Name of your website?The Blue Balcony
Your name?
Andrew Wise
Your Location (city, etc)
Gent
Please give us a short summary of your website?
The site describes the furnished we offer in the centre of the beautiful historic city of Gent in Belgium.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
We wanted to make our furnished flats easy to find for our customers.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
Our first website was actually a site about our activities in classical music. Then we finished renovating the upstairs flats in our house we wanted to make a site to rent them out as furnished accommodation for longer-term visitors to Gent.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
We painted the balcony blue and liked the alliteration! Now it's painted a different colour but we still like the name.
What makes your website different from other, similar offerings?
We run the site ourselves, it's not part of an agency.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
Our aim is to secure bookings for our furnished accommodation.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
Very well really, if we didn't have a website then no one would be able to find us!
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
I suppose we'd add better photos of the apartments to give a better impression of the accommodation in 3D. Perhaps a video too.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
No, but that's very unlikely to happen.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
There weren't really any unexpected costs. Offering furnished accommodation always requires an investment of time and money in redecoration, organising the cleaning, showing potential tenants around, answering enquiries and so on.
What has been your biggest challenge?
Patience.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
Making sure the keywords were right and checking that the site appears in the right directories.
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
It hasn't.
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?
We've been running the site for about five years and will keep it up as long as we continue renting out apartments.
How do you like Gent?
Gent is fantastic and we're right in the middle of it. It's historically beautiful but still very lively.
What is your website address?
The Blue Balcony
