Let's not get over-excited!!

OTA = Online Travel Agency, which means those sites that sell the booking and take the payment for you.
Paul Carmel
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Let's not get over-excited!!

Post by Paul Carmel »

Hang on a mo - on various other sites, eg vacationvillas.net, homelidays etc, the ads are in various languages - free of charge! As we get a lot of our bookings via holidayrentals, we too were very excited at first about the French site, but thinking about it it's actually just a french version of the existing site.

Also, I don't see how, in it's present form, it's going to actively attract french-speaking visitors.

What do you think?
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la vache!
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Post by la vache! »

Do you have to pay extra for the French ad? If so, I won't take the chance until its proven, I'd rather stick with Abritel, which is translated into 7 european languages and has brought me in lots of French (and some other nationality) bookings, plus some other 'French' specific sites which also direct customers to my website and are quite cheap/free.
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paolo
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Re: Let's not get over-excited!!

Post by paolo »

Paul Carmel wrote:Also, I don't see how, in it's present form, it's going to actively attract french-speaking visitors.

What do you think?
Why not?
Paolo
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Paul Carmel
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Post by Paul Carmel »

Susan,
At the moment they are only charging if you want them to do the translation for you - otherwise it is free for the first 12 months. After then, who knows . . .

Paolo,
When I've done several searches in English, Holiday Rentals come up high, and they also have paid ads on Google. However, I've also done several searches in French, and they don't come up at all either in the listings on the first few pages, or as paid ads on the side. So really what I'm wondering is how is a French person going to find this site (as it is at the moment)? I don't know if they are going to be advertising in the French press, for example.
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paolo
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Post by paolo »

I've also done several searches in French, and they don't come up at all either in the listings on the first few pages, or as paid ads on the side.
The organic search results they can't do anything about - a new site has to wait 6 months or more to be properly ranked by Google. Pay-per-click they should be investing in, but if I were them I wouldn't be doing it now either, I would wait till mid-winter when people are really looking for their summer accommodation.

I don't know what their thinking is on this French site, but I suspect it is a 'suck it and see' approach, without investing too heavily at the outset, especially as they are not getting any income from it for now.
Paolo
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Christine Kenyon
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Post by Christine Kenyon »

No constructive comment to make. I was just hoping to get a glimpse of an "over-excited" Seymour. I'm missing him after his summer break ......
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