Name of your website?Club Albufeira
Your name?
Ted Ellis
Your Location (city, etc)
Grantham, Lincolnshire
Please give us a short summary of your website?
Club Albufeira is a hugely popular holiday resort close to Faro international airport in the Cental Algarve region of Portugal. It has quality accommodation all within minutes walk of the four swimming pools,two on-site restaurants and a multilingual reception office.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
I own a holiday apartment on the resort and launching this website was a way to provide information and photos about the resort itself to potential holiday makers.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
My first website was http://www.holiday-rents.com and this is still going strong although it does need some redevelopment, as now that I have increased my website building skills I know that I can make a better presentation. However I am reluctant to change it whilst it is on the first page of Google for the search term "club albufeira"
How did you decide on a name for your website?
That was easy - Club Albufeira is what the website is all about.
What makes your website different from other, similar offerings?
I have included links to my blog and rss feed which gives general information about the Algarve and Portugal for the holiday maker intending to holiday in Portugal.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
Whilst I keep my apartment for renting I will continue to maintain the website, thereafter I will search for a buyer.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
Time spent on any project has to be measured by the benefit it provides. Time is our most precious resource - if money is short we could in the past always go to our bank and ask for more, but there is no place to go to ask for more time. Success can be measured by the number of enquiries the site receives.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
That would require much thought but I think that I would expand the site to offer similar information about other holiday resorts in the Algarve.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
Not without employing staff. Working alone and with many other interests such as golf and playing my musical instruments not to mention the house chores expected of me would make it time prohibitive.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
Mainly spammers and false enquiries by persons who would wish to swindle me by offering to pay by cheque sums in excess of that required and requesting that I forward on the excess. I have never fallen for such a trick knowing that once I forward on the excess with my good cheque, theirs will be cancelled.
What has been your biggest challenge?
Keeping my wife happy by attempting to balance the amount of time spent at my computer with her requirements of me.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
Search engine optimization techniques - too many of which there are to mention here in full, but suffice to say obtaining good quality links to the site,good copy content,and avoidence of all "black hat" techniques.
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
I am actually running several websites, some have made good ground with the search engines and others still need more work in this respect. Again time is the factor - sometimes I think I have taken on too much work maintaining all these sites at the expense of other activities that I could persue.
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?
The Club Albufeira website has been only running about 6 months now. I always think that a website should run for about four years to really make its mark with the search engines. If it isn`t doing that after this time then something is wrong - it needs an optimization revamp.
If your websites are all running fine what is it that is now taking up your time on the computer?
Well I am always learning. There is so much to learn and the world wide web can teach you so much. Presently I have the desire to earn money from the web whilst I am sleeping!
What is your website address?
Club Albufeira
