a place to stay online often do it at times they would be unable to call you. They are looking at midnight and they book at midnight. If they had to wait until 10AM to call, they go somewhere else that will give them immediate gratification. The availability calendar also contributes heavilly to “planners.” I have found that when people call for a time that is booked, they may inquire about another date or two, but it is difficult to convey over the phone what you have available when, it is just too much information to process by audio. However, with an online availability calendar they can take their time and match it up to openings in their calendar and see what their options are without having to feel like they are inconveniencing you by asking 100 questions on the phone. The potential guests that like the voice to voice contact will still call, but they will feel comfortable having already looked at what you have available.
The real problems start when innkeepers use an availability calendar that does not keep up-to-date with your actual reservations. That’s why I always reccommend a system that integrates the calendar with all your reservation info.
Room holds are rarely a problem because they reserve with a credit card on the system so we charge a deposit immediately. It takes the tentativeness out of the situation. We are never waiting for a possible deposit check to arrive. If they reserve, we expect that they are coming because we have charged a depost to their card. If they cancel on short notice and we are unable to re-book the room, they don’t get the deposit back. If anything, the online reservation system makes the whole thing more certain. I know several innkeepers in my area that are often on pins and needles because of tentative reservation holds. Will the guest who never sent a check show up or not, should we make the room available or not, should we call or not? We NEVER have to deal with this. The peace of mind alone is worth the cost of the service. The additional guests are an added bonus
_________________
Steve Wirt
Wine Country Cabins Bed and Breakfast in the Finger Lakes
and Inngenious Bed and Breakfast Website Promotion
Thanks Steve,
You have convinced me and I will look into an integrated reservation system.
So far I have used Microsoft “outlook” for reservations and guest(s) data.
Johannes
Kilburnie, the Inn at Craig Farm
You might find the section on “Computers & Reservation Software” in this blog helpful.
If you run into questions or concerns, feel free to ask in that section.
Anybody else have a website they want some suggestions on?
_________________
Steve Wirt
Wine Country Cabins Bed and Breakfast in the Finger Lakes
and Inngenious Bed and Breakfast Website Promotion
I’m not very happy with our website ( http://www.sweetautumninn.com). We hired a person 5 years ago who was building sites but, to late, I discovered he had no idea about marketing or seo. Which, in defense, wasn’t looked at in the same light back then as it is today and finding someone with expertise in both fields was rare. And when he first took it live I couldn’t believe how slow it loaded and then I noticed that all the pix were in bmp! I had to tell him the pix had to be jpg and not bmp, I had to explain the need for keywords, etc. and since I’m no expert and I know there are many issues, of which I’m unaware I feel we need a change or a lot of help. I have had him make several changes over the years but I’m thinking these have just been bandaids and maybe we should just bite the bullet and start over. I’d like to put new photos etc on but he doesn’t seem to understand the idea of spacing text & photos as it is, so I’ve been hesitant to proceed.
“Swirt” has offered some great insights on several of the websites posted here and I would appreciate his opinion (if you have the time) on whether or not the current site could be easily reworked to be more visible in the search engines or if the problems are too great. I know how important the web is because most of our reservations come that way but we can’t really afford to throw a lot of money at it again either, so if a few adjustments could do it ……….??
Thanks for any and all advice.
Teri
Sweet Autumn Inn
Hi Teri,
What you have described must have been a frustrating process. I always caution people to avoid using a friend or relative who dables in websites to design one for a buisiness. The scary part of your story is that you had to teach the person you hired. If they don’t know not to use bmp’s for pictures, then what else they don’t know must be enormous. In looking at your site, it doesn’t have to be completely thrown away, but it does need a lot of work to make it more usable, attractive and search engine friendly. What I would suggest is that you throw away your designer and find another. From what you have described I get the impression that not only were his skills limited 5 years ago, they continue to be limited today.
Here are some suggestions. Whether you choose to implement them one page at a time or all at once with a complete site rebuild, the time involved is about the same, so there really shouldn’t be a difference in cost. In fact a skilled designer using templates and stylesheets to contol the appearance could build you a new site faster than he could fix each of the messes your current designer made.
That should give you enough to contemplate. Again whether you have someone fix what you have or rebuild from scratch, is 6 of one half a dozen of the other. What you want to make sure of, is that you keep the same page file names. For example your introduction page has a file name of introduction.htm, make sure your new site has a page with the same filename in the same location. Search engines have indexed all your pages and they have some value (page rank), but the value is associated with the file name, so don’t change the names no matter what else you do. There is one exception to that, you have a couple of pages that have names with spaces in the name such as Guest%20Rooms.htm (the %20 is actually a space) this is not a great practice, I would change the name of the files use a hyphen like guest-rooms.htm Your designer should then set up something known as a 301 redirect to make make a request for Guest%20Rooms.htm automatically point to the new page of guest-rooms.htm. If your designer doesn’t know what a 301 redirect is, its a good sign you should keep looking for someone else.
Hope this helps. Let me know if you have questions about anything I’ve said.
_________________
Steve Wirt
Wine Country Cabins Bed and Breakfast in the Finger Lakes
and Inngenious Bed and Breakfast Website Promotion
Thanks so very much for the analysis. It will go a long way toward helping me convince my husband that we need a redo and that a professional is needed.
Teri
Sweet Autumn Inn
Good luck Teri, I think you now have enough info to start choosing a new web designer. Sadly you do have be careful. Even some of the big, well recognized names in our industry are routinely turning out sites that have some serious search engine related issues. Be sure to keep an eye on what they are building and don’t sign off on it until you are satisfied that it can be found. It is money well spent for a good website. It is the best marketing value you can find at this point in time.
Since we are now on the second page of this thread, I will re-invite people to ask for reviews of their own B&B sites.
_________________
Steve Wirt
Wine Country Cabins Bed and Breakfast in the Finger Lakes
and Inngenious Bed and Breakfast Website Promotion
Hello Swirt
I have recently joined this most interesting forum – I am based in New Zealand and it is very good to have the opportunity to see how things run in a much bigger market.
I would love to receive your comments on our website – as you say friends and family are usually only offer positive feedback. http://www.marlboroughbb.co.nz
_________________
Marilyn
Marlborough Bed & Breakfast
New Zealand
Hi Marilyn and welcome to The B&B Lady’s blog.
I took a look at your site. From a search engine point of view it is in pretty good shape. You or someone you hired did a pretty good job of making each page target a different search phrase. Here are a couple of things I would suggest:
1. The images on your site especially the main one on the home page is a good size visually, but it looks like it was originally a smaller image that was scaled up. The result is that it looks very blocky (pixelated is the technical term). So its not the best first impression. I would also suggest more pictures of your rooms. Potential guests like to see as much as possible about the place. Bedrooms, bathrooms, gathering rooms, romantic spots on the grounds…
2. You might want to clear up what your accommodations offer. It took me a while to figure out that you offer 1 bedroom, and I’m not certain that my conclusion is correct.
3. Your availability calendar is a nice place to start. If you have only one bedroom, I think that probably works fine. If you have more than one, you may want to consider upgrading to a dedicated availability calendar/reservation system like ReZovation or SuperInn.
4. Color is sometimes a cultural thing so I may be off base here (in the States) but Orange and electric blue can be a bit harsh on the eyes.
5. The biggest visual problem your site has is that jumps around a bit. On one page the heading is small and on another page it jumps to larger and is centered and on another it is small again and left justified. You may want to consider using a cascading style sheet (css) to control the look and make it both consistent from page to page and be able to change the appearance across every page in one place. This also has potential to help with search engines because it gets rid of all the font style tags that are taking up most of the code on your pages.
6. I really like your page on exploring your area. Its a great aide to guests. If there is more in the area I would suggest adding more content to that page. Travelers needs vary wildly. You never know whether they are there primarily for the golf, the wine, the beach or whatever, you need to include them all. The one thing you can be sure of is that they will need to eat. So the more you can offer your insight on places to eat in the area, the better. In fact you may want to dedicate a separate page to the topic.
7. More pages are almost always helpful both for providing info to potential guests but also for showing up in more searches (cast a bigger net). You may want to consider adding a guest comments page or a Frequently asked questions page, or an events calendar if there are lots of events going on in the area.
Overall though, your site is in pretty good shape. I’m pretty critical so if you only choose one thing to deal with. Go for better photos and more of them.
Hope this helps.
_________________
Steve Wirt
Wine Country Cabins Bed and Breakfast in the Finger Lakes
and Inngenious Bed and Breakfast Website Promotion
Thank you very much Steve
It is my first attempt at doing a website from scratch, and appreciate all your comments.
We do only have one room at the moment and to be honest we aimed at being a bit vague as we hope to add more for next season!
I take your point about the first photo. We have owned the property only six months so we are waiting for the right time of the year for sun/shadows/foliage etc = it is not as easy as I thought it would be. I liked the colours on the original photo and am trying to replicate those.
I will also do a bit of study on CSS = I haven’t quite got to grips with it yet. Is there any reading material you can suggest about CSS?
Thanks again.
_________________
Marilyn
Marlborough Bed & Breakfast
New Zealand
Thank you fr that Steve.
I will do some “Swot” (as we say here) and then see if I can convert our website over using CSS. gulp.
_________________
Marilyn
Marlborough Bed & Breakfast
New Zealand
Good luck Marilyn,
Adding the CSS will likely be the easy part… its removing all the old uneccesary font tags that is the pain in the neck.
(I’ll have to PM you to find out what Swot is, I’m not familiar with that one.)
_________________
Steve Wirt
Wine Country Cabins Bed and Breakfast in the Finger Lakes
and Inngenious Bed and Breakfast Website Promotion