What should a rural accommodation website have?

By G. Lara & M. Soutto

What should a rural accommodation website have?

There are forecasts of a considerable increase in overnight stays and reservations in rural accommodation. It is important that a rural accommodation has a web page with certain elements so that it can stand out and get the best results.

Tips for planning the new website of your rural accommodation business

The two main elements are the property and its surroundings. This should be well reflected on the website of the rural accommodation with quality photos and videos.

Now we have listed the sections that your rural accommodation website should have, we are going to analyze each one in detail.

1. Information about the property, history

In this section you must explain what your rural accommodation is like and tell something about its history. This will make your accommodation special for the client and memorable. You must understand that a potential client can visit many rural accommodation websites and your website will make it stand out from the rest.

You can add quality photos, a video would also be recommended. The design of the website of your rural accommodation itself must have an air that recalls or identifies your rural accommodation, either by the colors, style or typography.

You must expose all the characteristics of your rural accommodation: if it is a house, if there are several rooms, different buildings, etc. You can include an inventory (hair dryer, fireplace, etc.), rules of conduct (if pets are allowed, schedules, etc.). You can even add a subsection of frequently asked questions if your experience indicates that your clients frequently ask some questions repeatedly.

A special events section can also be useful if you usually host events like weddings, etc. and you have more associated services that you want to mention.

2. Surroundings, activities

Nowadays the activities that can be carried out in the surroundings of the rural accommodation are the central part of the trip and therefore of the choice of rural accommodation. The more variety you can offer the better: there are clients who just want to rest and others will want to carry out activities closely related to the environment (hiking, beaches, horse riding, surfing, etc.). It may even be that members of the same family require very different activities.

The activities section should be updateable through the content manager of your rural accommodation website, as it is very important that this information is as up-to-date and as complete as possible.

Adding a section of links of interest does not hurt either, and so you can collaborate with small businesses in your area that can also link you back. This section can also be updated by you through the content manager and so you will always have it ready.

3. How to find the rural accommodation

Here you can include the location with free services such as Google Maps so that your clients can calculate their route from where they will begin their route. These services offer a large amount of information such as alternative routes, toll prices, traffic information and even the time it will take to make the trip. These services use cookies, but don't worry, a professional web design service like us makes sure that your website complies with the cookie law and other laws in force on the internet.

Getting to the rural accommodation is by far the most stressful part for a new client. The more information you can provide , in addition to technology, such as places to stop to rest, eat, or places of interest along the way, the more appealing it will be to choose your rural accommodation .

You should also include information on public transportation in your area, such as the nearest airport, train and bus stations. Providing links to the websites of these facilities will also be of great help.

4. Bookings

The essential section that every rural accommodation website should have.

We can offer you to program your own reservations system so that you can directly receive and manage your online bookings and payments, direct from your own website. You can choose payment methods: PayPal, virtual POS, etc. This way you will be in control of your schedule and your prices, without having to pay commissions to reservation platforms.

Perhaps your rural accommodation is already subscribed to an online reservation system, in this case you can also include a direct link so that they can book on the platform from your website.

The important thing is that the user of the website of your rural accommodation always has the Reservation button at hand as a "call to action".

The process of checking availability and making the reservation should be easy and fast. It should work the same from all types of devices: mobile, desktop, laptop or tablet. It must be accessible for users of all technological levels. You don't want to lose customers because they don't know how to book through your website. We take care of this.

5. Testimonials, reviews, guest book

It is becoming more and more fashionable, people like and are influenced by reading about the experiences of others . You can include a system on your rural accommodation website for receiving and displaying testimonials, like a guest book, from people who have already stayed there.

We can make you a customized system, either with or without scores, with approval of testimonials before publishing on the web and easy ways to motivate your clients to tell their experience. It can be done more or less anonymously, for example, signed by Ana, or in a more extroverted way, with a photo of the Dickens family for example.

It is important that the administrator of the rural accommodation website can control the content of the testimonials in order to avoid the dreaded spam from advertising robots. You do not have to worry about this, we take care of the programming, but if you are interested you can read more in our article 3 strategies to control spam in web forms.

6. Contact

The client must always have a way to contact you through your rural accommodation's website.

It is also recommended that you include links to your social networks in order to close the digital marketing circle between the content of your social networks and your website. You can read more about this here Create your strategy to sell online.

Conclusions on what the website of a rural accommodation should have.

In this article we have reviewed the main sections that a rural accommodation website should have, it can be for a rural hotel, a rural house or a charming hotel.

The characteristics of the website itself are also very important: it must be responsive so as not to lose customers who use mobiles to browse the Internet (most of them), it must be made out of correct code and have a good vital web score to have a good organic positioning in search engines, so your potential customers can find your website.

Your website must also comply with current laws, especially if you collect customer data if you offer Online Reservations.

A professional custom web page design service, such as Ailon Webs, will help you to have all this and much more so that your business can take full advantage of the immense market that the internet offers.

There are many more ideas that can be taken into account , such as: having your website in more languages to attract foreign customers, having a small online store if you have products or souvenirs that you can sell to your clients or as a complementary business. More sections can be added to your website later, the important thing is that your business continues to grow, your customers find and book you, then they will have a great time during their stay and tell everyone all about it on your website.

Dont wait , you are one click away from starting the adventure of having a professional website for your rural accommodation, we are experienced professionals, communication is 100% online: