On the subject of web directories for Gites and Holiday Homes etc. You opinions needed.

[0Cneal<P><a target=_blank href="http:www.IQnetsys.com ">http:www.IQnetsys.com <A>ddMMyyyy0Falseen-US<P><a target=_blank href="http:www.IQnetsys.com ">http:www.IQnetsys.com <A>True]

Hi everyone,

I am thinking about creating a web directory for Gites and Holiday Homes, with a basic listing free, and various optional selections at a small cost. Before I go headlong into this, I would like to get some feedback from you all regarding your opinion of this. For example you may think there are too many directories already, or you would never pay for anything, or it's good to have more exposure but there are things you would like to have in a directory. Whatever your thoughts, let me know.

[Owens88]

Our experience is limited. We have only been doing this for 3 years.

Web directories seem to vary quite wildly in their effectiveness. Whether that is because of their vulnerability to the vagaries of the search engines, or whether they have very variable attitudes about their non-web advertising (to draw people to their site !) I do not know.

There are two models. 'Pay to advertise' and 'commission on booking'. There are some skilled operators in this arena and even the 'pay to advertise' people have to offer a free period (of even 2 years !) until they prove their credentials.

Subjectively I think that in a crowded market the better ones offer better search/filter options. Family Friendly, close to cafes, central heated..... whatever.

Emotively I feel a pang of sympathy for the 'commission only' sites who might do us grand one year and nowt the next. But their costs are probably less in mounting the website than in promoting it.

 

Overall

IMHO (and in my day job I am a Marketing Consultant).

Don't take it on if you see it as a teccie job. There are lots out there.

BUT if you see yourself as a publisher (and ad salesman !!) , using the web instead of print, then there is scope to go for.

Good luck

[0Cneal<P><a target=_blank href="http:www.IQnetsys.com ">http:www.IQnetsys.com <A>ddMMyyyy0Falseen-US<P><a target=_blank href="http:www.IQnetsys.com ">http:www.IQnetsys.com <A>True]

John,

Thanks for that well thought out response. It seems that almost any topic, commercial or otherwise is swamped with various attempts and this is no different. I understand your point about teccie or sales (I have been doing both for many years). The thing I have found about sales on the web is that people are generally quite lazy and even if you offered the world with gold plating for free they wouldn't make much of an effort to have it. It's a strange world. Having said that there are of course many successful directories out there, but personally I can never find what I am looking for "as a potential client". So, this thread was really to ask if Gite owners have the same point of view. Can you get what you are looking for already? Is there room for improvement? Does anybody really care. Are you more intersted in other functionality that you can list elsewhere. For example, is it more beneficial to have the ability for potential clients to book on-line so you get the money with the booking, or what about a booking pool, so that when someone wants to book the first week in August and it is already full, they get the selection of other gites in the pool that have that time free. Is it more important to ahve a good web site that can be found by customers than another diretory? Lots of questions I know, but opinions are valued.

As You pointed out, John, there seems to be only two models, Pay to advertise or Commission on booking, not a very imaginative world. I am more a fan of pay for what you get, that is, if you think it's good pay for it, if you decide later it's not so good, just stop paying for it.

All views and comments welcome 

[vrooje<BR>Cheers,<br>-Brooke<BR><br><B><A TARGET=blank HREF="http:www.experienceburgundy.com">http:www.experienceburgundy.com<A><B>]

Cneal,

There are definitely a ton of listing sites out there, but for each rental niche there are really only a few that consistently bring in bookings.

I would suggest the following:

• Starting and maintaining a successful rental listing site has got to be a lot of work. Once you have an idea of how much work it will be, you could probably double that and it'd be closer to how much work it actually is. It's marketing and tech work combined, and you probably can't skimp on either of them and hope to make it work.

• I'd guess that one of the most important things involved in a venture like this is the planning. The site may not at first have all the features you want it to have eventually, but a plan which includes the potential for upgrading and expanding is probably essential, as is a plan that finds a way to compete for the top search engine phrases out there.

• I don't think there are any sites that can boast fantastic results for every single rental destination in the world. Some are great for the U.S., some are better for France, some are better for Spain, etc. If you're specializing in France, you'll have to do specific things, but that's probably better than trying to become the best rental listing site for every place in the world.

• I think it would be very difficult to maintain a successful listing site that actually brings in bookings for the clients unless you charged money for it. Free trials, certainly, but not free forever.

Granted, I'm writing this from a gite owner's perspective... so these are just my impressions.

Good luck!

[vrooje<BR>Cheers,<br>-Brooke<BR><br><B><A TARGET=blank HREF="http:www.experienceburgundy.com">http:www.experienceburgundy.com<A><B>]

Oh, I forgot -- you also asked what we'd like to see in a directory -- sorry!

1. Allow me to link to my own property website! It helps everybody's search engine placement and it helps me to make bookings that originate from your site. I always ask people how they found me, so I'll know they found me through your site even if they inquire from my site.

2. Allow me limited ability to format my descriptive text -- paragraph breaks, bold/italics/underline, ordered/unordered lists.
   Note:Holiday-Rentals.com doesn't do the two things above, and sometimes I want to kick them for it. Especially for the first one.

3. Don't charge extra to update text and pictures! This drives me crazy -- text especially. There is NO reason that can't be database-driven, especially if the website is planned well!

4. Go take a look at the availability calendar on holidaylets.net -- it's one of the easiest-to-administrate calendars I've found, and the display to the potential client is very attractive (unlike rentors.org, which I find ugly). Note that I don't think calendars are completely necessary -- I got more bookings from French Connections when they didn't use them.

5. Never ever post my e-mail address on the web unless you've taken measures to protect me from getting farmed by address collectors that sell addresses to spammers.

6. Keep track of how many people visited my page in a given week/month and allow me to compare that information (anonymously, or with averages) to that of other properties in my area.

7. Randomize the way people are listed on initial search results so that everyone has a chance to be at the top of the search results -- and perhaps combine this with a system that rewards people who keep their calendar updated (if you have a calendar system).

8. Don't spam people who inquire through your site! E-mail them friendly reminders, sure, but give them an easy and obvious way to opt-out.

Just my thoughts!

[0Cneal<P><a target=_blank href="http:www.IQnetsys.com ">http:www.IQnetsys.com <A>ddMMyyyy0Falseen-US<P><a target=_blank href="http:www.IQnetsys.com ">http:www.IQnetsys.com <A>True]

Brooke,

Some excellent thinking there, I have to agree with all of it. Some feedback on your individual points

1. Allow me to link to my own property website

Of course, this is such simple thing to do.

2. Allow me limited ability to format my descriptive text

Again this is simple enough and I would intend to do this. To me this amounts to distributed processing. It's easier for me to manage if every gite owner looks after their own entry, and is responsible for their own information, images, prices etc.

3. Don't charge extra to update text and pictures!

Honestly, it matters little to me how often you update it so I have no need to charge for that

4. calendar on holidaylets.net vs calendar on rentors.org

Agreed HolidayLets looks very slick whereas rentors.org's entire site looks home-made. I am with you to some extent in thinking that an availability calendar is not so important. Here's why I think that. In my experience registered users are quite lax about keeping information up to date, so from a customer viewpoint, I would rather get in touch and ask if I can book the first week in august and be told it's not available than to have the website tell me it is available and allow me to book (or at least get excited about my holiday), only to be told it's not going to happen. You obviously see the same point as you touch on this in point number 7.

5. Never ever post my email address on the web

Don't need to. I would provide a contact form that emails to you (your mail address is never available not even in the source).

6. Keep track of how many people visited my page in a given week/month and allow me to compare that information (anonymously, or with averages) to that of other properties in my area.

Keeping a page count is simple, as is adding in a third party hitcounter, but I prefer a discreet hot counter that the visitor cannot see. This would allow me to provide comparisons against other directory pages. Not entirely sure I understand what good it will do to see how many hits you got compared to someone else though?

7. Randomise the way people are listed on initial search results so that everyone has a chance to be at the top of the search results

I use a sort of dynamic database indexing which although sounds grand means that the visitor to the directory does not need to guess what search for. I hate it when I go to an real-estate site, fill-in a big form with all my preferences then watch it wurr away for five minutes just to tell me "no results match your criteria". The way I approach this is to provide multiple categorised "directories". So for example there may be a categorised directory called "All by region", which itself maybe sub categorised by "Setting" (rural, coastal, city etc). Or maybe a directory categorised by price, or by availability, or by sleeping capacity etc. The visitor just clicks a category and gets the sub categories, then more detail, so finding the right place is simple - if it exists, it's in the list. So, to your point everyone has an equal chance of being found as all gites/B&Bs etc are available to ALL directories, all the time.

8. Don't spam people who inquire through your site

I have no interests in that, nobody takes any notice of spam anyway, I have no idea why spammers waste their time filling email trash cans.

 

 

[vrooje<BR>Cheers,<br>-Brooke<BR><br><B><A TARGET=blank HREF="http:www.experienceburgundy.com">http:www.experienceburgundy.com<A><B>]

Cneal,

Thanks for such detailed feedback!

Not entirely sure I understand what good it will do to see how many hits you got compared to someone else though?

To my knowledge there's no listing site that does this, but I've always thought it would be useful. If there are 20 properties in my area and I know that the average number of hits on those individual pages is (let's say) 1000 for one month, and the average number of inquiries for those individual properties is 10 for one month, then I can compare that to my own numbers. If I only got 200 hits, it could be because my photos need to be improved. If I got 1000 hits but only 2 inquiries, I am not selling myself as well as I could. On the other hand, if my stats are better than average, it could mean that I'm doing something right, and I want to know that too.

Of course, not all the properties will have the same number of bedrooms etc., so the comparison wouldn't exactly be apples to apples, but I think it would still be useful.

I completely agree that the page counter should not be displayed on the page -- that just looks tacky and is hard to put into context.

I am with you to some extent in thinking that an availability calendar is not so important.

You are so right that we rental owners aren't always that good at keeping things up to date. We may be very good at keeping some calendars up to date, but different listing sites have different calendars and it's easy to fall behind in one. Then you have conflicting information -- and that's no good.

Personally I'd prefer to have no calendars whatsoever, but on many listing sites there are penalties for doing that, so we're forced to at least have one. It's my understanding that the people searching for rentals want to have this information, so presumably that's why. But let me use an example from last year. I got an inquiry from French Connections for a booked week. FC didn't use calendars at the time, so the client didn't know the week was booked. I was able to sell him on the following week instead. Later I had another inquiry for a booked week with no available weeks around it. At first I just had to tell the client I was fully booked, but then I later had a cancellation and was able to e-mail her and offer her the week she initially inquired about. She made the booking. With availability calendars, I probably would not have made either of those bookings!

I use a sort of dynamic database indexing which although sounds grand means that the visitor to the directory does not need to guess what search for.

That sounds really interesting -- do you have an example of something like that that I could browse just to get a feeling for it? I'm curious.

It just occurred to me, too, that you should consider posting your original question on the Lay My Hat forums (www.laymyhat.com/forum/index.php). It's a forum I post on (I don't own it or anything) that's just for rental owners, and you would certainly get a variety of suggestions there!

[0Cneal<P><a target=_blank href="http:www.IQnetsys.com ">http:www.IQnetsys.com <A>ddMMyyyy0Falseen-US<P><a target=_blank href="http:www.IQnetsys.com ">http:www.IQnetsys.com <A>True]

Brooke,

Before I forget....just looked at your website - fantastic view!!

dynamic database indexing .....

Works like this, every page is multi categorised by anything and everything that is on the page or can be derived form what is on the page (even if it's hidden from the source). Here's an example (forgive the tired old design and dodgy transalted French - it's all getting a revamp soon).

http://property.iqinternet.co.uk/ (it's a very simplistic version but hope you get the idea)

Ignore the bulk of the site, have a look at the links half way down on the left under the heading of Property Directories. They all show exactly the same properties (in this particular case) - it's just a demo site, nothing real. In rality there would be a lot more content and so, many more properties in each category and multi level categories too. And of course there would be a search page - more about that later

So, for example the visitor to this site is looking for property in the Folkestone area, just one click on the "Sorted by Area" button, will show there is just one in Folkestone itself and  four more in surrounding areas, without having to search for every single village name in the area. Not a great example, I know. In reallity it should have multi level categorisation so our visitor can decide that they are looking for a detached property, under £400k, in a rural setting, within 10 miles of Folkestone. This could be found starting at Sorted by Type and drilling down until the right set of proeprties are found, likewise, it could start at Sorted by Setting, and start with rural, and you will have guessed by now that the search could start using any element of the criteria.

Why is it dynamic? Well, the directories can change themselves, for example a gite could add itself to the directory in May and remove itself in October, and out itself back again the following May, if required by the owner, or it could always show the current price based on the date. Also, another aspect of the dynamic natire is that if the gite owner changed the information on the page, let's say the number of bedrooms has been increased and the price has changed. As soon as the page is posted to the site it will remove itself from some directories or categories and put itself into other directories and categories.

This site should have a search page, never got round to putting it back, but basically the search page has the usual type what you like box, plus a bunch of other sleections like area, type, setting, features, cost etc. and each of the avialble choices are actually based on what is currently available in the directory - For example a seletcion of features will only include "Swimming Pool" if at least one of the peoperties has a swimming pool, so you don't get that annoying scenario where you endlessley try to gues what is available, and because the search form is also dynamic, it will remove seimming pool from the features list as soon as the property with the swimming pool gets removed from the directory.

What do you think?

I will have a look at the other forum could be useful

[Ianhaycox]

I've found many of the web directories very similar and quite often frustrating to use, rarely giving good results. The problem seems to me they all use, and prehaps over-use, the 'category' approach. Internet users are comfortable using search engines and I think by placing more emphasis on the search side the directory would be easier to use.

I'll try and explain why I dislike categories.

If you have too few categories then the number of results returned for a category are large. Conversely too many and there are overlaps between categories. One persons 'Rural' is another persons 'Village location', or gite, cottage, appartment, condo are synonomous, for example.

By utilising search engine type technology I could enter a query such as,

'gite pool beams stone children farm fishing brittany'

may well find me exactly the accomodation I want quickly, but using the category approach I would need to 'translate' my world view into the the web site designers world view. If English is the users second language this is doubly difficult.

Without a category of 'beams' for example I may have to plough through lots of properties without beams, but having a category of beams is too specific.

As a gite owner I would like a Google search page where the only sites stored in the database are genuine owners sites, not porn sites where someone can't spell britney spears, or irrelavent results. I.e. a 'quality' subset of Google.

By gite owners supplying your site with their URL (and possibly a photo + intoductory parargraph) you have all the information you need. Just index/scan/upload the site into your database. If I provide fishing locally then a customer could find that information without any specific need for a sports, lesiure,fishing category.

I'm not saying remove categories, but emphasise search. With some guidance on the index page, search is much more flexible and I believe faster and more friendly than ticking boxes or drilling down through menus.

[0Cneal<P><a target=_blank href="http:www.IQnetsys.com ">http:www.IQnetsys.com <A>ddMMyyyy0Falseen-US<P><a target=_blank href="http:www.IQnetsys.com ">http:www.IQnetsys.com <A>True]

Valid points indeed, I think after reading your comments that the search page I described would be the best of both worlds. Search by whatevr enters your mind, or select form actual site content via drop-down lists, leaving the user free to use whichever method they are most comforatble with. I can make searching options very specific or very flexible, and let the user choose. For example a specific search for Fishing will return Fishing, wheras a fuzzy search for Fishing will return Fish Fishes Fishing etc and even a few other things too (if I could think of fishing related words). It uses a thesaurus, and a word endingings dictionary.