Every Bed & Breakfast business is different, so every B&B website needs special treatment. When people look for a B&B or Boutique Hotel online they are often using emotions when deciding where to stay. First impressions are everything and good impressions are vital.
The following is a guide to what you need when setting up a B&B website for either a new business or an existing business needing a fresh look online.
- A website that reflects your business’s uniqueness and personality
- A professional online booking system
- Detailed information about your business
- Clear photos of your rooms and key features
- If you would like to get last minute bookings you need a mobile responsive site
- A well-optimised website
- Fresh and up-to-date content
A website that reflects your business’s uniqueness and personality
Your Bed and Breakfast website should demonstrate the unique elements of your business and property, clearly represent your style and personality and have plenty of information and photos to help potential guests make the decision to stay at your accommodation. Colours, images, design elements, writing style, logo and layout all contribute to the personality of a website.
When choosing a template-based style of website make sure that any customisation and content creates a site that is relevant to your business both visually and in personality.
Find out more about our B&B website development services
A professional online booking system
With easy access to accommodation booking engines these days every B&B website should have an online booking system on their website. Your customers expect it and many will book elsewhere if you don’t provide it.
Whilst online booking should ideally be instantaneous, a secondary option can be a system that shows your availability and prices but needs you to confirm accommodation requests manually.
Find out more about how we can help you to choose and set up an appropriate booking engine for your B&B website
Detailed information about your business
It seems crazy to have to mention this but I’ve come across dozens of B&B sites that miss this basic step – your site must have room prices, your address and contact details. Don’t make the site complicated to navigate – many of your guests may not be confident with using the internet and your key information should always be easy to find.
Other information important to B&B guests includes what is in each room, what type of breakfast your tariff includes and what facilities you have for guests to use.
If you or other members of staff are a big part of what you offer then include details about you as hosts on your website. If you are including a photo, make sure it’s a good one and smile (even if you hate having your photo taken!!).
If you are unsure about how to put together the content, don’t worry we do it all for you – find out more…
Clear photos of your rooms and key features
First impressions count when browsers are choosing a B&B to stay at – your photos and the style of your site work together to make the right impression.
Photos of your rooms should clearly demonstrate what your rooms are like. B&B browsers will base a large part of their decision to book on your room photos.
Use photos of your house and facilities to reinforce the details covered in the text on your site.
A few tips:
- If you are taking room photos yourself make sure that you turn on ALL the lights first and open verandah doors if you have outside seating areas
- Stand in the corner of the room to take the photo to get more interesting angles
- Take a lot of photos to increase your chances of getting some good ones
- Find a professional to do photos for you if you can afford it – great photos are well worth the cost
- Outside photos should have blue skies and green grass where possible – they put browsers in the holiday spirit when they look at them
If you would like to get last minute bookings you need a mobile responsive site
A large percentage of travellers now use phones, tablets and i-pads to access the internet when they travel. If you want to attract bookings from theses travellers during their trip then your website must be easy to view on devices of all sizes.
The phone numbers throughout the site should also be formatted to be able to clicked on to call directly with a mobile phone e.g. +64 9 437 2981 or 09 437 2981 (don’t include brackets).
Find out more about responsive websites that adjust to the size of the browsing device
A well-optimised website
Just because you have a small business doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have great search engine optimisation. Learn about SEO lingo and make sure that your new site is covering all the bases.
Install Google Analytics for your website so that you can track your website traffic for future decision making.
Use our SEO assessment service to analyse your website’s SEO and provide recommendations for improvement
Fresh and up-to-date content
B&B’s change ownership, become tired and close down more often than any other type of accommodation business. Give browsers confidence that your Bed & Breakfast is still operating in the way that your website portrays by making sure that your text, photos and social media feeds are up to date and relevant.
If you are including information on local events and activities or special offers make sure they are current and relevant. If you have a Twitter or Facebook feed on your site, post new status updates on a regular basis so that brwosers on your site can see that you are still active and interested in your marketing.
There’s nothing worse that seeing one price in the text of an accommodation website then finding a higher one in your online booking system or when you phone to book. Make sure that your website has a content management system (CMS) so that you can keep prices, photos and text correct with a couple of clicks of the mouse.
If you would like to know more about setting up a new Bed & Breakfast website or assessing and improving the site that you have at the moment contact us today.