Name of your website?Barbados Travel Holidays
Your name?
Melinda Layson
Your Location (city, etc)
Cane Vale, Christ Church
Please give us a short summary of your website?
Barbados Travel Holidays aims to provide quality travel information about Barbados.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
There are many websites out there who cover this topic but the cost is restrictive to the smaller enterprises in the island so we decided to build a site that would put tourism based businesses on equal footing, and eventually because it will be more affordable to all it will be a more comprehensive site covering businesses who cannot now afford to have an internet presence
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
This my first website and we started registering with the search engines and directories on the 19th Sep 2007
How did you decide on a name for your website?
I wanted the name to reflect the website's content
What makes it different from other, similar offerings?
The cost to be listed on the site is alot less, in fact we offer listings on a commission basis, so if we don't sell you don't pay
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
My goal is to continuously market to gain a high search engine ranking and to develop the site to include educational content on the island as well ie historical information, political information and more
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
Right now it doesn't
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
With the exception of more strategic marketing to not only rank tops in Barbados pages but Caribbean destination pages I wouldn't
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
I believe that the basic structure that I have set up can handle the demand with more staff, not hard to find computer literate staff in Barbados.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
None
What has been your biggest challenge?
We have just started I would have to say it would have to be building the site. Response is good from all tourism based businesses that we have approached and that we plan to expand at a steady pace
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
Too early to tell
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
I have exceeded all expectations or rather goals that I have set but we are in the beginning stages, ask me again in six months or a year
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
I have just started and I plan to keep on at it no matter how long it takes. If growth is slow that means that the work will be less too, If I have to take another job while the site is growing so be it. My son also helps he is currently doing his associate degree at BCC.
What is your website address?
Barbados Travel Holidays
