Nobody likes Credit Card Charges Monday, 16 January 2012

We at Highland Club Scotland absolutely and whole heartedly agree with those who complain about charges for using credit cards online and personally we always try to avoid paying charges for doing so. We dislike having to ask our customers to pay 2% charge for using Visa and other cards when booking holidays online but actually, the bank charges us as a business 2.34% for every transaction we make through our terminal so we actually lose our a little on each transaction.

We do our best to offer alternative ways to pay for your holiday at the Highland Club and possibly the best way for you to avoid being charges is to use a Debit card, we dont charge anything for using debit cards even though our bank charges us 39 pence for every transaction we make.  So you see we don't impose the charges just to make more out of you we do it to try to cover our costs of online banking. Of course we could add the charges into the accommodation prices as so many companies do but you invariably end up paying more when this is done as it is so tempting for business to add a little extra! 

Apart from credit cards we also offer the option for you to pay for holidays with a cheque or to pay directly into our bank but these means are sometimes a bit of an effort so without doubt your best option is to use a Debit card, it's free! and even more satisfying to know is that the Banks are only making pennies not pounds out of your hard earned holiday costs!  

How is Social Media working for you? Thursday, 5 January 2012

Is Social Media the best thing since sliced bread, the saviour of your business, the best marketing tool you have ever used? or is it mostly hot air a bustling community with nothing to spend but lots to say??

Some food for thought here gleaned from my experience - Social Media can work for big companies employing experts and using it as a part of their overall marketing strategy. It can work too for small business with owners who possess a thorough knowledge of their industry and who can personally dedicate lots of time logged into Facebook Twitter etc. But even with industry and product knowledge it requires a lot of skill and natural ability to engage the community without openly marketing the product.

My honest feeling about it is that hard earned money, or budget is far better spent on SEO and Pay Per Click where you can precisely measure ROI (Return On Investment). It is virtually impossible to get accurate ROI figure for paid social media work. Yes you may drum up 3,000 friends/followers on Facebook but if you look closely most of those "followers" will be either Social Media experts hoping to sell you even more SM! or friends of friends, acquaintances and other small businesses similar to your own, but how many of them will ever buy anything from you?

You might feel disapointed and wonder where all that money went if having paid a Social Media specialist to get you all these Facebook friends when you have empty rooms! .

In a nutshell, if you are paying for it make sure you are able to see a ROI at the end of the campaign. Above all beware of strangers bearing gifts! the SM market place is awash with advisors consultants specialists, experts! a word of mouth reccommendation is the least you should get before taking on paying for Social Media work.

If you can do it yourself excellent, there is nothing to lose but time. If you are big company give it a go and if you dont get a reasonalble return you can cut it out of your budget and try something new, something like Google+ which looks set challenge Facebook and to change search forever by integrating it's social media into its search engine results. Now that sounds interesting!

Check out - Visitlochness.com Google+ Page

Businesses dont sell yourself short Monday, 11 April 2011

There are to many really nice high quality cottages, B&B's and even hotels who sell themselves short when it comes to showing their product on the web and in printed media.

I am regularly dismayed at some of the low quality images I am given by tourism businesses for displaying their rooms or cottages on the web. The old saying, "a picture paints a thousand words" is never truer than in tourism. Anyone thinking of putting a picture on a website or advertisement should always try to see the picture as a potential customer and ask themself, "would this picture make me book into this place or buy this product"  i think in very many cases the answer would be NO.

Even amateur photographers these days ought to be able to get reasonable pictures with a modern digital camera, but to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on property and high quality furnishings, then let yourself down with rubbish pictures is just economic suicide.

Take my advice, if you want to improve conversion rates for your accommodation then hire a professional photographer. He won't make a silk purse from a sows ear but sure a hell he won't make a pigs ear out of a silk purse either. 

Look at this self catering property owned by a professional photographer - The Boys Dormitory  to see exactly what i mean.

Author Andy www.tourism-site-fix.co.uk

Bed and Breakfast Loch Ness Great Glen Bed and Breakfast Drumnadrochit Monday, 28 March 2011

Bed and Breakfast Loch Ness Great Glen Bed and Breakfast Drumnadrochit I have recently taken over Highlands best B&B website for marketing and SEO and have some great B&Bs mostly around the Inverness area. I need now to find some of the best B&Bs around the west coast as well as south and east of Inverness shire so as to offer a good spread of accommodation throughout the Highlands. Anyone interested in promoting their B&B on our site please contact me. Example entry in the link above and this year only price is low! I only intend to add 20 businesses from each geographical area on the Highland map, after that entries will only be possible when one business drops out. This is to maximise enquiries to member Bed and Breakfasts. http://www.highlandsbestbandb.co.uk/

Monster Activities Loch Ness Canoeing Abseiling White Water Rafting Monday, 7 March 2011

Monster Activities Loch Ness Canoeing Abseiling White Water Rafting Check out our Monster Activities page showing just some of the exciting outdoor activities you can book up at the Highland Club.

Agony Uncle answers internet questions Thursday, 3 March 2011

Your Question: Dear "Uncle Andy"

from time to time get an email saying "hacker" don't open - supposedly someone who can access your computer if you open attachment. I think I read somewhere there is a web to check authenticity of email, snopes?? Thanks Andy! Liz

Hi Liz. Its no secret that the internet is packed with scams and fraudsters
There are so many threats online these days it is often very difficult to spot what is genuine and what is not. I have trained myself to always think before I click and treat every email with suspicion especially be wary of an offer that looks too good to be true as it usually is! Delete anything that you are unsure about without opening. Right click email attachments and scan with anti-virus protection (Norton) before deciding whether or not to open it. Avoid the temptation to click on impulse or you might find you are somewhere online you didn’t want to be. Fortunately there are a number of websites we can go to find out about anything suspicious that lands in our inbox.

 

Phishing - in short, phishing site or emails are a copycat of a genuine site setup usually in order to extract your account usernames and passwords. Unfortunately, this type of online fraud is becoming increasingly sophisticated. Never click on a link within any email that you feel is suspicious, especially those which request you to update or verify your account information. Instead, open a new internet browser and type in the web address of the site you want to visit. If you have an email open try hover over any links to see the underlying destination of the link.

 

Protect yourself

• Always have the most up-to-date antivirus software and firewalls
• Make sure your passwords are difficult to guess and contain a combination of letters and numbers.
• Never give your passwords to anyone.
• Never use the same usernames and passwords on different accounts

 Anti Scam Resources
http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/virus.asp  as you point out
http://www.complaintsboard.com/  search this site to see complaints about companies, sites or software.
http://www.antispyware.com/  Antispyware is actually a spuware removal package but you can also check for dubious programs as well.
http://www.spywarevoid.com/  Helps you to remove spyware, adware and other malicious software from your computer. Offers decent information on the latest security threats and cyber safety related issues.

Links, reciprocal from India Sunday, 29 August 2010

I am bombarded daily by SEO companies asking for links from my well ranked client sites in exchange for reciprocal links or 3 way links back from totally rubbish pages. Isnt it amazing how many India tours and airport parking websites there are around. The campaign managers are usually named Sonia or some other similarly western name! and the email message is always in broken English praising my wonderful website and explaining how we can help each other to get high in Google!  
Does anyone link to these on the promise of a link back from zero ranked pages? I guess some must be fooled into doing it. My clients often think it would be a good idea to reciprocate, especially as it will take them higher in Google!
Now the latest email offering great copywriting service all written in Mumbai English, I just had to laugh.