If you are interested in a new website for your business but don’t really know where to start or what to ask for refer to our checklist below to get the most out of your new site. This checklist is specific to accommodation providers in the travel industry but the principles can be applied to any business.
Do you need your site to be able to do the following?
- Show a calendar of availability and/or events
- Take online bookings
- Take credit card payments
- Sell products or services
- Work well on mobile phones and/or mobile devices e.g. i-pads
- Play music or video on the site
- Photo galleries and expandable photos as well as fixed images
- Have a CMS – ability make your own changes
- Have a slideshow on the homepage (revolving photos)
- Have a footer that appears on every page
- Multiple navigation menus
- Have advertising in the sidebars, header or footer
- Forms for enquiries or orders
- Show reviews (either via a widget from another site like tripadvispr or by loading them onto your own site)
- Ability to load blog posts e.g. latest news, what’s happening, local activities, special offers
- Have sidebars on some pages – either the same sidebar or different ones
- Have adjustable SEO for each page of your site (and automatic sitemaps for SEO purposes)
- Link to Google Analytics for site tracking
- Google maps that can change views, zoom and provide adjustable directions
Accommodation Website Must-Haves
- home page that sells your USPs (Unique Selling Points) in less than 10 seconds
- decent room photos & descriptions
- prices and availability calendar
- instant online booking system
- easy to locate contact details, address and map
- details of local activities and attraction
- list of guest facilities