Making a Website

MAKING A WEBSITE
The very thought of the idea sometimes puts people off straight away but it is virtually a neccessity to have one.  Most of your bookings will come from guests who have found you online so having a Website or at the very least a Web Presence is very important.

Making a website is very easy and if you follow online guides you can make a pretty decent and professional looking website in just a few hours.

There are lots of companies online where you can sign up and use their online building software to create a site.  

Sites like yola.com, webs.com or wix.com.  Yola make it simple for building a website, just sign up with them and start practicing using their software online.  The best thing is that you don't have to pay a Penny to build a basic website so long as you use their .yola.com sub domain.


You can buy extras as and when you need them and the help service is top of the range.  But do your own research and find a system that works for you.  Just a little bit of time and research and you can build your very own professional website for a very cheap price - you know where this is going......


You don't have to pay a website designer £400 plus to build you a website in their own design, you want total control and online builders can give you that, you can update photos whenever and any special offers you wish to add.


WHAT SHOULD YOU HAVE ON YOUR WEBSITE?
Don't forget your name!


People like to see the product they are buying so take some nice photos of your rooms and upload them to your website, a site without photos won't go down well but sometimes they do work.


I have found it always best to print your prices under a Tariff or Price page, even if you put a price range such as "Rooms from £60-£110' it looks more professional and much more trustworthy than simply having 'Please contact for prices', most people don't want to contact you for prices, they want to see it displayed for them.


Have a description of each room, as much as detail as you like, people like detail and they like creativity so have some fun with your site.  There are too many B&B Websites that just look like all the others, make it stand out!


If you have signed up with a booking engine you can install a booking engine from them for your website so that you can take bookings immediately online.  If you want some more bespoke software best to shop around for some credit card booking facilities but I would recommend one of the booking engines software for ease of use and room stock levels.


HOW TO MARKET YOUR WEBSITE?
Getting traffic to your site is the number one thing that perplexes all Website owners.  You have to market it for people to find you and be looking for your website.


Firstly submit it to all the Search Engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo and more and then focus on Search Engine Optimization techniques such as swapping link with other website owners o buying links from places like the Linklegend.co.uk


The more you talk about your website in forums and on blog links the more chance you have for the right people to find your site.  It is all about hard work I'm afraid but it can be expensive to outsource your marketing to another company.


A website is the best way to promote your Business and whichever route you decide to take to create one I wish you the very best of luck!