How to Start & Run a B&B BandBED2eBook-1 | Page 100

DON'T use slang, bad grammar or mis-spellings: your readers will not want to do
business with you if you lose their respect.
Finally, rules are made to be broken and the above list simplifies and generalises.
Discuss YOUR requirements with a sensible and knowledgeable web enabler, but never
forget: you are their client, and salesmanship must come before science!
Search Engines – the “Google” Effect
As we all know, there has been a revolution on how people typically look for
information in the last few years – mainly just in the last three to five years, in fact. This
is the “Google” effect. It has shaken up the travel and tourism industry particularly.
What the revolution has meant, of course, is that if you or I want to find out something,
one of the main ways we will do so – perhaps the first choice for most – is using an
internet search engine, which in practice means the internet search engine, Google.
As a result Google has become arguably the most successful new business in the history
of the world.
All this means that today, and even more so in the future and especially for younger
people, the way your potential customers will search for their B&B accommodation is
by typing a few words into Google.
This is both good and bad news for you. The good news is that this levels the playing
field to a large extent for small B&Bs, by taking away much of the marketing advantage
the big hotel groups had in the past with their big advertising budgets. A small B&B
can do as well in a Google search as a Hilton or Marriott. More good news is that this
does not have to be expensive, and may well be cheaper for the same result than “old
fashioned” print advertising. More good news is that it is instant and flexible – you
don’t have to wait until the next issue is published to run an ad, or to change your copy.
And the bad news? Everyone else is trying to do the same, too, so you have a lot of
competition for that all-important Google search result ranking.