Tourism Site Fix - News & Views

Nobody likes Credit Card Charges

2012-01-16T12:33:00.001Z

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?

2012-01-05T22:49:00.001Z

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

2011-04-11T16:07:00.001+01:00

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

2011-03-28T10:51:00.001+01:00

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

2011-03-07T00:34:00.000Z

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

2011-03-03T12:19:00.000Z

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

2010-08-29T14:58:00.001+01:00

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.

Social Media and Tourism Using The Socialmedia to Win Business

2010-02-03T23:06:00.000Z

Social Media and Tourism Using The Socialmedia to Win Business
spent a bit of time thinking about this over the past few months. I have signed up to literally dozens of social media websites to dabble with each, some are great to use soem have great designs and easy to use and I can see why they are so popular with the general public but...
I am busy and always feel after signing up and finding my way around a social edia site that I have more important things to do!

No Bookings Help!

2010-01-30T14:59:00.001Z

Tourism Site Fix performs admin on a number of Tourism portals and I recently received an email from a worried business owner (not a TSF client) an accommodation provider as it happens who is advertising on a client website, but this could apply to virtually any business selling goods or services on the internet.

She asks...

“I just wondered if you could tell me what the enquiry levels are like for my property please? We have no bookings and I was just wondering if there are enquiries which are not converting or whether the enquiry level is zero. Also, how are we comparing with other similar businesses? Is there anything we can do to improve our booking levels?

I hope you don't mind me asking you”.

My reply goes like this...

Your enquiries! Yes we do offer it frequently to enquirers but no take up. People will probably take it as time goes on and alternatives become scarce.

Yesterday we offered it for 4 week to someone, I phoned you to ask for discount but you weren’t there so I left a message, but you obviously didn’t get my message and the customer has no doubt booked elsewhere as we weren’t able to offer discount without your say so, quite understandably they didn’t hang around waiting for answers.

I must stress that enquiries need to be answered quickly or you will lose potential customers.

The last few weeks have been substantially down in site visitors to all our websites, due to Christmas holidays and then the snow that seemed to cripple the whole of the UK. This situation is however changing as in the last 2 weeks site visits have risen sharply across the board as people turn their attention to the summer hols. so looking better in the short term.

Some property letting business owners are doing very well and the reason being that, they have nice descriptive write ups, they have professional quality photographs inside and out, they take time to communicate with customers and enquirers. They are almost all advertising on several websites to increase take up, they offer Value For Money.

I am not criticising the property quality but from what I can see from your web entry the quality of the pictures and property description is very poor. Look, you offer a sofa bed, which we have also done in the past. I don’t know if you have ever slept on a Sofa bed but generally they are extremely uncomfortable! Yet you actually charge £10 extra for its use! You can’t win customers with deals like that, not these days. This year looks like it could be difficult for many owners so you have to make sure your apartment is marketed better than the average. It costs I know but in difficult times you have to increase marketing rather than cut it.

I can help in all these things if you want me to, with pictures, with writing page copy, with marketing - don’t be afraid to ask. Just look at some of the other accommodation properties around to see what you need to do to improve things. Finally the main thing is not to panic, bookings will start to happen if you hold your nerve and when all the other quality properties are fully booked. But unless you do something about improving the quality and Value For Money of your product, none will return to you next year.

Technorati Tags: Marketing,photography,copy writing

Why I was working all over Christmas and the New Year

2010-01-20T15:00:00.002Z

Now you know why I was working all over Christmas and the New Year. I was working away on my new Tourism Site Fix website which has now changed from asp to php! Hopefully the changes will not cause the loss of any of my search engine rankings especially my longstanding Google #1 position for “Tourism website design” the 301 redirects will help everything settle down smoothly.

Launched today! 20th January 2010 It has been a marathon, just transferring each page across to the new template took forever. To compound it all, like spring cleaning, it’s only when you look closely you see how everything has got dusty! Well in terms of my website it all looked dated so I need to go through all of it with a fine tooth comb to weed out the old and update with some new stuff.

Notably new is of course Social Media, a term that hadn’t been thought of when TSF mark 1 was made. I have also done a little on site offering for a number of fixed price optimisation packages specifically for small business websites, especially in the tourism accommodation sector. I do plan to use my website from now on, keep it updated and not neglected it as so many busy professional people websites are!
Thanks for your help with the changes Steve I am eternally grateful.

How many businesses get their first website wrong?

2010-01-01T00:00:00.001Z

Some folks would think it sad me sitting here on New Years eve writing a Blog, but what the hell, the snow is a foot deep outside, the Hogmanay celebrations are all cancelled and the TV has been out because our satellite is covered in snow!!
I was just wondering how many businesses get their first website all wrong? my own first site although it looked ok was a disaster really, as at that time I was a total newbie it was my first website on my first PC and the web guy I went to see about my holiday cottage site just bombarded me with jargon. I remember he persuaded me to eagerly buy 4 domain names like this: selfcateringholidaycottagesonscotland.com he told me the keywords in the name would bring me lots of business! He also did a nice tune that played whenever the homepage was open, and I couldnt even turn it off yuk yuk yuk. I will give this some more thought and continue the post tomorrow. On second thoughts I think I will have a break tomorrow!

Hunt for partners

2009-08-05T14:50:00.002+01:00

Lots of work coming in and there's no sign of recession in my office! But since my founding freelance partner Steve has quit doing any more work for me it has put a lot of pressure on me as a one man workforce.
So the hunt is on to find good freelancers to take on all the stuff he used to do for me but doesnt now.
SEO and SEM work is more or less unaffected by his departure, as he did techie stuff mostly.
I am grateful that Steve has promised to continue support for existing major clients.
What I need is someone who can do technical site assesments and site fixes for clients not requiring new websites, but maybe just site upgrades for the bulk of my small business clients mostly involved in tourism.

Bucking the Trend Shedding Clients

2009-01-12T13:22:00.005Z

I must be the only business in the UK presently shedding clients but with more SEO work coming in and it becoming more and more involved if good results are to be achieved for clients, then something has to give.
I often get emails from India based companies with 60 or 200 staff touting for work, but the standard is pitifully low on my experience and there is always subttle language barriers.
My office is just too small to house staff! and i really dont want an office in town so i keep small and specialised. Do what I do best, shed the rest.
Personal contact with clients and an intimate knowledge of their business is what I like in order to enthusiastically work on building their online reputation. This has disadvantages of course for clients in that it costs a bit more than the run of the mill India based SEO. But hey, whats money when one can afford to shed clients!

Trying to please everyone

2007-07-24T01:02:00.000+01:00

Success in the Search engine optimisation business has its own pitfalls. Getting customers websites on to page one of the major search engines is every web site marketing businesses aim, and Google gives us the vast majority of traffic to our customers websites so I look to them first for results, though I never under value the traffic coming to our sites from the other major players, MSN Yahoo etc.

The other day whilst doing some searching I found a page where seven the ten top results were for web pages that I have optimized, from several different sites, this, and something that was said by Jill Whalen www.highrankings.com started me thinking. Ok I admit it, that initially the feeling is WOW!! and at the same time an involuntary smug sort of grin spreads across the face. (well it was a Google results page) Anyway, Jill had said in an article I read recently something about limiting the number of clients she takes on that are competing for the same business. I realised that I am starting to compete with myself for my own customer’s high rankings and that I need to do something before it becomes embarrassing.

I have been in Scottish tourism industry for a number of years and started Tourism Site Fix primarily to specialise in tourism web optimisation and design working from home here on the shores of Loch Ness in the Highlands of Scotland. Going back again to what Jill said, I think the time could come when I have to limit the number of each type of accommodation provider customers that I accept, at least on a local level, which would be a pity after spending many hours chasing local business. I also optimise and maintain other types of tourism business sites for example Jacobite.co.uk who do cruises on Loch Ness as well as tours to other visitor attractions in the Highlands. What would I say if a direct competitor of Jacobite asked me to do the same for them!! There are only four or five Loch Ness Cruise companies, could I possibly accept a contract like that ? In the same way this could manifest itself with web design, as we always optimise new websites, our customers will be competing against each other with sites that have all come from my desk.

I imagine hoards of ex customers forming a lynch mob outside my door all blaming me for not delivering what I promised, and all wanting my head to roll. I can justify my position though and accept this possibility without any guilt, this is why. The ongoing success of web sites that get to the top of the search engine organic rankings and remain there for months and years at a time is due to the level of input of a business into the web site. I think I can safely say this; a website that is regularly maintained, developed and updated with new content will achieve long term success. No matter how good a site starts out it will eventually be overtaken in the rankings if it is neglected. Getting a new killer website is just the beginning. However, I still need to do something to limit the number of same occupation businesses I take on from a local point of view!