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By Scott and Allison Crumpton
Website Linking
Scott, you recently stated: "You should never give someone a
reason to leave your site once you have them there." Could you elaborate
a bit on how this statement relates to linking to your local association?
If you are a member of your association (city or state) many promotional
groups advocate linking from your personal site to your association website.
By doing this you are linking directly to your competition. What is the
advantage? Does the link popularity advantage outweigh the competitive
disadvantage? We do all come together in associations to help one another
but in many cases we are still competitors, friendly competitors, but
still competitors. The same is true of linking to convention and visitors
bureaus, yes it provides a service to our guests, but it also opens up
a wide world of other lodging possibilities to them. What has been your
experience with individual Inns linking to their association website and/or
to convention and visitor bureau websites directly from their homepages,
and what are your thoughts and opinions on this?
Thanks in advance
Kind Regards,
Joyce Schulte
Chambered Nautilus Bed and Breakfast Inn
In a vacuum, my statement about never giving a person a reason to leave
your site is accurate. Trouble is, nature abhors a vacuum!
For years we have heard from people that you need to be giving your viewers
links to things to do in your area. It's actually the principal the web
was built on which is why they call it "Hyper Text." However,
I disagree completely with doing this as my job is marketing inns -- not
other web sites in their area.
I personally believe that by the time someone arrives at your web site,
they already know they are coming to your area and know why. It is sufficient
to have an area information page complete with photos and descriptions
of things to do in your area -- they don't really need the links. If you
do feel compelled to give them links to other web sites, here's a novel
idea I have not yet seen implemented. Why not present them in the confirmation
page which comes up after they fill in a reservation request? Then you're
only giving them to those who are booking with you.
B&B associations, chambers of commerce and B&B directories often
request a link from your web site to their home page in return for a link
you might already be paying for. For obvious reasons, they request this
link be placed on your home page. Let's be honest here, they want the
link on your home page because they want people to click on that link
and leave your home page. Is this a good idea? Of course not! Then why
do they request it this way? Because they know it is the most read page
on your site. I often compare this to greeting a potential guest at the
front door of your inn, handing them brochures of local things to do and
sending them on their way without ever showing them your inn or inviting
them to make a reservation. If you wouldn't do this in real life, why
do it with your web site?
That said, let me mention a couple exceptions:
1. The purpose of a B&B association is that you are recommending
the inns in your association over other competitors. From research, we
know that most potential guests review at least two B&B web sites
before making a decision. If true, you will want to point them back to
your association members before sending them off to the search engines.
If other members have complied and also linked back to the association
site, then you're most likely benefiting as well.
2. Any time you are receiving something of greater value in return for
placing the link on your site. In other words, if you are receiving the
link from a valuable site for free in exchange for your link. Remember
though that the value of what you are receiving needs to be as great as
the business you are losing for providing an exit to your site. Caution
is advised.
Notes on these exceptions:
1. If you're paying for the link from a site such as a local chamber of
commerce, why the heck do you have to put their logo on your page and
link back to them? At the very least they should give you the option of
doing so and a discount if you do. And why does it have to be a logo on
your home page while your link is buried in their site? Most chambers
I've seen which require the link back do not give you the option of doing
so -- they require it. If so, their policies are Draconian and there's
little you can do about it if you need the link (and most do) unless you
organize an uprising which is something I always enjoy when Draconian
policies are implemented.
Final Thoughts:
I know my views on this are not the party line most innkeepers are used
to hearing. Much of what I say isn't but that's primarily because there
is so much misinformation out there. In this case, common sense prevails
-- to wit... A link from another web site to your web site brings you
potential guests. A link from your web site to another web site does not
and is an invitation for the potential guest to leave. Which would you
rather have?
Domain Name Confusion
I thought there was only one place to register a domain name - Network
Solutions. I've heard about another one called Dotster. Are there others?
Thanks.
Janet Buck
Dr. Dodson House B&B
Here's an analogy I use often. To register your car, you go to the DMV
and for a fee they register your car for a given number of years. The
DMV is a government agency and so has a monopoly on this task.
Let's say for a moment the DMV was turned into a company and after a
while the government decided their monopoly wasn't a good thing. The DMV
would keep the master set of records so no two people ended up with the
same license plate number but they would also have competition. That is,
other companies such as car dealerships or just about any company could
become a licensed registrar of license plates and renewals. Their would
be a list of requirements for these companies such as the proper computers
systems and the like but it wouldn't be too difficult as to encourage
competition. These companies could charge what they wanted and pay a small
fee for each license they sold or renewed back to the DMV for keeping
the central records.
Okay, enough of the analogy. Replace license plates with domain names
and you have the current domain registration system. In the beginning
there was the Internic Council (aka the DMV) which had a monopoly on the
sale of domain names. The government broke up their monopoly and they
became a company called Network Solutions.
There are tons of companies which are accredited registrars. You can
see a list here: http://www.icann.org/registrars/accredited-list.html
A word of caution -- just because a company is accredited does not mean
it is a good company with helpful tech support. Your domain holds great
value. Before you entrust it to just any registrar, do your homework.
You may save a few dollars a year only to someday lose control of your
domain if something goes wrong. In my opinion, it is better to work with
your hosting company or webmaster on this subject than to handle it yourself.
It's not a difficult task but if you toss out your invoice simply because
you didn't recognize the name of your registrar (which may have changed
due to a merger), you will lose your domain -- possibly forever.
Most of the hosting companies in our industry take care of these things
and offer a discount off the $35/year Network Solution charges.
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