'Tapeka Del Mar Beachfront Holiday Home Interview'

Tapeka Del Mar Beachfront Holiday Home Interview

By Interviewer at 02/25/09 13:15

Name of your website?

Tapeka Del Mar Beachfront Holiday Home

Your name?

Clive

Your Location (city, etc)

Bay of Islands, Northland

Please give us a short summary of your website?

Promotes our unique beachfront holiday accommodation in New Zealand's famous Bay of Islands. This is a 4.5 star rated property catering for international visitors. The web site also provides extensive information about historic Russell, local attractons and the Bay of Islands region

What inspired you to launch your own website?

We wanted to promote our accommodation and the destination directly as we found agents and property web site inadequate

When did you launch your first website, and what was it?

Launched in 2001 soon after we acquired the property. The same web site as current but with many improvements

How did you decide on a name for your website?

It names our house and informs the type of business and accommodation offered

What makes your website different from other, similar offerings?

We provide extensive information and photos about the house, rooms, location and nearby attractions. It also promotes the Bay of Islands as a vistor destination

What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)

To increase the site search rankings, site visitors and revenue from guest stays

How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?

We get 90% of our bookings from our own web site. The effort inproving and promoting the site more than pays off

If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?

We would get the site template re designed professionally and add a new general accommodation booking site so we can befit from overflow enquiries

If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?

Yes as we can automate most of the business processes

What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?

Unreliable web servers, spam and scam booking attempts

What has been your biggest challenge?

Learning to develop and promote the site myself with no prior knowledge

What method has been most successful for promoting your website?

The careful use of key words in the site and fine tuning SEO techniques

How has running your website differed from your expectations?

Exceeded all expectations and proved the non web site agents wrong in that you can achieve occupancy in the off peak season

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?

Run for 8 years and will keep operating indefinately. We have no plans to sell the property

Would you promote another business on your own web site

Absolutely. We have proven that we can get more business from a web site thyan any other source

What is your website address?

Tapeka Del Mar Beachfront Holiday Home

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