Websites For The Tourism Industry

We all like to take a holiday, don't we? Where will it be this year? If you run a tourism business, you’ll be counting on visitors making the decision to come here. Millions of tourists flock to Scotland every year with money to spend, so it would be very nice indeed if some of it ended up in your bank account. Especially as the Scottish Executive’s ambition is to increase the amount that visitors spend here by 50% by 2015. The local Enterprise agencies are right behind the Executive’s efforts, and offer a range of support services to help, including making the most of the internet.

A few years ago it was only the larger and well established tourism businesses that had a presence on the World Wide Web. Nowadays, it is now very much the norm for businesses of all shapes, sizes and types to have a website. Not because it’s the “in” thing to have, but because it’s realised just how essential it is to have one as a selling tool.

There can be many things that put people off getting a site up and running for their business. Do any of these sound familiar? “Oh, I just have a little bed and breakfast. What good is a website to me?”, “It costs thousands of pounds to get a website up and running….doesn’t it?”, “I know someone who got their brother’s friend’s 14-year-old nephew to make them one in his spare time, and it didn’t bring them any business!”

Well, whatever type of tourism business you’re in, you need visitors to know that you exist – obvious, I know. Even if you’re running a modest bed and breakfast, just do a search on Google for “bed and breakfast” and see how many others are already online. One way many of these people look at their websites is that it’s not “spending” money – it’s “investing”: for every pound you put into it, they expect to get more than one pound back.

As the use of the internet has exploded over recent years, its users have come to expect better and better sites. Gone are the days when the 14-year-old nephew knocking together a few pages in an afternoon would suffice; and with issues like accessibility laws and search engine placement to contend with, it’s not something you’d want to leave in inexperienced hands.

There are unique experiences that you can offer on the internet like virtual tours. People can take a look around your visitor attraction or accommodation on their PC or Mac, and make the decision to come and spend their money with you.

Whether you’re running a visitor attraction, accommodation or whatever , it is very easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day running of the business, and put marketing and online plans on the back burner. Don’t put it off and don’t get left behind. If you want more impartial advice, get in touch with your local business enterprise agency and they’d be delighted to help you out.

Quick Guide To Email Newsletters

You know what it’s like: when you’re writing those cards every Christmas, you make a promise that you must keep in touch more often. A good sentiment – and a vital one in business. As they say, it’s much easier to sell to someone who has already bought from you compared to attracting new customers. How do you go about that?

Email newsletters are an ideal way of keeping in touch with your existing customers. It is one of the least expensive – and most effective – public relations tools available to you. By sending out a high-quality newsletter on a regular basis, you can keep your clients and potential clients up to date with your business.

Always keep your audience in mind – what is relevant to them, what is important? Are you keeping readers abreast of the latest developments in your industry? Are you letting them know that you have a 50% off sale on last season’s stock? Whatever the content, it has to make the reader want to read it, act on it, and look forward to your next issue.

Learn from the papers. Take another look through this edition, for instance. Notice how copy is written to entice you in to read the rest of the article. Be clear and concise, while also trying to get across the personality of your business. For example, a newsletter from “Smithers and Smythe Solicitors” would be more formal than one from “Dave’s Discount DVDs”. So, make sure you know who your audience is, and write accordingly.

Now, I know this is obvious, but make sure that you read, re-read, and re-read again every newsletter before you send it out, checking grammar and spelling. Thre’s noting wurse thn a noosleter littterd with mistooks. Get someone else to check it over, too, if possible.

Nobody likes having there inbox full to bursting with emails they don’t want. Unsolicited emails are also known as spam, and since 2003 sending spam in the UK has been a criminal offence. You have to let people ‘opt in’ to your newsletter. This means that you can only send emails to people who have expressly asked to receive them. You must also give subscribers the option of unsubscribing easily.

This may all sound a bit daunting, but there are loads of applications out there to help you manage your newsletters and subscribers. If you already have a website, they can be integrated quite easily, providing you with an ideal way to entice people back to your site.

If you have an ecommerce site, you should be building up a database of customers. Do you have a newsletter facility on the software you use? If you do, are you sending subscribers regular emails with your latest offers and new season arrivals?

Most people are happy to receive newsletters every month, so try to avoid sending more often than that. During the peak Christmas season, sales newsletters arrived in my inbox by the bucket load, so you have to make sure that yours stand out from the crowd. Oh, and try to avoid words like “free” and “offer” from the subject line, as spam filters might reject your email before it reaches your customer.

Quick Guide To Google Adwords

In 1995, two University computer science graduates, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, met. Three years later Google was born, and now it’s estimated that between them, they are worth $26 Billion – and every time you click on one of the ads on a Google search results page, that number gets bigger. Welcome to Google AdWords.

One of the original AdWords engineers gives some background: “Before the fall of 2000, Google offered advertising through Premium Sponsorships, but there was no way for advertisers to set up campaigns for themselves. We ran a limited test, showing a little link that said "see your ad here". After the link went live, we eagerly waited for the first advertiser to sign up. Within minutes, our first AdWords customer had created the very first ad through online sign up. They were a small business that sold live mail order lobsters. Less than half an hour later their ad was live on Google! These guys had never considered using online marketing before, but realised they could just do it themselves right then and there.”

And that’s the key – people who had previously thought that advertising on the internet was beyond them, started to appreciate that they could get their message in front of people looking for exactly what they were selling.

What made AdWords stand out from the other “Sponsored Links” campaigns on offer was that up until Google came along, every time your ad was displayed you had to pay, regardless of whether anyone actually clicked on it. Google’s philosophy was that you should only pay if someone does click on your ad. This is music to the ears of advertisers – only having to pay when someone clicks through to your site; someone who is already interested in what you’re selling.

Now, just to clarify exactly what AdWords are – when you search on Google, AdWords are the ads at the top and down the right hand side of the results page, marked “Sponsored Links”. The remaining links that take up the majority of the page are sites that Google itself thinks are relevant to what you’re looking for, and have not been paid for.

A whole new industry has blossomed around AdWords, with ‘specialists’ in every corner of the globe offering to set up and run your campaign. You can do it yourself, though…if you have the time to spend on it. It’s £5 to set up an account, you specify how much you are willing to pay each time someone clicks on your ad, you specify how much you want to spend per day, you word the ads, you decide what search phrases you want your ads to appear with – you are in total control.

The more people wanting their ads displayed against the same search phrases, the more you will have to pay, so finding a niche can be key. One of my clients brings in the vast majority of his business through just three search phrases. Only a couple of other businesses use the same phrases, so he pays as little as 4p each time someone clicks on his ad!

Take a look at Google AdWords, or its main competition Overture, and see if your business could benefit

Keep Your Website Content Fresh

When was the last time you had a look at someone’s website, and one of the first things that you saw was a message saying along the lines of “Last updated 17^th March 2005”? With so many businesses out there competing for consumers’ hard end cash, you just can’t get away with having a website that hasn’t been updated since the Crusades.

Keeping your web presence bang up to date shows that you are a dynamic business, and it’s not as complicated or expensive as you might think. Now, don’t panic. I’m not suggesting that you start trying to learn programming languages and the like, as there are plenty of ways that you can keep sites updated without getting your hands dirty. What you need is a Content Management System, or CMS.

A CMS gives you the power to add, edit and delete content on your website without the need for any technical knowledge. You will have access to a Control Panel, where you control what information is to appear on the site. The CMS will then drop that information into designated areas on pages that have already been designed – even on your existing site. So, you manage the content without worrying about ‘breaking’ page layouts.

There is a vast array of CMS’s available - some are even free, but these tend to be the most complicated to set up and use. How do you decide which system to use, if there are so many to choose from? Well, when I’m putting a CMS together for a site I’m building, I’ll sit down with the client and find out exactly what they hope to achieve from it. Do they just want to update a couple of pages, or do they need latest news sections, newsletter facilities, interactive features, and so on? Who will use it? Just one person, or will access to certain areas need to be restricted? How much control is needed over how the information is actually displayed?

There’s a lot to think about, isn’t there? In some cases, an off-the-shelf package will fit the bill perfectly, but for many businesses it’s actually more cost-effective to create a bespoke system just for them, as they get exactly the result they need.

So, take a look at your website and see when you last updated it. If you notice that the information is old, your potential customers will, too. Have a browse around some of the CMS packages available – I’ve put a few links on the dotBiz section of my website for you.

Is Your Website Breaking The Law?

If you’re in business offering a service, I daresay you already know that your premises must comply with disability laws, which require you to remove physical barriers that prevent people with disabilities from accessing it. Did you know, though, that if you have a website for your business – you do have one, don’t you – it must comply with accessibility laws, too?

In October 2004, changes to the Disability Discrimination Act (1995) came into effect, and coming up to its second anniversary, the message still isn’t getting through to many businesses. The reason? Well, did you know that it exists? I rest my case.

Broadly speaking, the DDA makes it unlawful to discriminate against disabled people in the way in which you recruit and employ people; provide services; or provide education. Discrimination can take place in two ways - by treating a disabled person less favourably; and/or by failing to make "reasonable adjustments" so that disabled people can participate in employment and education or make use of a service.

How does this apply to websites? A disabled person can make a claim against you if your website makes it impossible or unreasonably difficult to access your information and services. If you have not made reasonable adjustments and cannot show that this failure is justified, then you may be liable under the Act, and may have to pay compensation and be ordered by a court to change your site.

Don’t panic if you’re not sure if your site complies or not. No one has been taken to court…yet. Some things to consider, though: there are around 8.5 million people in Britain with some form of disability, 2 million Britons have sight problems, and the estimated spending power of people with disabilities has been put at up to £50 billion. So, not only does it make sense legally and ethically to make sure you website complies, it makes good business sense, too.

How do you know if your site complies? “Watchfire Webxact” is a nifty tool that will check different aspects of your site including accessibility. Alternatively, have someone run tests on your site and get a report.

How To Choose Your Web Designer

I receive enquiries from a whole range of people looking for websites. Some are new to the Internet and looking for their first site, and others are looking to have their existing web presence updated.

In the latter group, it’s amazing how many people appear to have been stung by businesses who claim to be able to provide top-class websites, but fail miserably to deliver. What really annoys is when they then try to go elsewhere, are charged through the nose for access to what they’ve already paid for. So, in this article I thought I’d give you a few hints and tips on how to choose your supplier.

Personal recommendation is always a good way to get valuable information about any business. Do you know someone who already has a successful website? Find out who created it. Did the designer listen to what they wanted to achieve through with their website, and did they have good ideas to add?

Take a look around at some designers’ websites. They should have portfolios highlighting sites they have already created. Try these out to see how easy they are to use, and if you feel they deliver what the business intended. Some designers’ sites may even include testimonials from satisfied clients. You could contact a few of them to get first hand reports.

Another important aspect is how you actually get on with your designer. Are they on the same wavelength as you? You’re going to need to work closely with them both now and in the future as your business and site adapts and develops over time, so it’s essential that you feel you’ll have a good working relationship.

You’ll know the saying “You get what you pay for”, and this is just as valid when it comes to getting your website designed. Be wary when someone offers to create a 10-page site with hosting for £150. It may seem like a bargain now, but just ask some of the people I speak to if they think it’s a good deal when they get a sub-standard site that generates no business, and they have to start from scratch with someone else.

If, after all that, you’re still wondering who to go with, why not try getting in touch with the likes of your local business enterprise agency? They will give you impartial advice and even help you approach potential suppliers. Also, their workshops and seminars can give you valuable information that will help you make an informed decision.

Building Your Brand: Part 2

Last time, we started looking at branding your business. Today, we take a look at managing your brand and how to keep it successful. We’ve already touched on the importance of delivering your company’s brand values to your customers. What would you say is the most important cog in that machinery? Your staff. They are the critical link between your company and your customers. They must actively deliver your unique brand values all day every day.

Keeping staff involved with managing and maintaining your brand is a great way to make them feel more involved with the business, and help them believe in what you’re trying to deliver. Regularly take time to discuss your brand with staff, and how the business is performing. Don’t keep it all in-house, though. Find out from your customers if they feel that the business is delivering what it promises. Asking any dissatisfied customers can provide invaluable information – sometimes more so than the satisfied ones.

This brings you on to reviewing your brand. Your customers’ needs and desires can change over time. Just look at how McDonalds have adapted their menus to offer healthier options as their customers have become more health-conscious, and they updated their branding to reflect these changes.

All this helps to give your brand longevity. By examining your products and services, your systems, and your marketing, and updating them as your customers and marketplace change, you can keep your brand fresh. Sometimes it may mean going right back to basics and seeing if you need a major shift in the way you do business. A good example here is Kodak: for more than 100 years its traditional core business was selling camera film. As digital photography has become far more popular now, Kodak has changed its focus to making it easier for people to get real prints from their digital cameras, either online or with their new range of inkjet printers. Likewise, it broadened its branding to encompass these changes.

This also shows how reviewing your brand can highlight opportunities to expand into other areas: Kodak have never manufactured inkjet printers before. Speaking of photography, in the final part of this Branding Your Business series, I’ll be speaking to one of the Scottish Borders’ top photographers about how images can make or break your brand. We’ll also look at how to budgeting for your brand.