Hilton Head Rentals & Golf, an established vacation rental company with the widest and best selection of lodging throughout Hilton Head Island, had a well-established web presence. But their website was sorely in need of an updated design and improved functionality. To that end, we undertook a complete redesign of the aesthetics, navigation and functionality of their website. We created a warm, airy design with a rotating slide show as a focal point of the homepage–making visitors feel as if they’re already standing on the beach. We also completely revamped the navigation to make it more user-friendly with the addition of flyouts that quickly guide visitors straight to specific pages of the site. And we built it on the Drupal content management system, an intuitive, secure and scalable platform that will serve our client well for years to come.

Search features include a search by area map, and search widgets on the homepage and interior pages make it easy to find the perfect vacation rental on Hilton Head. The search results and property information displayed is powered by Rental Network Software’s (RNS) property management system. This approach provides site visitors with the most up-to-date property and availability information possible, as well as a seamless transition from the main site, to the booking engine.

We also cleaned up their Google Analytics configuration to include cross-domain and e-commerce tracking and have been busy refining their search engine marketing strategy  and email marketing programs as well.

One of the primary reasons why this vacation rental redesign was so successful was due to the proactive participation from the client. A successful web project depends as much on the client’s performance, leadership, and engagement, as it does on us; the vendor you’ve hired to build it. In short, it’s a two way street. Congratulations to the HHRG team for their enthusiasm and engagement in the project – we look forward to seeing more of your site visitors turn into new customers!

Gift basket material?  I’d say so.

Ever wonder what it looks like when a plan comes together with an aggressive Search Engine Optimization campaign and a killer Email Marketing Campaign?  Well, if you have Google Analytics tied in properly, it looks just like this.

Skills to pay your web marketing bills…

•    We implemented an aggressive setup and began a recurring custom SEO program December 11-ish.  See above.
•    Note* this is non-paid search traffic from Google only.
•    That increase, in that amount of time, is absolutely ridiculous.
•    If your site has been in the dark (SEO wise) for a long time, these are the immediate results you can see with the proper help.

Killing it with Email Marketing…

•    In 9 months we made 7 sends.
•    That equated to $77,370.49 in online bookings alone – That obviously DOES NOT include people that got it, went to the site, then called and booked.  We have those stats in another report, but let’s stay focused on online bookings for now.
•    Cost for that particular Email Marketing Campaign is $15k-ish over 12 months, including utilizing our ACE program.  Again, we have only sent 7 times and these booking numbers do not reflect the ROI for 12 full months.  Looking back, those 2 missed sends hurt, ouch.  Consistency is key, and would have made these ROI numbers look even better.
•    Let’s do the math – that is over 500% return on investment………so far.

Congrats to the SEM and Email teams for a solid performance.

Good Morning Vacation Rental Managers!

Listen to a very informative interview with Blue Tent President Peter Scott on Scott Colson’s VacationRentalTraffic.org Podcast.

VacationRentalTraffic.org is dedicated to bringing Vacation Rental Managers today’s best online strategies, tools and techniques to drive floods of traffic to their websites and maximize their bookings.

In this wide ranging interview Pete discusses some SEO challenges often faced by Vacation Rental Managers, some emerging threats, the importance of having solid content and clean code, various SEO strategies, and backing up your efforts with a Google Analytics set up.

We’re excited to announce the launch of a completely redesigned and redeveloped website for Red River Ski Area. This little slice of heaven is nestled in the Carson National Forest, high in the southern-most tip of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Red River Ski Area has been in operation since 1959. Red River approached us with a need to create a web presence with wide spectrum needs and considerations – from creating a clean design to allow the natural beauty of Red River to speak for itself, to integrating an e-commerce component for equipment rentals. Needless to say, we were excited to jump into such an intriguing project – not to mention the prospect of making a trip down Red River to sample the goods!

To fulfill the wide-ranging scope of the project, we decided to build the site upon the Drupal platform. Some of the more notable aspects of the site include the following:

• Custom weather and snow and grooming report integration.
• E-commerce component (ubercart) to handle lift ticket purchases, rental equipment, lesson packages, and group packages.
• Automated email notifications to notify lodging partners of reservation requests via the Red River Ski Area site.
• Events calendar and live web cams to keep users up-to-date on the latest happenings and conditions at the resort.
• Social media sharing capability through popular social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.
• A clean and user-friendly design, evocative of the area’s unique beauty that welcomes users into the site with large lifestyle images.

Congratulations to the great team who made this Drupal web design project a reality. Rowan kept everything tight while leading the team as project manager, Lauren did an awesome job, as always, in her design work, Shaun was the developer and Moira ensured a smooth deployment.  Andrew made the project possible for the sales side. We’ve received quite a bit of positive feedback on this project so far – let us know what you think!

Today, all it takes is an angry person with thumbs and a Twitter account to start trashing your business online. Recently, a lead came into us that clearly displayed this newfound phenomenon and the persuasive power of the social web:

Please Describe Your Needs: Please help with a few negative comments about our business consisting of 14,000 patients and over 30,000 implants placed to date. Less than 5 negative google comments are destroying 8 years of a business I have spent everyday building 16 hours a day.

Ouch! Less than 5 negative comments posted on Google are destroying 8 years put into building a successful business. The weight of that statement is astounding! This prospect (from the dental industry) is prepared to spend upwards of $10,000 per month to address these negative comments that were posted on the “social web” and are adversely affecting his business in a very severe way.

There are good and bad effects of this evolution of the web into the social sphere. On the good side, consumers have more control, more information, and more voice to affect purchasing decisions. On the bad side, the reputation of a great business, established over many years of hard work, can now be tarnished almost instantly by a few dissatisfied customers.

Which raises the question: How is your business leveraging the power of positive feedback online?

This is perhaps one of the most important questions for a business of any size to be mindful of when evaluating the importantance of social media to their business. The answer is obvious: It’s critically important. It simply doesn’t matter what type of business you’re running. Whether you’re in lodging and vacation rentals, dentistry, dermatology, the ski rental or restaurant business, the end result is the same – it matters what people say about your business online.

I recently returned from a trip to the Victoria House in Ambergris Caye, Belize (it was amazing, albeit a bit pricey, but don’t take my word, see what others have to say). As I was checking out I noticed a beautiful guest book (pictured at right), full of glowing reviews from past guests. The only problem was that these glowing guest comments weren’t reaching the right audience. That’s where we come in.

We create programs that reach out to your most satisfied customers, and turn them into your most enthusiastic online brand advocates – thus leveraging the power of the positive.

Anyone that’s ever read the letters to the editor in their local newspaper realizes that many of the letters are people complaining about something. The social web has made it even easier for people to make their complaints heard. The trick is combat and overwhelm those negative experiences with positive ones. However, expecting these positive reviews to appear on their own is a dubious approach indeed.

This is where the strategic approach to social media comes into play. You’ve got to find ways to first identify who your most satisfied clients are, and then make it easy for them to share their experiences online with the right audience – whether it be on Google, TripAdvisor, Yelp or elsewhere. Think of this type of expense as reputation maintenance. And we all know that it’s easier and less expensive to maintain your vehicle on a regular basis than it is to neglect it and be faced with expensive and inconvenient repairs when they inevitably occur.

Click here for more information about how we can help your company or organization leverage and maintain its positive reputation online.

– Josh Lewis
VP Marketing
@Blue_Tent

We’ve recently launched a completely redesigned and redeveloped website for Sun Realty, the premier provider of vacation rental and real estate services in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

With over 1,300 vacation rental properties under management, Sun Realty needed a robust and dynamic website with integrated property information, availability and inline booking capability. We built the site on our Drupal based content management system and integrated Sun’s property management software by incorporating our Instant Software WSDL Module to create a seamless online environment to display property information, photos, and amenities information, as well as to provide the end user with advanced search, availability and online booking functionality.

This comprehensive approach aims to make both the property management process and the online booking process easier for our friends at Sun Realty as well as their guests. This seamless integration captures all of the critical information in one location, allowing for greater efficiency for internal business operations as well as creating a web application that requires fewer hours and less manpower to maintain.

Another highlight of the site is the custom “beach bag” application. Users can add vacation properties to their beach bag in order to compare property size, location and amenities. Users can also email their beach bag selections to family and friends, or email their selections to Sun Realty for more information. They can also save their beach bag and come back later to review their properties at another time.

Sun Realty has put in a great deal of work to make their site a trusted and relevant resource for those looking to take a vacation in the Outer Banks. They’ve engaged their clients and prospects by providing a great forum for sharing details about their vacation and their vacation rental property. Clients can post comments about how much fun they had on the beach or write about the best (or worst) part of their OBX vacation. They can also upload photos, or link to a YouTube video. Sun Realty also wisely added resources for parents and kids, along with guides for attractions and shopping, dining, and a comprehensive vacationer’s guide.

We’re very proud of this project and would like to thank the team at Sun Realty for trusting the pros at Blue Tent to develop, expand and enhance their web presence! And congratulations to the team of professionals who contributed to the successful completion of this project: Seth, John, Lauren, Tom, Michael, Dan, and Moira all did a great job.

Take a moment to explore the new Sun Realty website, and let us know what you think!

-      S. Chapin Lewis

Sales & Marketing Coordinator

As I made the trek into Denver for the advanced Google AdWords Seminar for Success I began to think back on the world of search. It struck me that Google the King of Search at this moment in time is just over 10 years old. Lets put that into perspective. At Ten years old you were probably in the 5th grade, 10 years ago you were getting ready for Y2K while jamming out to Prince’s Party like its 1999. To say the least Google is young, and Google’s AdWords is even younger. To think about the many strides that have been made in Pay Per Click Advertising is quite astounding especially in the time that it has been around. In Less than 10 years AdWords has become the backbone of Google’s Business and has evolved into a tool that companies of all sizes use to advertise. Companies as big as Exxon and as small as your local dry cleaner use AdWords to target those who search for keyword specific terms that relate to their business.

While Google has been ever changing, the rest of the world has had to be as well and so has Blue Tent Marketing. Specifically staying ahead of the curve, especially with all the advances that have been made in Search Engine Marketing. Blue Tent has found value in the fact that education is key to the success of a company. The SEM Account Managers at Blue Tent have been fortunate enough to attend the Seminar for Success classes that Google offers. The great thing about attending these classes is that it keeps all our clients well ahead of the curve and their competition. We always strive to offer cutting edge services to our clients and in order to do so we have to live by the adage “never stop learning.”

This week I have been fortunate enough to attend the Advanced Adwords Training. The amount of knowledge I have obtained from one day of training is off the charts. Here’s a glimpse at some of the top takeaways and cool tools that I look forward to using on an everyday basis. I encourage you to dive in and see how the tips and tools listed below can help your internet marketing efforts.

• When you create Ad Copy be sure your ad answers the question that is being called to action.
• Landing Pages are a huge help to those who click on your add, they can help your quaility score by 30-40%.
• When you ad negative keywords know that Google never matches misspelled words.
• Rarely have an AdWords Ad URL land on the homepage. Find a Page on your site that relates to the ad.
• Use your “Thank You” pages to continue your business, NOT end a session with your customer. Give them an option to visit another page on your site.
• Download the Adwords Editor, Its free and is a great tool to help you learn more about your keywords.
• Site Overlay is a powerful tool. It allows one to see which pages are leading to conversions
• When testing an ad copy test if for a minimum of a week.
• Write several unique ads and see how they perform.
• My number one favorite quote from the AdWords Seminar is: “Advertising isn’t advertising when its information!”

And be sure to check out the following tools to enhance your paid search planning and execution:

• AdWords Editor – Use the adwords editor with out having to log into AdWords. An easy place to manage your Campaigns.
• Google Sets – Use Google Sets to find related keyword terms.
• Google Trends – Use Trends to see what the search volume of a particular keyword term is.
• Google Insights for Search – With Google Insights for Search, you can compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, time frames and properties.
• Microsoft AdLab – New tool to refine your ads and make them more specific for each individual.
• Google AdPlanner – Take a look at the demographics of a websites traffic.
• The Wonder Wheel – To Find the Wonder Wheel. Do a search, once you have the results click on the “+Show Options.” Once that has loaded you will see on the left side towards the bottom an option for the Wonder Wheel. Cool tool…. My fav! Gives you word options for a search.

A big shout out to Brian Geddes at bg Theory for putting on an excellent seminar. If you have any specific questions please feel free to contact me directly. We are here to help you better your company!

– Tim Hampton
SEM Account Manager
tim @ bluetent.com

Akumal Direct Reservations is the premier vacation rental provider in beautiful Akumal Mexico.  This little slice of heaven is nestled in the heart of the Riviera Maya on the turquoise blue waters of Mexico’s Caribbean coast.

Working with Sydney at Akumal, Blue Tent built a sleek and dynamic Drupal site evocative of the warm tropical beaches that make Akumal such an amazing vacation destination.  Apart from eye-catching aesthetics, the real story of the Akumal site is about what we were able to accomplish working with one of our technology partners.  We work extensively with Escapia because they provide amazing property management software platforms for the vacation rental industry.

In order to make life as easy as possible for Sydney, and for her potential online bookers, we created a custom API feed that integrates directly from Akumal’s site to their Escapia software setup.  This custom integration enabled us to design and develop custom property preview and property detail pages with quick search and advanced search features.  Availability is directly populated by the seamless integration with Akumal’s Escapia software to custom calendars on the property detail pages.  Other benefits of this integration include:

Frictionless Booking Process – Prospective clients find a property that appeals to them, learn more about its details, the dates it’s available to rent, and are able to input the necessary info to secure the booking all on one page, without being taken off site.

SEO – Akumal benefits from a search marketing perspective because there is more fresh content for Google and Bing to find and more pages for them to index.

Easy Management – Sydney only has to go to one place to manage her property details, photos, and availability.  She doesn’t need to cross reference with anything else. Sydney can access everything she needs to manager her properties through her Escapia software, eliminating the danger of double bookings.

We’re really proud of this site and the work that went into making this amazing functionality a reality.  It couldn’t have happened with out a solid team.  Thanks to Sydney at Akumal for the awesome content and for being such a great client to work with.  A big shout out to our partners at Escapia for creating quality software and for providing the support to Lauren so she could make the integration happen. Lastly props must go to Sam for building a great customer relationship.

To ensure some good 19-inch dumps, we do a snow dance to the Scandinavian snow god, Ullr. Apart from favorable conditions, you might be surprised at how few in the vacation rental and luxury lodging industry think about the importance of seasonality on their website. For would-be travelers there’s almost nothing more important. Here are a few simple tips for to prep your site for success this winter:

Theme your site for the season. Whether you’re located in Hawaii or Colorado, choose pictures that help your prospects picture themselves enjoying your resort. Change pictures of people rafting or mountain biking to nice shots of people taking face shots in untracked powder. Better yet, configure your site to have a summer theme and a winter theme that your site visitors can select, and that you can quickly update to display as the default theme as needed.

Integrate real-time weather feeds and reports. Snow reports, surf reports, and tidal forecasts will bring potential travelers back to your site again and again, especially during the lead up to their vacations. If you have activity packages such as snorkeling, flyfishing, yacht rentals, lift tickets, ski lessons, etc., be sure to advertise them on your weather page.

Get a web cam and point at the snow or surf. Video feeds are a great way to gain increased site traffic and offer live area information. Watching the sun drop over a sweet set coming in on your favorite break, or watching a storm roll in over you’re the resort you spent last New Year’s skiing with your family at, is a great way to keep people up to date and a unique way to take them from home to where you want them to spend their next vacation.

Put a news block on your homepage. Announce big snowfalls, perfect breaks, or other tantalizing events that make your users want to pull the trigger on that next vacation. Making your site a trusted resource by providing valuable information, if someone uses your site as a resource to check out the surf report or daydream about riding the snow that they are watching fall on the web cam, their propensity to book another vacation is dramatically increased.

Use humor. If you’re in Hawaii, show a picture of a poor soul in Buffalo, NY and then contrast it with a photo of one of your guests sipping a margarita on the beach with something as simple as a “before and after” tag line.

It’s difficult to make large capital investments in your website when rentals are down, but it’s always possible to invest in incremental improvements that will buoy the bottom line and increase conversions. But where should you invest? Try asking your website these five questions and see if you like the answers. If not, consider investigating improvements to one of these key factors.

1. Do you satisfy the rate conscious?
   Renting a house is essentially an e-commerce transaction. Imagine an e-commerce site without prices, or a Request More Information button next to the product. Web users expect easy access to rates based on their target dates, not average nightly rates or generic designations like ‘Economical’ or ‘Luxury.’ In the information age, your site should deliver rates as quickly as possible, ideally at the search results page, based on the dates and length of stay.
2. Do I get results fast? 
   A quick search on the home page should allow users to get down to the business of renting a house immediately. Do not impede this process. The search should be visible on a 1024X768 screen, clean, and inviting. Inviting means simple. Provide a link to advanced search for those who might want to search by more than just start date, length of stay, location and a couple of key amenities. If you have many properties consider offering drill-down or drill-sideways results in a sidebar next to your search results. Drill-down: we have this many results if you narrow your search with “Hot Tub.” Drill-sideways: Show the number of results if a user were to filter by “Walk to Slopes” instead of “Ski in, Ski Out.”
3.  Do you provide enough rental detail and the ability to purchase?
   As a general rule, err on the side of simplicity when it comes to content, so that users can focus on the business at hand without distractions. This rule doesn’t apply to rental details though. If you’re going to rent a house for a week and pay big bucks, you’ll want as many pictures, virtual tours, maps and as much availability information as possible. Vivid descriptions are helpful, as are comprehensive list of amenities with house-to-house comparison options. As a rule, people don’t read on the web, that is, until it’s time to spend money. They will also want real pricing and online booking if this can be provided.
4.  Does my site make helpful suggestions?
   We’re seeing more and more “fuzzy logic” search results on VR sites. Drill down results appear in a sidebar next to large results sets and provide links showing common filters you might want to apply to reduce the overall number of results to a manageable level. A link in this sidebar might look like this: “Add Hot Tub (27),” indicating that the user may want to filter down to only 27 results by adding Hot Tub as a criteria. This link will go straight to the filtered results. A drill up link might suggest that the user remove an uncommon filter from their search for more results. For instance, “With Out Elevator (35).” Drill sideways results allow you to suggest parallel options to your user, for instance the house is available on an adjoining week to the dates searched or if you selected Ski in, Ski Out, you might consider the following link “Walk to Lifts (25).” These types of search services are increasingly common on travel sites.
5.  Do you take advantage of GIS?
   Does your site provide your user with integrated geographical information to help them picture themselves at your location. Offer your search results on google maps as well in list format. If you’re in a large city, see if the public transportation system has an API plugin. For instance, in some large Metropolitan areas HopStop (http://hopstop.com/) let’s you embed a form in your site that will return point to point subway, bus or tram directions. These services add value to your site and provide compelling reasons for your users to return after they’ve booked.

– Seth Brown
Director of Web Projects