Where are you?

[Copperhead]

And don't forget, if your target market includes international visitors you need to spell out the state/province and not just use the two-letter code. For instance, if I see "Mytown, MA" I've got three states on my short list for where that might be. The "A" states are hit and miss for me, too..

And don't forget, if your target market includes international visitors you need to spell out the state/province and not just use the two-letter code. For instance, if I see "Mytown, MA" I've got three states on my short list for where that might be. The "A" states are hit and miss for me, too.

Even the Americans don't know the 2-letter abbreviations the post office uses. When I call to order something on the phone and they look me up based on zip code, they always say, "Oh, you're from Arizona." No, try again.

I never use the 2-letter abbreviation. When I was a child, we were abbreviated Ark, and I'm sticking with it for life!
.

And don't forget, if your target market includes international visitors you need to spell out the state/province and not just use the two-letter code. For instance, if I see "Mytown, MA" I've got three states on my short list for where that might be. The "A" states are hit and miss for me, too.

Even the Americans don't know the 2-letter abbreviations the post office uses. When I call to order something on the phone and they look me up based on zip code, they always say, "Oh, you're from Arizona." No, try again.

I never use the 2-letter abbreviation. When I was a child, we were abbreviated Ark, and I'm sticking with it for life!

Understand completely. Ours gets confused with a big city on the west coast. I have to remind some - no the city has periods after each letter!

 

[Morticia]

And don't forget, if your target market includes international visitors you need to spell out the state/province and not just use the two-letter code. For instance, if I see "Mytown, MA" I've got three states on my short list for where that might be. The "A" states are hit and miss for me, too..

And don't forget, if your target market includes international visitors you need to spell out the state/province and not just use the two-letter code. For instance, if I see "Mytown, MA" I've got three states on my short list for where that might be. The "A" states are hit and miss for me, too.

Even the Americans don't know the 2-letter abbreviations the post office uses. When I call to order something on the phone and they look me up based on zip code, they always say, "Oh, you're from Arizona." No, try again.

I never use the 2-letter abbreviation. When I was a child, we were abbreviated Ark, and I'm sticking with it for life!
.

Bailey White has a wonderful story about her grade school class sending a box of fruit and letters from Georgia to MA. Assuming MA was the abbreviation for Maine. And the very unhappy letter she got 3 months later from the teacher when the package finally arrived.

 

[gillumhouse]

I checked to be sure - the first 5 lines of text on my home page say Shinnston and/or West Virginia - spelled out. This is followed by the link to our Elope in West Virginia.

 

[JimBoone]

And thinkdaily nails it again today:
Educate or Communicate?
Educators take something simple and make it complicated. Communicators take something complicated and make it simple.
Educating your prospects is important, but not at the expense of communicating.
Are you getting your message through?
(Back to the B&B website thing - are you communicating to your prospective guests? Is your message getting through? Or are you frustrating them and sending them away - you will never know the bookings you DON'T get).

I think guests are overwhelmed. Given the think daily post and the questions guests ask we are educating, not communicating. And I don't think we're even educating!

• What are your rates?
• Where are you located?
• Do you serve breakfast?
• There are 5 of us, we only need one room, which room is bigger the green room or the blue room? (Which means they've been deep into the site, know the rooms, may even have seen the max number of guests per room.)

My guess is that simplify, simplify, simplify is the way to go. I'm not ready to go this far, but how about all the text in 'text spelling'?
.

We have had people comment that our web site was easy to read. It is as uncomplicated as we could make it.
Another inn in town just has a front page. With a phone number. No on line reservations. If it were me, I would just go to another site that has on line reservations, but they are always full, so they know their market.
.

That other inn might be like us, one of us won't touch a computer so "online" reservations is not a solution at present.

 

[JimBoone]

And thinkdaily nails it again today:
Educate or Communicate?
Educators take something simple and make it complicated. Communicators take something complicated and make it simple.
Educating your prospects is important, but not at the expense of communicating.
Are you getting your message through?
(Back to the B&B website thing - are you communicating to your prospective guests? Is your message getting through? Or are you frustrating them and sending them away - you will never know the bookings you DON'T get).

I think guests are overwhelmed. Given the think daily post and the questions guests ask we are educating, not communicating. And I don't think we're even educating!

• What are your rates?
• Where are you located?
• Do you serve breakfast?
• There are 5 of us, we only need one room, which room is bigger the green room or the blue room? (Which means they've been deep into the site, know the rooms, may even have seen the max number of guests per room.)

My guess is that simplify, simplify, simplify is the way to go. I'm not ready to go this far, but how about all the text in 'text spelling'?
.

I really fear that people zero in on certain things that they want and totally ignore everything else, then if the experience isn't what they expected it must be our fault, couldn't be them.
Talked with a really nice guy on the phone recently, he knew my name, loved the reviews, couldn't wait to stay with us and we wrote him on the books for several days, but something didn't feel just right, as we continued to talk it came out that his intended destination was a good thousand miles away.
Property with the same/similar name in a different country, he focused on some fortunately good reviews and it seems missed the location. I think it is a sign of the times that we are all so busy/rushed that things are missed.
Another example, we've had a few guests in winter that booked the perfect isolated romantic cabin in the woods, but never considered getting to the cabin without a suitable vehicle or a long hike, I'm sure the cabin owner got a terrible review because he let it snow.

 

[Morticia]

Speaking of updating websites... just had a cold call at the door. They are new to the website design biz but they know enough to tell me my website doesn't work on a cellphone. Um? My website doesn't work on a cellphone? Do you mean my website isn't responsive?
Cold caller - "It doesn't change size when you look at it on a tablet or a phone. It's a nice website, but it doesn't work right."
Me - "The word you're looking for is 'responsive'. And my website is responsive."
Cold caller - "Well, one of the websites I looked at didn't work right."
Me - "Thanks for stopping by."

 

[Morticia]

And thinkdaily nails it again today:
Educate or Communicate?
Educators take something simple and make it complicated. Communicators take something complicated and make it simple.
Educating your prospects is important, but not at the expense of communicating.
Are you getting your message through?
(Back to the B&B website thing - are you communicating to your prospective guests? Is your message getting through? Or are you frustrating them and sending them away - you will never know the bookings you DON'T get).

I think guests are overwhelmed. Given the think daily post and the questions guests ask we are educating, not communicating. And I don't think we're even educating!

• What are your rates?
• Where are you located?
• Do you serve breakfast?
• There are 5 of us, we only need one room, which room is bigger the green room or the blue room? (Which means they've been deep into the site, know the rooms, may even have seen the max number of guests per room.)

My guess is that simplify, simplify, simplify is the way to go. I'm not ready to go this far, but how about all the text in 'text spelling'?
.

I really fear that people zero in on certain things that they want and totally ignore everything else, then if the experience isn't what they expected it must be our fault, couldn't be them.
Talked with a really nice guy on the phone recently, he knew my name, loved the reviews, couldn't wait to stay with us and we wrote him on the books for several days, but something didn't feel just right, as we continued to talk it came out that his intended destination was a good thousand miles away.
Property with the same/similar name in a different country, he focused on some fortunately good reviews and it seems missed the location. I think it is a sign of the times that we are all so busy/rushed that things are missed.
Another example, we've had a few guests in winter that booked the perfect isolated romantic cabin in the woods, but never considered getting to the cabin without a suitable vehicle or a long hike, I'm sure the cabin owner got a terrible review because he let it snow.
.

I really fear that people zero in on certain things that they want and totally ignore everything else, then if the experience isn't what they expected it must be our fault, couldn't be them.

We went thru this for years for a couple of reasons: Google kept moving us to the shore. (Wish they could have actually moved the building to that location!) Another inn kept saying they had 'water views' and posting photos showing the ocean.
Obviously, being at practically the same address we must have the same views and water access. No, no we don't.
Well, Google has decided to leave us alone for the time being and the other inn closed. Not too many requests for ocean view rooms now.

 

[JBloggs]

And thinkdaily nails it again today:
Educate or Communicate?
Educators take something simple and make it complicated. Communicators take something complicated and make it simple.
Educating your prospects is important, but not at the expense of communicating.
Are you getting your message through?
(Back to the B&B website thing - are you communicating to your prospective guests? Is your message getting through? Or are you frustrating them and sending them away - you will never know the bookings you DON'T get).

I think guests are overwhelmed. Given the think daily post and the questions guests ask we are educating, not communicating. And I don't think we're even educating!

• What are your rates?
• Where are you located?
• Do you serve breakfast?
• There are 5 of us, we only need one room, which room is bigger the green room or the blue room? (Which means they've been deep into the site, know the rooms, may even have seen the max number of guests per room.)

My guess is that simplify, simplify, simplify is the way to go. I'm not ready to go this far, but how about all the text in 'text spelling'?
.

I really fear that people zero in on certain things that they want and totally ignore everything else, then if the experience isn't what they expected it must be our fault, couldn't be them.
Talked with a really nice guy on the phone recently, he knew my name, loved the reviews, couldn't wait to stay with us and we wrote him on the books for several days, but something didn't feel just right, as we continued to talk it came out that his intended destination was a good thousand miles away.
Property with the same/similar name in a different country, he focused on some fortunately good reviews and it seems missed the location. I think it is a sign of the times that we are all so busy/rushed that things are missed.
Another example, we've had a few guests in winter that booked the perfect isolated romantic cabin in the woods, but never considered getting to the cabin without a suitable vehicle or a long hike, I'm sure the cabin owner got a terrible review because he let it snow.
.

This could be about as important as your business license imo, if there is another B&B in any state or country other than you with the same name you will battle it out in google for positioning. No matter what they do or how they market themselves.

 

[OnTheShore]

And thinkdaily nails it again today:
Educate or Communicate?
Educators take something simple and make it complicated. Communicators take something complicated and make it simple.
Educating your prospects is important, but not at the expense of communicating.
Are you getting your message through?
(Back to the B&B website thing - are you communicating to your prospective guests? Is your message getting through? Or are you frustrating them and sending them away - you will never know the bookings you DON'T get).

I think guests are overwhelmed. Given the think daily post and the questions guests ask we are educating, not communicating. And I don't think we're even educating!

• What are your rates?
• Where are you located?
• Do you serve breakfast?
• There are 5 of us, we only need one room, which room is bigger the green room or the blue room? (Which means they've been deep into the site, know the rooms, may even have seen the max number of guests per room.)

My guess is that simplify, simplify, simplify is the way to go. I'm not ready to go this far, but how about all the text in 'text spelling'?
.

I really fear that people zero in on certain things that they want and totally ignore everything else, then if the experience isn't what they expected it must be our fault, couldn't be them.
Talked with a really nice guy on the phone recently, he knew my name, loved the reviews, couldn't wait to stay with us and we wrote him on the books for several days, but something didn't feel just right, as we continued to talk it came out that his intended destination was a good thousand miles away.
Property with the same/similar name in a different country, he focused on some fortunately good reviews and it seems missed the location. I think it is a sign of the times that we are all so busy/rushed that things are missed.
Another example, we've had a few guests in winter that booked the perfect isolated romantic cabin in the woods, but never considered getting to the cabin without a suitable vehicle or a long hike, I'm sure the cabin owner got a terrible review because he let it snow.
.

This could be about as important as your business license imo, if there is another B&B in any state or country other than you with the same name you will battle it out in google for positioning. No matter what they do or how they market themselves.
.

Not aware of another inn with our name, but there is a high school (and associated school district) on Long Island, NY, with our name (we had it first!). Mariah Carey went there....
(Google alerts on our name usually just reveal real estate for sale in that school district, school board agendas, and sports results....)