Custom Site Development...

More and more these days, clients are being forced into cookie cutter template websites shared by hundreds or even thousands of others across the web. There are obvious cost advantages to reusing designs over and over again, but if you are looking to stand out in the crowd consideration must be given to a "one-off" custom web site design. It costs a little more and takes a little more time but in the end you've got a product designed solely to showcase your property and its unique features.

We have recently introduced what we consider a happy medium - limited edition template systems. We design a high-end layout and limit it's use in each market and leave enough margin to customize it to your specific needs. Our sites include domain registration, hosting and licenses - no hidden charges. Complete custom sites start at $100 per month with our limited edition templates beginning at $35 per month.

 

Dynamic Site Components...

Detailed Photo Galleries: It's a no brainer that photos motivate potential renters more than paragraphs of clever copy, so show off your property with a photo gallery. We don't limit you to 3 tiny photos, instead we suggest a 50 image thumbnail gallery - each thumbnail opening a larger image with a descriptive caption. While we're at it, why not take your favorite photos and turn them into a slide show with background music or a narrative. We believe that photos are a huge motivator that distinguishes the great rentals from the mediocre. If you've got a great property, lets show it off.

Web Video Streams: Online video is becoming increasingly popular as more and more people are using broadband connections. We can edit your personal footage or shoot new video with our digital video equipment. If your property has overlooks or features a still image can't fully describe, web video should definitely be considered. Our video streams can be emailed to make it easy for visitors to share with others.

Dedicated Domains: Our websites each have their own domain name making it easier for visitors to remember and less likely they'll end up at a competitors unit - a frequent occurrence at rental-by-owner directories where your page name is simply a long string of numbers on the backside of the directory name. We want it to be easy for visitors to return to the site as often as possible.

Pay Per Click Ad Syndication: We have years of experience with Pay Per Click ads with Google and Yahoo. With MSN entering the market as well, it is worth a look to see if PPC ads are right for your marketing strategy. Our PPC campaigns tie directly into our web stats system so you can monitor performance for the best return on your investment. We don't typically recommend PPC campaigns for generic vacation rental terms, but we do believe PPC to be very effective when targeting very specific niches.

Downloadable Rental Documents: Allow your renters to download your rental agreements, contracts, welcome packages, maps, local information and other documents directly from your website saving you time, postage and hassle.

We can create or convert documents in a digital format for easy downloading and printing.

Branded Email Accounts: We offer unlimited email accounts with every website we build. This allows you to have multiple addresses to keep email streams segregated and keeps your private, personal email private.

Existing Service Integration: We will compliment and integrate existing services you wish to keep into your new website. In fact, we actually recommend continuing any existing services you are using (directory listings, calendars, etc...) until we can review them with you and determine a cost/benefit for each.

Detailed Site Statistics...

Site stats are critical in order to watch trends. Our sites are equipped with the top of the line statistical software from Google/Urchin Analytics. We know where our visitors come from, what pages they viewed, what keywords they used to find us, the search engine they used and a great deal more. A "counter" simply won't cut it these days.

We want to know exactly how the site is being used in order to tune it for best conversion. The image to the right is the main screen or "Executive Overview" of our stats system. This view shows a graphical table showing daily visitors and pages viewed, referring sites, new vs. repeat visitors and a geo overlay mapping the visitors location anywhere in the world. Overlooking web metrics is a great way to miss opportunities!

Detailed Market Research...

Online Market Analysis: Before each project, we research your market looking for similarities and difference between your property and others in the area. We research the last 6-12 months of search engine requests to find how potential renters are searching in your area and generate a strategy report for each project outlining specific targets and a plan of attack.

Keyword / Key phrase Research: Identifying how potential renters are searching for vacation property in your area is key. We search the logs of 6 major search engines to see exactly what keywords and phrases your target audience is searching for - it varies over time and location so this needs to be a routine procedure. Research will tell us what keywords are saturated and the gems that have been overlooked.

Web Copy Optimization: Web copy these days is unlike any other form of written communication. We have to write compelling copy to appeal to potential renters and gear it to be "appetizing" to the search engines in order to achieve a good ranking for our chosen keywords. It's a balancing act requiring several techniques and ongoing adjustments, but it is actually one of our favorite challenges.

Web Saturation Research: There are hundreds of opportunities to list your property online. Many are a complete waste of time, but there are a great deal that should not be overlooked. We will scour the web to find the top sites to list your property on, depending on your location and property type. We will provide links, traffic data and submission cost where applicable. We can also handle the submission process for you.

Mass Email Newsletters...

When a visitor finds your property, falls in love with it, but isn't ready to book yet, what do you do? Hope they bookmarked the page and don't forget about it or do you give them a mechanism to stay informed on the property, seasonal activities, discounts and events?

Monthly email newsletters are a great way to stay in touch with your prospects and ensure when they are ready to vacation your property is forefront in their mind. We'll create a coordinating email template that compliments your site and install it in our state of the art blast email system. We'll add a subscription area on your site where visitors can provide their email address and other contact information which will be plugged into your email blast database, ready to go when you are.