Help me translate website hits into bookings........please

[964kevin]

I hope you folks can assist with my lack of knowledge please.

I think I'm doing whatever I can to attract, then turn these website hits into bookings.

I seem to get anywhere from 200-400 hits a month, but only 1 of these translates into an actual booking.

I'm listed in Google adwords, currently costing about £13-14/month, the main search engines, on Owners, Holiday lettings etc etc. But can't figure whats wrong.

I've looked at my competitors and our pricing is reasonable, I offer discounts if deposits are paid up early, and am open to negotiation if I don't get the right result 1st or 2nd time of asking.

So I'm currently lost as to why I am unable to translate the hits into bookings, and your help would be very much appreciated.

Thanks

Kevin.

[Margaret]

I would say there are 2 things to bear in mind:

1. The numbers don't sound too bad to me. We get around 2,000 hits most months and average 200 bookings a year across 9 apartments.
2. Make sure that your website really gives clear and accurate information about your property so that you have the best chance of catching people who really want to book your sort of accommodation.

[CSE]

I had a quick look at your website.
The hit rate is ok, what is the bounce rate? That would be more meaningful figure to work on.
What counties are you getting hits from? I can see your prices are in U.K. pounds is that the only market place you are aiming at?
Other questions; what are your prices compared with the competitors? What markets are they aiming at? Are they also full or busy?
It may not be just your property that is hard to let at the moment, maybe everyone is suffering.

[gpck]

Having looked at your calendar - you don't seem to be doing badly with bookings at all. There are many owners in Orlando who would love to have your number of weeks booked!

The booking ratio to enquiries in Florida is generally very low - maybe 1 booking for 200 enquiries!

I would suggest you should have prices in US$ on your website as well as Sterling - you'll attract more American bookings that way... and surely as your bills are in Dollars it makes more sense to get your income in the same currency.

[Nerja]

My own experience is that the market is very price sensitive at the moment, with everyone seemingly wanting a deal or a discount. If you are too expensive compared to a competitor you won't get the booking. Of course, you might not have direct competition, but here, there are many identical apartments and houses to pick from.

[964kevin]

I had a quick look at your website.
The hit rate is ok, what is the bounce rate? That would be more meaningful figure to work on.
What counties are you getting hits from? I can see your prices are in U.K. pounds is that the only market place you are aiming at?
Other questions; what are your prices compared with the competitors? What markets are they aiming at? Are they also full or busy?
It may not be just your property that is hard to let at the moment, maybe everyone is suffering.

Thanks Ian.

Trying to get RBS world pay so I can take all currencies presently, but it's so painful.....
Paypal only offerd 10 options, and I needed all of them in UK£ if I had 10 more I would have coded for US$ as well, hopefully if RBS works out ok I can translate more returns, who knows.

Bounce rate....it always confuses me. this below is from Google on my site.

Country Pages / Visit Bounce Rate Avg. Time on Site
United States 4.7 (-0.1) 42.5% (-6.1%) 6:06 (-0:10)
United Kingdom 4.9 (-0.3) 41.5% (+0.2%) 5:38 (-0.27)
France 4.4 (-0.4) 49.7% (+1.4%) 4:40 (-0:08)
Brazil 4.1 (-0.1) 47.8% (-2.9%) 5:20 (+0:03)
China 4.1 (-0.1) 58.2% (+1.0%) 3:46 (+0:37)
Japan 3.9 (-0.1) 48.6% (-9.0%) 3:47 (-2:59)

Traffic Sources Pages / Visit Bounce Rate Avg. Time on Site
Direct 4.0 (-0.5) 47.2% (-4.0%) 5:21 (-0:07)
Referral 5.0 (+0.1) 43.1% (-1.1%) 6:36 (-1:48)
Organic Search 4.9 (-0.1) 47.9% (-1.1%) 4:43 (+0:06)
CPC Search 5.6 (+0.0) 41.4 (-1.7%) 3:57(+0:07)


I've checked our pricing with others on the same resort, in the local area, and for gated communities such as ours, they are reasonable, and I do negotiate if and when.
I think that sometimes people expect a bigger sized villa or house, and thought that might pop up, but no-one has mentioned thath, so maybe it's my imagination.

Thanks for your help, much appreciated.

Kevin

[964kevin]

Having looked at your calendar - you don't seem to be doing badly with bookings at all. There are many owners in Orlando who would love to have your number of weeks booked!

The booking ratio to enquiries in Florida is generally very low - maybe 1 booking for 200 enquiries!

I would suggest you should have prices in US$ on your website as well as Sterling - you'll attract more American bookings that way... and surely as your bills are in Dollars it makes more sense to get your income in the same currency.

Thanks gpck.

Hopefully if this RBS worldpay issue gets resolved I can take credit cards in a number of different currencies and it will cover the costs.......

The number of weeks looks ok? don't check that agianst the rates I have quoted, some of them are at a 20% discount for booking fairly early, by as much as 10 months in one instance....

I'll let you know if I think RBS is worthwhile with a different post say in 3-4 months time?

Thanks

Kevin

[Essar]

I too looked at your calendar and its seems okay to me.

Your property look great, I've stayed on gated properties in Florida and they can be a bit lonely even in the summer months. However, the facilities are great and your should attract Europeans.

As for PayPal - my account is linked to my UK bank account, but my customers can pay with their credit cards or through their own PayPal account which can be in their own currency, PayPal does the conversions sums, so I don't see what the problem is?

Your bounce rate is quite low so that's good people are staying on your site, I personally look at the number of pages per visit, if it's higher than one then the landing page is attractive enough for them to want to delve further. If your exit page is always your tariff then you could assume your prices may be unattractive. Look at the number of returning visitors compared to new visitors it should be better than 10%. Your direct visits and referrals are about the same.
To attract more direct or organic visits you need to work on your seo, for referrals (which Google likes for ranking) try adding your properties to more free listing sites.
Your Google analytics look OKay in general - think long term with Google history and inbound links and lots of good content, and keep it up to date, add new stuff once a month, keep you site maps up to date (Goole & Bing), get listed on the Open Directory Project all the search engines use it.
Look at the location maps more closely where are your visitors coming from, I get the impression (I could be wrong) that you are trying more for the UK/European visitors rather than the natives - provide a currency converter.

What about long term winter lets for the northern snow birds? Think about targetting different demographics or specific states.