Still paying by cheque?

Despite the development of internet banking and widespread use of credit cards there is still a large number of businesses paying by cheque.

This seems to be very common within the tourism industry.

People think cheque payment is quick an inexpensive but think again:

Disadvantages to cheque drawer:

• Banks charge more for processing cheques.
• You have to track outstanding cheques in your bank account to ensure you don't become overdrawn to avoid additional bank fees.
• You have to post/deliver the cheque to the person
• Even if you are not been charged by the bank for using cheques you might be able to obtain a better deal by moving to electronic payments.
  

Disadvanates to the cheque receiver:

• There is a cost to the person you are sending the cheque to.
• They will have to pay more to bank a cheque
• The funds are not immediately available
• They have to physically visit the bank.

So what are the alternatives:

• Pay via internet banking
• Pay via credit card (or use a debit card)

Even if you incur minimal costs to process a cheque the total cost between the cheque sender and receive there is a substantial. You can be sure the receiving business understands these costs and will result in higher charges.

In a previous web hosting company we used to offer a discount of 5% for direct credit and 2% for credit cards to encourage people to move to a cheaper payment method.

Online Reviews

A recent blog about online reviews is worth a read - "More Support for Truth being Online Gold Dust on the Travel & Tourism Technology blog

The most interesting suggestion was the following:

I would like to see a comment card at a hotel that says "How are we doing? Let us know by writing a review at TripAdvisor.com". Wow, how forward thinking would that be.

Hopefully you already know about TripAdvisor.com but his suggestion to encourage reviews is an excellent idea.

There are a number of reasons to encourage reviews and provide a link to these reviews within your website:

• It shows a commitment to maintaining the quality of your product
• Encourages positive reviews
• Identifies areas which require improvement
• Any negative posts can be responded online
• This makes the process of reviews very transparent
• The reviews are seen as independent.

So what do you think?

Let us know if you have a link to trip advisor on your website?

We are investigating introducing a review process on RainbowTourism.com and would like you thoughts on this as well.

How to build loyalty

How do you build loyalty from the markets you are trying to target.

Two recent blogs on the gay and lesbian travel market highlight this issue

• Familiarity Breeds...Loyalty
• How-To: Avoid Common Mistakes in Reaching Gays and Lesbians

The ideas in both these blogs can apply to whatever sectors you are targeting.

The key issues are:

• Consistent advertising messages which are reflected in day to day operations of your business. This means if you employ staff they need to understand how you are promoting your business.
  
• Don't assume your target market is all the same.
  
• Your target market actually may be part of other groups you are marketing so make sure all your messages are consistent to all groups.
  

There is more but I will leave you to read the two blogs.

Let us know your thoughts by leaving some comments.

Why Blog

Many tourism operators think they are too busy to blog or think they have nothing to say.

The reality is operators have a lot to say. Here are some ideas:

• New services that you have in your business.
• Specials and deals
  
• A new tour that is now available in the location
• A local event
• A new show at the local Art Gallery
• An interesting comment from a guest of some things they did.

A blog doesn't have to be word perfect and each post can be quiet short.

If you think you don't have time or don't have ideas have a scrap of paper and stick any idea you think of to blog on the fridge then when you need a break grab them and pick the one that inspires you today.

Blogging is easy and with blogger.com from google you can be blogging in minutes.

If you are describing places or events you can quickly add photos.

How do people find your blog:

• Add a link from your website.
• Comment on other peoples blog.
  
• Signup for technorati.com
• Use feedburner.com to distribute your blog via an RSS Feed and email.
• Display your blog headlines on your website like we have done on RainbowTourism.com

If you still not sure then contact me and we can work with you to develop a strategy for your blog.

Money For Nothing - Content is King

An interesting post on the Saausu blog about Seth Goddin new ebook Money for Nothing.

The key point in the ebook is that to obtain web traffic you have...

"to create content that is updated, unique and useful"

So is SEO dead. The short answer is NO. But it if you want people to link and refer traffic to your website make sure it has good relevant content otherwise your investment in SEO is a waste of money.

So what do you do.

You focus on what you do best. So in the case of RainbowTourism.com we have focused on getting content and great tourism operators online.

We had to then find a strategy on how to manage this. This is where Canz design came in and helped us get our new website up. We have also employed them to help with our back end maintenance.

Now we have the site online we will also have them undertake SEO work.

This takes time and money but if you are serious about developing your online presence it is an investment will worth your while.

This investment means we can focus on getting new content on the site so that we generate more bookings.

So what is your strategy? Feel free to leave comments below.

What is your yield

A recent news article on the yield in New Zealand tourism industry makes interesting reading.

Some of the key points are below:

New research scoring the tourism industry on its profitability has labelled it a cash cow with a lack of business savvy.

But the research, based on the return on investment from tourism businesses between 1999 and 2003, has shown a casual attitude to business profitability resulting in mixed yields across the sector.

The average yield for all New Zealand businesses surveyed was 5.7 per cent return on investment, and tourism businesses varied from earning a lot to losing money.

Typically the difference was in individual business practice, with many businesses simply not understanding more than visitor numbers and total revenue.

What is interesting is the wide range of yields and the fact that a lot of businesses do not know their financial yield on investment.

So how can you increase your yield.

First - know what your yield is so get a good accounting system and measure the investment you have made into the business.

Here is some ideas:

• Ensure your accommodation, tours, etc are full - this is where having a good online booking system helps.
  
• Have you set your price correctly?
  
• When did you last increase your price?
• Do you book onward tours/accommodation/rental cars - if you do then negotiate a commission with the operators.
• Have a good accounting system to make sure you have collected all money's owed.
• Track advertising effectiveness - if a method of advertising isn't working then discuss with the company you are advertising with. If they can't come up with some ideas then drop it.
• Ensure your site is Search Engine friendly

I would interested in your ideas for increasing your yield. So post your comments below.

Chinese Tourist Growth

With the increasing wealth in China it is now predicted that China will be New Zealand's third biggest inbound tourism market within five years.

There is also likely to be a similar growth in Australia.

This raises some challenges for your tourism business if you want to capture some of this market:

• Language - do you have any Mandarin speaking staff
• Website - do you it translated into Mandarin or at least a web page in Mandarin
• How do you reach this market?
• How do you ensure that your build your tourism business as Chinese friendly destination
• How do you get known in the market
  

You could also decide that the Chinese market is not where your focus is but make sure you understand what your focus is.

Some ways to get into this market is to invest in your website then investing in SEO.

You also need to ensure your website is visible within China.

These are all things a good web company can manage for you.

Languages

Most tourist websites in Australia and New Zealand are in English only.

However if you have the ability (or your staff) have the ability to speak and/or read another language then you should seriously consider having some or all of your website translated.

This will set you apart from other websites.

For example the Rail New Zealand website now targeting Chinese travellers with a translated website.

You don't even have to translate your whole website just one page in someones own language may be enough to sell your tourist business over someone elses.

Why should you visit

Even if you are in a major tourist region you should put on your website some suggested activities for visitors to your region.

Most places have a great rack of brochures in their reception area but this isn't any good when people are planning their holiday.

You need to get this information on your website for the following reasons:

a) It gives visitors some ideas of what they can do and it might make the difference between staying overnight to staying all week.

b) Helps with search ranking and building links

Even the most basic site can have this on one page even if it is a list of activities something like this:

Golf course open to the public
Horse riding for all ages along the beach

And don't forget to put the name of the Golf course and location.

e.g. Moore Park golf course in the heart of Centennial Park, Sydney is open to the public.

Of course if you have more time you can actually write a story about each type of activity.

This is something we are doing on RainbowTourism.com. An example is our recent new article on Phillip Island just out of Melbourne. This article also mentions Daylesford which is a better known gay destination in Victoria. This means potentially someone looking for Daylesford might actually pick up this article and decide to visit Phillip Island as well as Daylesford.

So think about what is unique about your location. Is it comparable to another destination but offers something different. Use that as the basis to build some more content to help promote your business.

The other good source for content is to ask your guests for feedback about the region, why they visited and what they like to do.

Of course the best way to do this is with Search Engine Friendly CMS from CANZ Design. For a small investment you can then build your site as you find time.

Improving the worst part first

On the Saasu blog this last week was an interesting comment about different ways to improve your business.

It’s funny where you pick up great insights. I was watching a national gardening program and one of the winners of their annual Gardener Of The Year prize was asked by the host how she succeeded in building such an amazing garden. Her answer floored me…

I just keep improving the worst part.

It is an interesting concept and one which I think has a lot of relevance for the tourism industry and for managing websites especially for smaller businesses.

Rather than try and fix all the problems at once why not start making a list of things which need doing whether it be replace the carpet in a room, update to a more online accounting system, take new photos for your website, SEO, etc.

A good way to manage this is using google docs or google applications.

Simply create a file and keep it updated with ideas. Then you can prioritise and work our which bits you want to do first and also see the benefits and cost.

When you are running a company like RainbowTourism.com there is always more to do. For example when we were developing our new website with Canz Design we made a file of future ideas. It meant we could keep working on the site but not loose sight of good ideas. Some of these still are to be implemented but by getting the things we needed first rather than getting distracted by lots of other issues our site was completed.

This along with other items will be looked at each month to decide which part needs to be improved first.

Of course there are arguments to fixing everything at once but if you are a small company this has lots of hidden dangers in that if you don't have the time you can easily have the changes take more time - so why not focus on the worst part first.

Make friends and partnership links

Whatever type of tourism you are in, you are bond to know what other services are around your area, and further afield.

Link partnerships with places nearby.
If you have a CMS website, where you can make small changes yourself, it is worth making link partnerships with complementary services. E.G. you have a hotel website and in your area there are 6 tourism operators, they all have their own little websites, if your visitors ask you what there is to do in your area, you often recommend these people.

So why not get together with them, and set up a website link exchange, get everyone to write one sentence about their particular business. Then agree to add all the links to your own website.

Links with other places to stay future away.
Then you may know of other hotels that are in other towns close by or hundreds of miles away. Do the same thing with them.

The end result, if your website will rank better in search engines, because other websites in your area link to you, and rank even better again since other websites that do the same thing as you, offer accommodation also link to you.

By taking these easy steps you could help your website immensely, as well as the websites that you have the linking arrangement with. It is also quite possible that your website will get found when people do a search for accommodation near a tourism activity that you have a link exchange with.

Great service for your clients.
This is a very good service to offer your customers, if you own a fishing charter, and a visitor to your website see’s you recommend a hotel nearby, chances are they will book a room at that place, it only makes sense they wouldn’t have to decide to take your fishing trip, then have to go search the web for somewhere to stay before and after, it would be much easier and quicker, to go with your suggestion wouldn’t it.

More services to offer.
Once you found this worked well, you could even go one step further and make a package deal, a customer’s stays at this place, does your fishing charter, and get’s a cut rate at each place, if both sites offer such packages you could be getting bookings from two sources, do this with everyone in your link list, and you could quite be doing quite a good business out of it.

regards Lynny
Serious SEO Services

Rainbow Tourism is Live!!!

Last night the Rainbow Tourism website went live, after 3 months of building, testing, rechecking, what a relief to know that at last the site is build, online and having new visitors.

Go check it our

RainbowTourism.com The spirit of Gay and Lesbian Travel

Lynny
The Best SEO

How to tell if your SEO has done their homework 1. B&B

Tonight while doing research for what words to optimise Rainbow Tourism.com new website, I remember an interesting trend I leant some time back that might intherest those of you that own a B&B.

Most people thoughout the world search for
Bed and Breakfast

As a rule this is the order of searches

Bed and Breakfast
B&B
B and B
Bed & Breakfast

The two highlighted in red interchand depending on what country the search was done from. Americans Tend to search nore for B and B rather than B&B

This tells me of course that if you have a B&B website, and have already had the optimisation done, that a good SEO would have known this trend, and even if the name of your business is something like Molly's B&B that a good SEO would have told you about this, and asked you to consider calling it Molly's Bed and Breakfast on the website.

Look below at the search trends for Australia, United Kingdom, United States, and New Zealand.
New Zealand is really interesting, Kiwi's didn't even start searching for B&B is general until late 2006!!! I wonder why, Bed and breakfast places have been around for years.

Anyway, click the picture below and look at the trends,

If you are interested in study's like this, you might read this one, where I looked at the most popular searches for accommodation in general

Regards Lynny

SEO by Canz

How Secure is your data

I read the following interest blog on Saasu's blog today called Winning The SaaS Security Challenge

Of particular importance are the following questions:

• Can you achieve better security than us?
• Is that laptop of yours (with accounting software on it) safer in your car, home or office than in our international data centre?
• Does your laptop have a guy with a gun standing in front of it to protect it?
• Do you back up your data as many times as day as we do?
• Do your store credit card numbers in your MYOB or Quicken file? What is your liability if you lose these?

You might ask the same questions about your online booking system.

So here is another reason to choose online systems compared to off line systems.

For example Rainbow Tourism uses Saasu accounting software and all our invoices and documentation is stored online safely and securely for a small annual fee. We email all invoices and receive all invoices electronically. This saves a large amount of money in paper, postage and printing and reduces our environmental footprint.

Similarly Rainbow Tourism uses the Seekom booking engine to manage all our bookings again storing all our documents securely.

So the question is how secure is your data?

Just for Fun take a look at websites that were

This is nothing to do with anything, but I was just looking through my Favourites Links, and found this link Webpage Archives if you have a website that's been through a few changes, or are just interest in seeing what your favourite website used to look like, just type in the url of the site and have a look way back.

If you can't think of a url, try our main website www.canzdesign.com and in a couple of days you can check out the old www.RainbowTourism.com we are just putting the finishing touches to the new RainbowTourism.com website, and it will be live by this weekend 9-11-07 maybe sooner.

I hope this one gives you all a smile, or jogs your memory.

Have a Great Day
Lynny Bishop
The Honest SEO

Online Availablity... Check your emails twice a day

This post might seem silly to some people, but we have come across accommodation websites that reply to enquiry's about avaiablity of rooms upto 2 weeks after we email them, with the excuse that "we don't get a chance to check our email very often"

Get real, if you have a website, then turn your computer on, login and download your email twice a day, it will take 5 minutes each time.

And check your spam bin. An email from someone new emailing you will often end up in the spam bin, so check the spam bin or folder each day and empty it.

Handy Hint Combatting Spam.
If you are finding you are getting too much spam through your main email, make a new email in your website control panel call it bookings1@ yourwebsite.com or enquiry1@ and put this new email on forward to your usual email, and change the emails on your website to the new email, when that one starts to become a spam magnet delete it, and make a new email booking2@ or enquiry2@


Handy Hint 2 Combatting Spam. If your main email is over run with spam, make a new email, and go through your email address book, sending out an email to everyone saying please update your address book with our new email, you have gotten email like this from time to time, and are happy to update the email if it means something haven't you.... then just wait for about 6 weeks, until all you recieve at the old email is junk, and simply delete the old email address.
You spam will be cut down heaps. If you combine this with the first hint you will get your spam problem under control easily.

Handy Hint 3 Combatting Spam If you are having a new website built never ask for the 2 defualt emails admin@ and info@ many spambot's now just gather url's and send emails automatically out to these 2 addresses. If you have one of these addresses, then reread Hint 2

Cheers
Lynny
NZ's Best SEO

Online Availability - Make your life easy

One of the biggest issue accommodation providers and other tourism providers face is ensuring that their rates are up to date on all websites and availability is up to date.

The simple solution is to use an online booking system on your website that it is part of the Open Distribution Network (ODN).

Why is this important you ask?

The concept behind ODN is one of shared inventory i.e. you update inventory and rates in one place and all your suppliers access this shared inventory.

This means instead of updating availability rates for example:

• via email to your agents who might sell one or two rooms a year
• blocking out rooms for resellers who may not sell the rooms
• updating wotif.com
• updating hotelclub
• updating worldchoice travel
• updating your own website
• updating your manual book

You can update all rates and availability in one place.

Rainbow Tourism uses an ODN software called Seekom. We strongly recommend this product as it has all the above functionality and the New Zealand developers of this product have worked hard to intergrate this product with other systems.

Seekom also has a number of wholesalers and agents which you can automatically access with minimum of fuss.

Examples are:

• Jason's Travel Media
  
• Tourism Distribution Systems
• and the list goes on.

What Seekom does is operate a good Open Distribution Network online booking system and provide it at a very competitive rate. So what are you waiting for - compare systems today and then compare prices and you might be surprised. Seekom is not only full of features but very cost effective.

Scam number 3

Here is a slightly different scam but is a good example of things to look for:

• The To address isn't your address
• The person claims to be a travel agent but can't book airline tickets - what are they then
• The email address is yahoo.com
• A simple search shows the company doesn't exist at that address - in fact there is a genuine travel agent at that address.
• No real details on the booking just we want tickets

In this case I just deleted the email as it so clearly a scam.

Check out our other scam posts for more information and use our comments section to let us know of some scams you have seen come via your mail box

Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2007 19:34:21 -0800 (PST)
From: Mrs Mary Lynn
Subject: ENQUIRY URGENT PLEASE.
To: info@beontopranking.com

Dear Sir/Ma,

Good day to you. I saw you contact on the internet concerning Travels
and tour (AIRLINE TICKET AND HOTEL RESERVATION). I would like to make inquiry as regards the service on E-ticket and Visa processes to your country, I have some clients will want to travel to various destinations on various airline internationally. Kindly reply if you can offer this services for me and my clients.

I will want to know if you can make air ticket booking on this
following: airline. BA, KLM, ETHIOPIA AIRLINE, VIRGIN AIRLINE, EMIRATE AIRLINE, KENYA AIRLINE, ALITALIA AIRLINE, SOUTHERN CHINA AIRLINE.EGYPTAIR, TURKISH AIRLINE. AIR NEW ZEALAND, BRAZILLIAN AIRLINE, ETC.

Kindly reply me as soon as possible also, send me your direct contact number so that i can mail you with the passengers travel details and name.Also, this is my yahoo ID if we can chat online. airworldagent@yahoo.com. or airworldagent2@yahoo.com.Kindly mail me with your yahoo ID . I shall be making payment for your service via my secured credit Master and Visa Card as soon as i
have your booking confirmation.

Thanks and hope to hear from you soonest

Mrs Mary.

70-71 Wells Street
London W1T 3QG
Tel: +447024064156

NOTE: IT IS ALSO OKAY IF YOU CAN MAKE THE BOOKING FOR ME VIA EMAIL AND
AND YOU SEND ME A PAYMENT SITE WHERE I CAN MAKE THE PAYMENT ONLINE, OR RATHER IF YOU CAN MAIL ME WITH A SITE WHERE I CAN MAKE THE BOOKING AND ALSO PAYMENT ONLINE BECAUSE IT IS MORE FASTER AND MUCH MORE EASIER AND IF NON IS AVIALABLE, KINDLY SECURE BOOKING NORMALLY VIA EMAIL AND I WILL SEND YOU

OUR PROFILE:
AIRWORLD AGENT TRAVEL CONSULT. Was founded in January 25, 2003. Our aim is to offer clients the widest possible choice, the highest standards of service, top quality holidays and real value for money. We are there to help our clients before, during and after your travels and they will do everything possible to ensure that you get a hassle free journey. We are friendly, helpful and efficient. We have accumulated a lot of experience over the few years of operation in handling flight journeys for private, family, business, corporate, religious, university and governmental and NGO travelers.

We also organize land and cruising holiday tours within UK and to other country from our agent in any country that our client will wish to go. Further to our services, we arrange Domestic and international flight services for our client who wish to travel by air. Our international flight service is mainly handle by our business associate in other country because we wish to build a very strong net operation of
services that will make our client have the best of services ever.We arrange rail services within and outside UK.

Among our service to our client, we offer accommodation to our clients. Accommodations is offer to our client base on there demand. From the services offered by our associate in other country, we can provide hotel of different classes ranging from 1* to 7*. we can also offer a airport pick-up services and car hire in and to any location that our guess would want
to go.

Desktop versus Online software

For small operators one of the biggest issues is how to manage the paper work for the business.

Whether it be any of the following:

• Emails
• Brochures
• Accounts
• Bookings
• Rates
• or any other data

These all have different software which can assist in keeping track of all these.

Now the problem is what is the best software?

Will there is software from Microsoft and accounting software like MYOB but the big problem is they are tied to your desktop.

• What happens when you are away and you need to access these.
  
• How can you only share the documents you want and keep others secure

What are the alternaltives?

• What not try Open source software such as Open Office - this is an excellent product and is very simple to use. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles of Microsoft Office but do you really need them?
  
• What about Google Docs? A great way to share your documents and access them securely. Better still why not check out Google Apps The free version allows you to share data within your group, have an online calendar, access gmail and more all from a secure login. The paid version even offers back up deleted emails for 90 days by the adminstrator.
  
• For accounting why not check out Saasu - Software as a Service - keep all your accounts securely online. Manage overdue accounts and if you ever have a tax audit then all records are readily accessible.

The real advantages of using online options are:

• Accessible anywhere in the world
  
• Simpler to share access with other users
• Often better backup and more secure e.g. Saasu back up their servers and also store a back up in another location - but always check the back up policy of online services
• No upgrading of software required - it automatically happens

The main disadvantages are:

• If you don't have internet access then you can't access the service.
• A slow internet connection will make the software feel clunky and awkward to use.

What you can do though is decide for example to use gmail and also download your email to your pc, you might run google docs but download documents on a regular basis or work locally on your PC with open office then load the documents into google docs for future use.

As you can see there is no right or wrong answer just what works for you.

One thing to remember is check out reviews of software. Remember price doesn't tell you anything about how good the software is - it only tells you how much money the software provider wants for the product.

Why not use the comments section and tell us of your favourite software

More about being in the 21st Century

If you have the facilities that Markdownunder talked about a couple of posts ago, please advertise them on your website.

As I said in one of my first posts, I do the listings for Rainbow Tourism in the booking system they use Seekom, a nice little program by the way, add your accommodation website to Rainbow Tourism, and you get to use the system for a % of your booking, so no bookings, no pay... thats my kind of program.....

anyway enough of that, I actually wanted to say...

When looking for imformation about the facilities offered by an Accommodation website often a website will have listed things like Early 19th century architecture, or towels imported from Europe just last year, or pillows provided in a luxury villa, but don't say if there is a telephone, or internet access.

Believe it or not, many people don't particulary care how old the building is, the photos will show that, and pillows should be provided in luxury villa's, ok, the towels might be of interest, but not at the top of the facilities list, if a potiential customer is looking at booking online, they use a computer, and they want to know if they can access the internet, and if so what speed the access is.

Chances are if you have a website you have access to the internet, wouldn't you want to know about access, even if you were on holiday?

I see many websites that since I design brochures, and do copywriting for webites, I can tell that the wording is right off the brochures, and the clients you get from each type of advertising medium are different. So invest in your website, hire a website copywriter, to write the wording for your website, their work will pay for itself over and over again, with more visitors.

Lynny
NZ's best SEO

What is your niche?

One thing that has changed is that now you can target who you want as customers. For B&B's and smaller properties this is even truer.

So you might be environmentally minded and your accommodation may have solo water and have been built to minimise energy usage. Will make sure you state this on your website.

Then look around for websites which promote businesses which are environmentally friendly.

Your property may cater for people with disabilities and you have invested in ramps, accessible bathrooms, bedrooms, etc. Will make a feature of it on your listing.

Again look for websites which are catering for that market.

The key is too identify what your market niche is and go looking for like minded people so you can then share links.

However do check the links every so often as there is nothing worse than discovering a website no longer exists and now is a link exchange or adult site.

This is where a good SEO company will come along and do this for you. It isn't a one off but ongoing - you should be able to negotiate a good price for this service on an annual basis. See this as part of your ongoing advertising campaign.

What 21st Century features do you offer?

So you have a good website and booking system but how do you distinguish yourself from the competition.

You can always try price but ultimately that won't work as everyone can meet your price.

You have your rack of information brochures, great breakfast service, warm and comfortable beds but is that enough to get someone to book you place and also as importantly recommend your place.

So what you 21st century features do you have - some things you might want to consider are:

• Free wireless internet and/or a free computer so visitors can access there email accounts. If you are on ADSL a wireless network can be established very easily at little cost but your guests will love you for it. Having been charged $25 a night at some Australian hotels means you never ever use their service and also know next time not to book there as effectively you are paying another $25 a night.
  
• Provide a VOIP phone. Whether it be Skype, your local ISP or some other provider. This means you can charge a minimal amount for phone calls - and most systems allow you to track this in real time so you know what to charge guests.
• After hours phone answering service. At a minimal cost why not have your phone calls when your are not able to answer go to an answering service. Better still use a call centre service like Global Help linked in with Seekom and you can have all booking inquiries managed centrally saving you time and money. Simple requests of do you availability, I am lost how do I get to your place can be answered quickly and promptly allowing you to attend to guests. Any calls that need to can be transferred directly to you. In some cases the service may even be able to handle foreign languages.
  

These are just a few things that a good operator should consider. They are not expensive but make your business more professional.

Yes there is a cost to all these services but if you look at it from the number of extra bed nights booked you will see it won't take much to payback. Remember a guest who also gets a bit extra will recommend your place.

How to get website visitors without SEO

Hi, as you should know from other posts, I'm an SEO expert, so this might seem like an odd post to write, but hey you must have options huh.

To get visitors to your website without doing SEO you can list your website in directory's like the one owned by the owner of this blog Rainbow Tourism Accommodation Directory this is itself won't get visitors to your site, but when submitting your accommodation website, you have the option of paying a fee to have a link to your website.

In most directory's that will also mean that your website will also appear first in listing and search results.

This will cost you anywhere from $100 to $1500 a year depending on the directory, and how popular it is.

As I have mentioned in another post, some... in fact many directory's will put a no-follow link on these links to your website, which means search engines will not visit your website when they see the link like this, so be careful, you will get visitors though, so some of you may think it's worth it.

Since Canz Design Web Solutions are rebuilding the Rainbow Tourism.com website, we know for sure that that this site does not have this sleazy type of link.

1. So not only will you get more visitors,
2. The link will cost close to the lower end of the prices I quoted above, and
3. The link will help your site get listed higher in search engines, since the search engine will see that the link comes from a website thats about Accommodation, and going to your website which is of course about accommodaion,
4. An added bonus is since your website will be listed on rainbow tourism in a category that is about the the country of the world you live in, and the area you live in, that along with the link mentioned above, is seen as a link to your wesite that worth two links.

There of course are other ways, paying for advertising on websites, I heard of a place the other day, that costs $1000 AUS per month, and there is no gaurantee that anyone will click on it.

Then there is always google adwords, but since so many other accommodation websites use adwords, you have to pay hug amounts to get your website just to appear high enough or even on page 1 of google, and then of course if someone clicks on it, you can easily have to pay, $40 + just for one click.

Lynny
The Best SEO

Scam number 2

As discussed earlier here is another example of a scam email.

Subject: Booking request
From: Dr Greenhill
Reply-To: murrieen_greenhill28yes@yahoo.ie
Date: Sun, 21 Oct 2007 16:59:52 -0600

Dear Manager,

I am Dr Murrieen Greenhill of university of public health and epidemiology birmingham uk.We have a program in your country and will be sending delegates to your hotel.Please ,kindly provide accommodation for 6guest from the 4th of Jan.to the 12th of Jan 2008 and forward a comprehensive bill for the period so that a credit card will be issued to you for the booking.

Thanks and God bless you.

Dr Greenhill

TELL:+44-702-402-345-8

E-MAIL:murrieen_greenhill28@yahoo.ie, murrieen_greenhill28hotmail.com

Some easy ways to spot it:

• Google Search - put in the name Dr Murrieen Greenhill - check the result here - you will notice the only results are for scam alerts.
• The "God bless you." - of course it may be legit but the telltale signs start to add up.
• The email address it came to - this is a generic email address
• The booking request didn't use our booking system.
• The request about credit cards.
• Yahoo email address.
  

As you can see it is the presence of more than one item which means you know it is a scam and not real.

Interesting Facts about Backpackers - Americans

I was just doing some reasearch for SEO for Rainbow Tourism website, and found out some interesting facts about Americans and how they are searching for Backpackers.

When speaking about Backpackers to a couple of Amercians that have been in NZ and Aussy for a while, they said Amercians don't have a similar thing in the States and the closest thing to it were hostels.

However when doing some research just now I see that Backpackers started being searched for by Americans in about July of 2004, then again in high numbers in about march 2005, still hostels are searched for mostly by Americans looking for cheap accommodation, but they are becoming aware of backpackers, bad news is that the number of searches for backpackers has remained the same since the early 2005 fluatation; while searches for hostels rises in the middle months of the year, which makes sence since it's their summertime.

Doing a few searches for backpackers in the US I find that many hostels are now calling themselves backpacker hostels, so the Americans must like the idea of backpackers, as I believe hostel's don't have such a good name, probably like they were here in NZ a few years ago, places that people especially young ones, or people that were down on their luck, stayed at longterm rather than just a night or two.

Looking at searches for
backpackers australia or hostels australia to see which one search for most, Americans just scrap in at 10th place for doing the search at all.

If you are interested the search I mentioned these are the top 10 countries in the world that do that search are....
1. Australia
2. New Zealand
3. Ireland
4. United Kingdom
5. Switzerland
6. Netherlands
7. Canada
8. Germany
9. France
10. United States

Then from that search, the cities the searchers came from...
Cities
1. Perth, Australia
2. Brisbane, Australia
3. Adelaide, Australia
4. Sydney, Australia
5. Auckland, New Zealand
6. Melbourne, Australia
7. North Shore, New Zealand
8. Canberra, Australia
9. Dublin, Ireland
10. Birmingham, United Kingdom

So knowing that Americans do know about backpackers, if you own one, and belong to the BBH I'd suggest you start getting together and encouraging the BBH to do an advertising campaign in Amercia educating them about what a backpackers is and why they are great places to stay!!!!
Amercians especially young ones or ones with families apparently love to get a campervan and travel around staying at tralior parks, so they are used to sharing facilities, so all they need is the education that high quality cheap accommodation is avaialable here in New Zealand and Australia.

Cheers Lynny
New Zealands Best SEO

www or no www

Have you ever noticed that some websites will work as it were when you put the www in front of the url, and yet go to an page not found, when the www isn't there.... or vise versa?

If you are unlucky enough to have this problem, just get in touch with the company thats hosts your website, and ask them to change the settings so both url's work. It's just a setting in the control panel, which would take only 5 minutes to change.

You may not think it's a problem, but at a recently internet users conference I attended, they said a large % of internet uses, don't think to do something like that, and that if a webpage doesn't show, they will just got to another website. I have to admit, I do know about this, and only now and again, I will think to do it, so it's worth getting fixed.

Unless you have a very big website (hundreds or thousands of pages) you shouldn't be paying more than $20 a month for hosting, more like $10 or less, and if you are only paying $5 or $10 a month your host may make a charge to change it but it's unlikely and as i said it only takes a couple of minutes to do.

Most of our clients only pay $10 a month, we set that particular setting when we first start hosting a website, but would change something like this for free.

Cheers Lynny
SEO Know All

Handy Little Programs for SEO

I've decided to tell you about a couple of handy little program that will help you with seeing whats happening on your website, and in particular with this first one, how your site is doing in search engines.

Google Monitor: This first program is free, it will tell you how your website is ranking in google.com for specific keywords. The program is here
www.cleverstat.com/google-monitor-query.htm and it's one of those programs that really only does one thing but does it well.

You can read here how my review and how I recommend you use the program www.alembe.com/Free-Monitor-for-Google-Review.html

It only searches Google.com unless you buy the programs big brother which is fairly pricey. I have the big brother version, so write to me, if you would like searches done in an local search engine.

Have a look around that site while you are downloading the free program, they have some other very handy SEO tools, that won't do any SEO for you, but will tell you who links to your website, what your Google PR page rank is and all sorts of other interesting things about your site.

Backlinks Master: Another handy little free SEO program, easy to work out how to use it, it only does one job, and does it well www.cleverstat.com/backlinks-software.htm

Keyword Digger: This is another free SEO program that will help with what the name suggests finding relevant keywords for your website SEO, again rather than rewriting a heap of stuff you may as well just read my review, and download the program from the page if you wish.
www.alembe.com/Keyword-digger-How-to-use-and-Review.html

here's three to get started, if theres any interest, I'll give you a few more.

I hope you have fun with these program, they started off as fun programs for me, and it sparked my interest so much, seeing how changes effected our sites rankings in search engines it turned into an SEO business.... so be warned. lol....

Cheers Lynn
NZ's best SEO

why we chose to stay- Woodlyn Park

Woodlyn Park www.woodlynpark.co.nz

My partner mentioned in the last post, her name is Kym by the way, anyway Kym and I have stayed in a lot of different accommodations throughout New Zealand, and I thought I would find a few of the websites where we choose to stay, and explain what it was about the site, that made us decide to stay with them.

The first place, is the most recent, Woodlyn Park near Waitomo caves, the site isn't your normal professional type accommodation website, but the site definitely suits the accommodation and the other tourist attractions the that are on the farm that these Motels are on.

We saw somewhere online that their were some Hobit Motels somewhere around Waitomo Caves(these caves have are limestone formations and a glow worm grotto) anyway a search on Google for
hobbit motel Waitomo
and the site was #1 in Google, which was a good start,
so we look at the page, and although the general look of the site was a bit hillbilly, the first picture we see is the hobbit motels...... oh they are so cool.... the rest of what the site looked like was forgotten, scroll down a bit and see a couple of photos of the inside of the motel.... and look, right there is the price, we went in the off season so it was a little less, but here we are, we see the outside, the inside of the motel, we have the price, and a short to the point description. What more could we want.... actually because it was highlighted we did look at the Billy Blacks Kiwi Culture Show which looked like fun, then ended up looking at a lot of the site, but eventually ended up back at the hobbit's page, and the very convenient and clearly marked book now....

Now here we were dubious, this site didn't look like it would have a secure webpage, but YES!!! a secure web page... way to go.... this is unusual on a New Zealand website, so we immediately made a booking, paid by credit card, and were happy campers.

When we headed there for our stay, the place was well signposted, everything was great, can't fault them at all.

The stay there was wonderful by the way, the bed was so comfortable, there was easy wheelchair access, the Billy Blacks Kiwi Culture Show was a ton of laughs, and we had an all round fantastic time.

Way to go Woodlyn Park !!!!! 10/10

Cheers Lynny
NZ's Best SEO

Way's to not get overseas guests to stay

When my American partner first came to New Zealand, we rented an a room at a farmstay in Akaroa, near Christchurch. I'm a kiwi, and I found this very cute looking accommodation website, that advertised a very cute loft type room that was separate from the house, and 2 or 3 bedrooms inside, I thought it was lovely, and just wanted to stay there so much, that my soon to be life partner would have done anything to make me happy.

The first hurdle was they didn't have a free phone number, but this was 7 years ago, so we let that pass. I rang them from where I lived, and made sure it they wouldn't mind a lesbian couple staying for a week. I told the owner of this place, that my partners 75 year old Aunt would be also be staying in one of the inside rooms. I also said that I was mobility disabled and couldn't do steps up to a room. They assured me that this was all fine, not a problem.

There was no way to give credit card details securely online, and when my American partner contacted this homestay, asking for a secure way to pay for a weeks Accommodation for 3 people, which even then would have cost over $1000 USD. My partner received an email back 3 days later telling her to just put the credit card number on an email.

Not at all happy with just sending her credit card details in an unsecured email, my partner rang Akaroa from San Diego with credit details and spoke for no more than 5 minutes. That call ended up costing just over $45USD. My partner later told me, if I didn't have my heart set on this place to stay for our honeymoon, she would never have even bothered ringing them, to give these details over the phone......

this isn't the end of the story as if this wasn't enough;

a couple of months later, when my partner and her Aunt arrived from San Diego to Christchurch we drove out to spend our first ever days together.

Now I'm a Kiwi, and have grown up on farms, and know all about country roads, and fords(a river running across a road) and sheep running across driveways, and gravel driveways that can be a couple of miles long, from the farm gate into the house. But I'll tell you even I was shocked, here I was with two Yank's straight from a city that has about 3 times more people than my whole country does.

We get to Akaroa, and ring for instructions to get to the farm, we were told just turn at the bakery, and head on out that road, until we came to a road called something or other. Take this second road and keep driving and their house was at the end of the road.

No mention that the corner we were supposed to be looking for was at least 10 kilometers down a one way, winding hardly even gravel road, that had nowhere to pass anything if you happened to meet any vehicle coming from the other direction.

Then after the first corner is was another 6 or so km's to the farms gate and another 3 or 4 km's up the steepest, roughest, most potholed, driveway I have ever come across, there were 2 places the drive had washed away, and 2 or 3 fords to cross, sheep running in front of the car as we wound our way up the side of this really steep hill, that was wet and greasy from recent heavy rains, to get to the homestead.

It took us three times returning to Akaroa to ring the homestead again for instructions before we found this god forsaken place.

Again, I'm a Kiwi kid, born and raised on sheep farms, and had thought I had seen the worst roads in NZ, but I was shocked, let alone these two city slicker Yanks I was traveling with.

Ok, we finally get to the homestead, and all breathe a sigh of relief that we made it, and were still alive.

We were treated very well, taken inside and given a cup of tea, my new partner and I were shown to our lovely outside loft, and my new partner went to make sure her 75 year old Aunt was settled in her room.

Aunty's room ended up being up a flight of about 16 very steep narrow steps, now Aunty is a very, very independent woman, but she was scared to walk up or down the steps by herself, and I don't blame her.

So my new partner had to escort her upstairs to her room, where she was basically stuck, since the bathroom and dining and living area was on the lower floor.

We stay that for a night, and then Aunty and my partner demanded their money back, and went to stay in a motel down in the Akaroa village. There is another whole part of this story, but it's long enough already.

My point is, if the owner of the accommodation had been honest, even to me, (a kiwi who told him that I grew up on a sheep farm) if he had told me, about the in total something like 12 km drive from the township and told me about the conditions of the roads, I could have made the whole nightmare of getting to the place into an adventure, and maybe we could have stayed for the intended week.

But did they really expect Americans to put up with that sort of service?? Get real!

After now living with that Yank for coming up 6 years, I can tell you Yanks will not put up with bad service or if they feel the have been ripped off. They won't simply put up with it and go home and complain about it (like your average Kiwi) They will complain loud and keep getting louder and louder and louder, until the get what they feel they should get!!!!!

So just a warning, if an American makes a booking at your accommodation, be honest with them, it doesn't mean they won't stay with you, they just feel that they are paying you, and you better give them what you god darn say you will and don't even think that an American visitor will put up with the stuff you can hand out to us shy timid old kiwi's.

Americans will pay, and pay well, and even give you a tip, but they will also demand and get that money back if they aren't happy.

Cheers Lynny
Who adores her Yank and secretly loves watching someone try to pull a fast one on her Stroppy American lover.

Wav about SEO just for Fun, but interesting.

On the 3rd of August this year, before I met up with Mark again, I made a audio file about me, and about SEO.

It's actually sort of interesting, but the example I used was a Motel near Disneyland, so I was thinking SEO and Accommodation websites back then. I've always thought that Motel websites would be the easiest ones to do SEO on, for some of the reasons I have talked about here, and many I will talk about as time goes on.

Anyway, if you would like to listen to this audio file it's about 4 megs(it was over 40 megs, so had to make it into an MP3, so now shouldn't take too long to download and listen to.

Before I give you the link to it, I have to say, this is my first ever attempt at an audio file, and it's was supposed to be listened to buy people interested in using my SEO services, and warning people about the problem with many other SEO companys, so when you listen to it, don't laugh loud enough that I can hear you in New Zealand. This file was made between about 3 and 7 am on one of those many many nights when I couldn't sleep.

I hope you get a smile from listening to me, and maybe even learn something, it sort of comes to an abrupt end, but then so does the SEO work done by many other SEO "experts", and this wav was about how my SEO skills keep on working.

Feel free to download the file, and share it around with your friends, if you would like a laugh, at this New Zealander (Kiwi) speaks.

SEO-Audio

Cheers Lynny

Way's to get Links to your Website.

In the last post, I explained in detail, how important links to your website are in building your page rank, and then ultimately building your ranking in Search Engines for relevant searches.

You maybe wondering how you could be proactive in building more links to your website. I have a really good idea, that you could take advantage of right now.

In most blog's just like this, you have the chance to comment on the post, and many blog owner's will allow your comments to have a link back to your website.

You may think, wow, this is cool, I can go make a heap of no brain comments and get heaps of links, unfortunately, that has already been done, and most blog owners will edit out these waste of time comments.

But if you read this blog, or any other blog, and have an intelligent question, or want to give constructive criticism, or just have a well thought out comment, or want to ask for clarifaction on any subject, as long as the comment is worthwhile, the blog owner will often allow it to show, along with a link to your website.

As I have mentioned before in this post making a comment on a blog just for the sake of a link to your site has been done to death, so many blog owners, will put no follow attributes on comment links, but still, it's worth making a good comment on a blog, cause other people reading the blog will read your comment, and often have a look at your website.

In general any link you have to your website, from a blog, or forum, (which are both free links) are worth having, and even if they don't build your page rank, people do click on them, and do visit your website.

With the way of the internet, even though the person that clicked on the link say from this blog, may never become a client or customer, you just never know who their friends are, and who they may send to your site or they may even one day become a customer.

The owner of this blog, and the whole Rainbow Tourism International Corporation, is a prime example of this. I first wrote to Mark almost 7 years ago, I think telling him about a broken link, we exchanged a few emails, and then every year or so, I would write and ask how things were going, then out of the blue just over 2 months ago, Mark contacted us about rebuilding his website. (I hope you don't mind me telling that story Mark)

If hints like this interest you, you might like to take a look at a part of our main website called Hobit's Hints, where hobit the hedgehog and I explain a lot of things about SEO, computer and websites in general. There are some really good articles there, most of them, I will write about here in a shorten form.

Cheers Lynny
NZ's Best SEO

Why do yellow pages and other big sites always rank well?

SEO Tip.
Ever noticed that when doing a search for your own website or business name, that if you spend money on advertising in the yellow pages, or in any online business directory's, that the listing to your business name always shows up on their website before your website in a search.

You would think that if it's your business, you would rank the best... unfortunately this is not so.

I'll always talk about Google, since thats the grand-daddy of all searches.

Google has a way of ranking a web page it sees as more important than another page on the same subject, it's called PR or Page Rank, and although the exact way it is worked out is top secret, it is obvious, that the more links you have to your website, from other website that have this PR, the better your PR will be, and the better your PR is, the higher you rank.

Why doesn't your website rank First
Places like yellow pages, will often say, that if they link to your website, you must put a link button on the front page of your website,(the best page for a link to another website) to verify you are listed in their directory.

Sounds fair enough huh, the thing is, is that many directory's like yellow pages, have special code written into the links from their website out to your site, so Google doesn't see it as a link it's called a no-follow link.
People can still click on it, and it will take them to your site, the link just means nothing in search engines, as showing your site as popular.

Now consider that these big directory's have thousands even 10 of thousands of places listed, just like yours, and each place is sending a link to that directory site, and the directory site aren't returning the favor with a link back, so Google sees this directory site as being very popular, and give it a higher PR. And in turn your site will drop lower in the search engines, so you are paying them to make your ranking worse.

What can be done
As an SEO I find the oddest thing of all, is many businesses pay a lot of money to be listed in the yellow pages, or udb or other directory's, right along with all their competitors, yet when i suggest a link campaign, finding and swapping links with other people in the same line of business, my clients often get all defensive, and say they don't want to link to their competitors.

Think about it though, you have a lovely restored villa, and your rental villa and you rent out the rooms for $750 a night, and again you live in Timbuktu, you pay to be in the yellow pages say $2500 to be in the printed book and online with other accommodation places right in your own town for 1 year.
And your website will rank lower in search engines because of that ad you paid for.

Yet a good SEO, will organize to set up link exchanges with other places just like your's, that are situated worldwide, no completion there. If someone wants a villa in Timbuktu, they are hardly going to decide they like the look of the of this villa in New Zealand better. If someone is looking for a villa in Timbuktu, then they want to visit Timbuktu, Not New Zealand.

If the SEO does their job well, your website will start to ranking highly in say google.
for things like luxury villa in Timbuktu, villa near Timbuktu, and many many other relevant search phrases.

The other website you have swapped links with in other parts of the world will be doing well for searches with luxury accommodation, luxury villa, in searches that are local to their area, so it's a win win situation. Sounds so easy huh.

Well unfortunately not everyone has seen this blog, and few understand this concept, and in the past links have always looked so ugly on a website, that this very simple idea doesn't work.
Things are changing, and I intend to lead the way. No ugly banners, know wordy ad's, just a nice neat, well positioned links page, to the accommodations like yours.

Solutions we'll be offering.
Once we have finished building the main part of the New Rainbow Tourism website, website (around the end of Oct 07) and after seeing so many badly built and sadly optimized accommodation website, we(Canz Design Ltd) have decided to get together with Mark, and offer his members and interested people from the tourist accommodation sector various package deals, which will include a professionally designed website, that will have all the important information where it should be, basic, intermediate or advanced SEO package, with a secure payment booking system already integrated. And a few other goodies.

You or someone you know will get complete accommodation website package.

These packages will have a written guarantee's by me, Lynny, the head of SEO, that if your site isn't ranking on the 1st page of Google, within a year, that you will receive free SEO worth double the value of your initial SEO package within the next year.

There will be heaps of other features and benefits, so Rainbow Tourism, who already offer their a unique service of a secure booking service, to members in their directory, and have a listing directory that does have proper links back to sites that want their website listed, will soon be offering their members yet more services of a professional looking, well SEO'ed, website as well.

No other directory to my knowledge has ever offered such a service, it truly is unique.

Cheers Lynny
NZ's best SEO

Address of your Accommodation Rental

One thing that many people forget to add to their website is an address to their Hotel, Motel, Lodge, or rental property.

I can understand if your are renting out a small cabin in the backwoods, that only get's rented in the Summer, and you are concerned about vandalism or security.

However no address, to a hotel where you live in, and hopefully has people staying every night.

When people are browsing your website, they really do want to know where your accommodations are situated, even if they don't know they town or place at all, they will often want to know.

On the page you have your contact information, it's a very good idea, to make a list of places that are nearby, this is great for the SEO of your website, and often will help someone find your place as the one to stay at.

Have you contact details at the top of the page, easy for everyone to see, and write out your full country address, including postal code. Then underneath write a neat list of places around your accommodation.

You may wonder how this will help with SEO. I'll make up the details, but you will get the idea.

Well imagine you motel is 5 miles from a Hospital called, St Mary's Hospital, Timbuktu. And you have that listed on your contact page.

I have an Aunty Mary who is in St Mary's Hospital, and I need to visit her, so I do a search, I try
accommodation near St Mary's Hospital, Timbuktu.
no results, so I try a search
Motel near St Mary's Hospital, Timbuktu
And what do you know, your motel website is the only one that says it's near that hospital, in that place, so guess whose website will rank #1 for my search...... see you in a couple of days.....

This is getting away from putting your address for you rental accommodation on your website, but you can see other ways having your actual address would be useful....

eg. I am making a google map of all the places that are listed on the Rainbow Tourism directory website.
Well at least the ones in New Zealand today, I haven't quite finished, but I'm going to try adding that map to this post. I hope you can see it, I plan to make one of these maps for each place in the world.
And see if your address was listed on your website, and I could make a link exactly your business, then whenever anyone was searching in google maps for anything near where you are, in your part of the world, they would see your motel listed.
Cheers Lynn



View Larger Map

Keep your Money - Don't get scammed

So you get an email requesting a booking for a number of rooms and asking if you accept credit cards for payment.

Will the bad news this is a scam!

Now you ask how can this be a scam. Will they will pay you with a fraudelent credit card then cancel and request a refund via Western Union or other means. Then you get the letter from the bank to say the charge has been disputed. Suddenly not only do you lose the booking but you have lost some of your money.

So how do you pick them. I have copied a recent email below. The grammar is normally a giveaway, addresses don't quiet match - search on google.com to see if the person exists, try google maps as well.

The email address is yahoo, gmail or some other free service. Check the email header - look for telltale signs like different from to reply to address, the to address may not be your normal address or a completely different company.

Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 21:13:03 -0700 (PDT)
From: Johnson Frank
Reply-To: johnsonfrank.2007@yahoo.co.uk
Subject: BOOKING INQUIRY
To: xxx

Hi,

I will like to book reservation for 6 people that will be coming for vacation in your area on the 20th Norvember to 30th Norvember 2007. If you have vacancy for the specified period, give me the total cost for the whole period of 3 single or double rooms for 10 nights for 6 guest. Also, confirm if you will accept major credit card for your payment. Thank you and looking forward to hearing from soon.

Kind Regards,
Dr. Hanks Payne,
Baird Hall,
High Street
Linlithgow,
+447024062538
West Lothian EH49 7ES
Scotland

End of email

Okay how to make it even harder these type of people.

Make sure you have a booking system on your website such as Seekom. That way you can redirect any email inquiries to use the secure booking system. Generally scammers won't bother as too much hassle and it will help you with any dispute with the bank.

NEVER EVER REFUND a booking in a different way from the original credit card or make them wait for six months (or the minimum dispute time as outlined on your credit card merchant account).

For more information on this scam check out this website.

Secure Booking System vs Secure Webpages.

Hi, This is a very quick post, I promise.

Depending on where you register your SSL certificate (which allows you to have a secure page for credit card and personal details collected from your customers), you could rent the use of the Seekom Accommodation Booking System for 2 years.

The Seekom System which already has a secure booking system component, is ideal for any small to very large Accommodation website.
You could have me set it all up for you, and still cost less than a SSL certificate.

Lynny

Agree about Good Booking System

I just had to agree with Mark, about having good booking systems, as I mentioned in my last post, often I can't find the prices of the rooms for rent until I use the sites booking system.

Oh course you get the old form that you can fill out, put your credit card details on along with everything else about you, and the form isn't on a secure page, so it's piece of cake for a hacker, to hack the website and get those credit card numbers, I won't explain how this works, because I don't want to give any hacker that may come across this site, and handy hints. But believe me, it's very very easy.

But then there are booking systems that are SOOOO hinky, that I couldn't get a price for a room, I tried 14 different dates searches within a year, and the results all said the the all 200 rooms plus where booked.

Thinking it was maybe my computer or IP address I contact 5 or our team of beta testers, that live worldwide, and asked them to try book a room, and save the dates they tried to book on. None of these other people had any luck making a booking either, trying to book over 3 days.

I had to contact that business about other information I needed, and mention to them that it was amazing they were fully booked for all these times, especially since they were a fairly new business. I congratulated them on being so successful.

I had an email back saying they had never had a booking through there website, and had tried themselves to back a booking and couldn't, that was 11 days ago, and it's still not working.

So not just any secure booking system is will do, you need to have one that works easily for both you and the customers, ready with their credit card to book rooms.

Lynny

PS. Seekom Booking System Rules!!!!

Show your rental rates to Potiential Customers.

Many of the websites I have been to since working for Rainbow Tourism the only way to find out what the prices for a room, cabin cottage rental, is to actually start going though the booking process.

This causes distrust in the potential Customer, apart from the fact, that if they don't think of trying to do a booking, they will very quickly move onto the next website that does show their prices.

Unlike many other business accommodation website can set a price list, that maybe updated on a yearly bases if need be. You have prices for your rooms, so tell your visitor what they are, if you have specials, and don't want to advertise them, or don't know what they are until you make them, then say on your prices page, that seasonal or group bookings specials may apply, and offer them to contact you for a list of current specials list.

Displaying your prices for your rooms may seem rather obvious to some people, but I have been horrified at the number of places that don't have them.

One last point, don't hide these prices, if you have a page thats called tariff's or rates or prices, then have a list a link at the top of that page, to exactly where those prices are.

Lynny

How Green is your business

Tourism generates a reasonable amount of greenhouse emissions not in only managing your business but also by the tourists travelling to you.

This recent blog on Saasu has some great ideas on how to make your business more environmentally friendly and actually save your money so check it out for some good ideas.

Why you need a good online booking system

So you have your website online and think ok why pay for an online booking system when we can handle bookings via email or via a form.

Seven reasons why you should have an online booking system:

1. It makes your business look professional
2. Saves time for both you and the traveller
   
3. Means you get the booking ahead of your competitor
4. Provides you with reports on your business
5. Allows you to control your rates, discounts and specials
6. Security of your data
7. Reduces the risk of hoax, spam and false bookings

Reason 1: It makes your business look professional
A business with a good online booking system means the traveller feels more confident in making their booking. A traveller will know when they make the booking what they will be charged for and won't find when they get an email confirming price and availability that it is different to what they expected.

Payment and cancellation policies can be clearly displayed and you can ensure the traveller accepts these when placing the booking. This is extremely important if dealing with credit card charge backs where you have invoked your cancellation policy.

Reason 2: Saves time for both you and the traveller
With an online booking system you eliminate booking requests where you are full, the price range isn't right for the traveller, etc. When a person books they receive instant confirmation of their booking in real time.

More importantly you eliminate email tag. If you have email or email form only this means a traveller sends an inquiry, you respond, then you wait, wait wait for the traveller to respond then you still might be waiting. If you are lucky this happens in a day but it might take up to a week and you have track all these emails.

Reason 3: Means you get the booking ahead of your competitor
If a traveller is searching and finds two properties - one with instant confirmation and one without - the traveller will generally book the property with instant confirmation. The nearer to the time of travel the more likely that this is the case. This may mean you can actually charge more than your competitor and save time.

Reason 4: Provides you with reports on your business
An online booking system will come with some built in reports and ability to export data to other applications. This gives you information of what rates people are charging and will assist in determining if special rates are successful or not.

Reason 5: Allows you to control your rates, discounts and specials
Why have a fixed rate all year. If you have a period where you are traditionally empty in a booking system you can set one or two rooms at a discount rate if people book in advance - say a couple of months out or you can set discount rates for the next week. You can package items so include breakfast, dinner, tours and more in your online booking system.

Reason 6: Security of your data
An online booking system will back up all data so that it can be retrieved at any point in time. It means you don't have to rely on emails, pieces of paper to track all booking details. In fact a good online booking system should eliminate all manual booking systems. Phone bookings, walk in's and other bookings should all be able to be recorded in your online booking system.

Reason 7: Reduces the risk of hoax, spam and false bookings
Hoax bookings tend to not like online booking forms as it involves too much security. If you have any doubts about the validity of the booking you can check the IP number of the booking to see if it matches the country of the booker.

The removal of you email address of your website will reduce the amount of spam you receive as your address will not be able to harvested.

This is only some of the reasons to have an online booking system. If you are interested in trialling seekom - a great cost effective online booking system - then contact Tourism Distribution Systems or RainbowTourism.com

SEO KnowAll Lynny from Canz Design.

My name is Lynny, I’ve been employed by DownUnder Mark recently, to among other things, manage the new Rainbow Tourism website, that my business Canz Design Ltd, is building for him.
I’m taking care of entering new properties into both the directory site, and the booking system, that everyone listed on his site is invited to try out free.
I will also manage the whole back end of the website, leaving Mark free to market the Accommodation/Tourism directory site.
Once the new site is up and running, in about a week from now, I will also be doing the SEO of his sites.
I specialise in SEO (search engine optimisation) which very basically means making specific changes to a website, to make that website, rank well in search engines like Google, for keyphrases or search strings that are the sort of things people looking for your business would search for.
I will talk about SEO extensively in my posts, since it is of little use having a website, advertising your motel or B and B, if that website cannot be found, by someone looking for a place to stay, in your area.
Combining these two jobs is extremely interesting, since over the past month, I have visited just over 200 accommodation websites. I have seen some very nice looking websites, that when I did a search in Google, for the name of the business, which is a very specific search, that website did not appear in the first 2 pages of the search results.
I have definitely seen the good, the bad and the ugly accommodation websites, and will discuss with you some of the issues faced by the owners of the sites.
I’ll take a look at several ways of advertising an accommodation business, and show you how SEO can fit into your marketing budget.
Lynny

A blog for tourism operators

Why a blog for tourism operators you may ask?

Well as part of building rainbowtourism.com it is always interesting to see how some operators miss some simple basics on their own website.

Simple things like

• No rates
• No room pictures
• No location
• No activities
• No booking system - or a really bad booking system
  
• Their website is not on page 1 in google when searching their name.
  
• And the list goes on

The intention is to give you the good the bad and the ugly. Suggestions are more than welcome.