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get2sicily
Blog
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News
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Header
Story.
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05/03/2010 |
Updated
Local Partner Links
After a bit of PR work in early January, we have updated our local
links section of the website with some new websites and businesses
offering activities and services beneficial to our guests in the
Marausa and Trapani areas. Although the Marina is temporarily
offline, the rest now have either a website or email link to help
you research and plan the days of your holiday much more in advance
than before. All of our link partners are local businesses run
by local people who are passionate about what they do. More links
will be uploaded as the season picks up. |
04/03/2010 |
We
are now listed on the BonVon Rental Site
We have added our Villa Anna on BonVon.co.uk, which is a dynamic
but ethical rental website, run by a British family. A nifty function
is that you can create a short memorable URL for your advertisment
page instead of a long alphanumeric one. We went for 'www.bonvon.co.uk/anna'.
Click here
to see that page at BonVon. |
03/03/2010 |
Guest
Documents Now Online!
After a long build up (drum roll please) we have launched our
secure online portal for guests to download our famous exclusive
'Post Booking Literature' documents and massive archive of Tourist
Board PDF brochures and maps we have accrued over the years. We
have also added new scanned clippings from the press about Trapani
and the West in our More Information section.
All 2010 guests will have access at any time and we will no longer
have to send out multiple bulky documents in several emails. Ahhhh. |
01/03/2010 |
RyanairLettings
Listings and the Competition
We are receiving massive numbers of visitors and a healthy number
of enquiries via RL. Best of all, we are achieving a higher
than average conversion rate. Not wanting to ride this wave
alone, we have recently built friendly bridges with some of
the local 'competition' advertising on RL listings, helping
them translate their page into clearer English and promoting
a more open spirit of helpful competition whereby we can learn
from collective experience. See, we're more than just ethical!
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20/02/2010 |
Overhaul
for Villa Anna Page Content and Presentation
We are pleased to announce new photos have been added to the Villa
Anna page and the whole set are now presented as a Flash gallery
and slideshow. The text and layout plans have been updated to
reflect the revised layout inside, particularly with regard to
the first floor and we have added a totally new Villa Anna Summary
Document that prospective guests can download
for free. Villa May will get the same treatment later in the year
once rennovation works are complete. |
19/02/2010 |
Villa
Anna Exterior Maintenance 80% Completed
The garden walls and exterior of the house are undergoing their
10 year maintenance and will shortly be finished. We've taken
the opportunity to introduce 6 additional garden lights and 2
to the roof terrace, meaning you can use the garden and roof into
the wee small hours of the summer. The kitchen has now been winterproofed
and we have replaced all windows in the ground floor with lovely
new wooden units with shutters. We have added more boardgames,
DVDs and guidebooks to our library and made some modifications
to the main shower to overcome the drainage issue after heavy
use. Upstairs we have added additional internal lighting and an
extra window to the rooftop bedroom suite and will be re-arranging
the furniture soon to make better use of the accommodation. We've
also started tweaking Villa May with a view to making it ready
for rental later in the year. More news on that soon.
|
17/02/2010 |
Villa
Anna User Manual Sketches Updated
With the maintenance works well underway, we realised that some
of the sketches and pictures our post booking Villa Anna Manual
needed updating. This has meant lots of pencil sketching and perspective
drawing... and this time the 'boxset background noise'
has been supplied by the Lovely Billie Piper and Dashing Christopher
Ecclestone in Series 1 of Doctor Who. The sketches are done and
now I have to work them and the new pictures of the modified kitchen
and bathroom into a revised document. So it looks like Series
2 of Billie & the Blue Box boxset is calling me... |
| 16/02/2010 |
We
sign up to Getaway Earth Villa Rental Site
We have joined Getaway Earth, which bills itself as 'the future
of holiday rentals'. They provide a meeting place for holiday
home owners and holiday home renters with a twist. Not only can
you read about Villa Anna and see photos on their site, but you
can also read reviews of local attractions and facilities added
by previous visitors. Click here
to see our Villa Anna Getaway Earth page.
|
15/02/2010 |
RyanairLettings.com
Goes Live (and so does our new advert page)
After a short delay (down to Michael O'Leary and Ryanair), Perfect
Getaways launched their new RL site on 11th February 2010. After
just 4 days, we are pleased to announce our first two bookings
via the new portal! See our new advert on RL here.
|
10/01/2010 |
New
Publicity on Ryanair Lettings & Perfect Getaways
With the demise of the RyanairVillas website, we are pleased to
announce that we have signed up to its soon to be launched successor
'RyanairLettings'. The site will be run and managed by UK based
'Perfect Getaways' who will be showcasing our villa on their growing
number of sites throughout 2010. The future is bright. The future
is Trapani. See our new advert on PG here. |
| 28/12/2009 |
Goodbye
Unnecessary Entry Page!
We've been wondering why we had the old Entry page to the site
for several months now, and today, after feedback from some helpful
people in the business, we have decided to do away with our old
friend the 'click here to enter the site' front page. The index
page now points directly at the Welcome page and the language
selection options have been transposed onto the yellow header
beneath the existing language flags. All internal links have also
been changed. Content on the front page has changed also and will
be migrated onto the translated sites over the next few days. |
09/12/2009 |
Trapani
Region Pages Overhauled
Hot on the heels of improvements to our PDFs we have fully overhauled
the cultural and historic heritage pages of the site with revised
text and new images. While not as thorough as our post-booking
literature, additional destinations have been added - as has a
quick-reference symbol guide. Translated versions are in progress,
marking a step towards the translation of our off-line PDFs too. |
02/12/2009 |
New
Post Booking Documents Drafted
Yay! We've nearly finished overhauling and rewriting our post-booking
literature for 2010 (sample1,
sample2).
Instead of two documents we've expanded the range to include a
detailed map guide to the region's beaches; a much more comprehensive
tourist itinerary of cultural and historic heritage with pictures
and maps; a full colour guide to finding your way to and around
the villas and local area; and a essential information pack with
a helpful language guide. These documents complement our existing
information but will only be available to guests who book and
pay a deposit. It is hoped that some translated versions will
become available in the early part of 2010, depending on need. |
28/11/2009 |
18
New Flight Routes to Trapani for 2010
Ryanair announce 18 more European routes to Trapani - taking the
total to 32! Alitalia also modify schedules into Palermo from
Rome. We're taking a booking every week for next year, so don't
delay! |
17/11/2009 |
Veranda
& Kitchen Extension Plans Taking Shape
After much discussion and deliberation, we've decided on plans
to extend Villa Anna in the new year. Click here
to see sketches of the proposed changes. If approved by the Council,
works will be finished by the end of March ready for the 2010
season. |
| 16/11/2009 |
New
Mobile Web Site Launched
We have launched a brand new mini website for users of handheld
mobile internet devices. Designed to make our business accessible
to users of the mobile web, the site is in clear English and provides
basic information on what we do, where we do it and how visitors
can find out more. From paper to screen in two hours, there was
no need for a film to accompany the construction work this time
- just the music of Lily Allen! Click here
to explore the 6 page site. |
12/11/2009 |
Our
Last Guests of the 2009 Season Arrive
Our final guests of the year arrive from Malta. The season is
over and it's been an incredibly busy year! We've begun taking
bookings for next year already and are introducing improved levels
of inclusive service for the 2010 season. |
| 05/11/2009 |
6
Fully Translated European Sites Launched
After manual translation of the French and Italian pages, we used
Google to help us translate the remaining sites into basic Swedish,
Dutch, German and Maltese. We have also translated our 'How to
Book' and prices documents in to these 7 languages. Throughout
2010, the number of translated documents will increase.
|
| 07/10/2009 |
More
Positive Feedback from Guests
Our 81st and 82nd guests this year send us positive feedback
and let us know that we are getting it right!
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| 03/10/2009 |
Site
Translations Begins...
Framework of pages and navigation for translated sites complete
and tested. This time it's a selection of Roger Moore 007 movies
that play in the background while the clicking, typing and masterwork
is done...
And drags on.... (09/10/2009)
108 of the 130 foreign language pages now translated, link-checked
and 'alt-tagged'. Only 30 pages left... There's only so much of
Roger Moore's eyebrows one person can take!
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| 24/09/2009 |
New
Website Goes Live
We've done it! Fully rebuilt our website with improved navigation,
legibility and content. Unlike the 2006 redesign, this site has
been built from scratch. We've thought about what visitors want
to read, tested it on a number of people and modified it after
feedback. And we've also added a long needed search function!
Farewell old site, you served us well... |
| 15/09/2009 |
We
Pledge to (Continue to) Reduce Our Carbon Footprint
We signed up to the 10:10 campaign to reduce
our carbon footprint by 10% in 2010. We have been planting trees
on our land since 1975 and continue to do so, alongside reducing
our CO2 footprint in everything we do. We decide to build this
policy into our website redesign for all to see on our new Sustainability
page.
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| 13/09/2009 |
Building
of New Website Starts
After many weeks of scribbling on bits of paper and testing different
styles of navigation we have finalised our Website Redesign. A
fresh new look for 2010 and beyond is agreed with easier navigation,
clearer text and a search function on every page. With the basic
framework decided upon, we built the new page structure from scratch
in one long, very tedious weekend while watching all four Die
Hard movies and all three Back to the Future films...
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| 20/07/2009 |
Some
TLC For Our Website
After two months of analysing our web traffic statistics we decide
that an overhaul is long overdue (the last one was in 2006). Despite
the site being available in 8 languages, we notice that two are
never used (Portugese & Spanish) but we are getting a lot
of visits from Malta. Overall traffic has increased tenfold as
a result of advertising with Ryanair and we consider optimising
the existing site, but decide that a fresh start is what is needed.
While the existing site is gradually re-orientated away from a
static source of information about the villas, towards one that
is regularly updated and explains what a holiday in Western Sicily
has to offer, we read many HTML web-building manuals. |
23/05/2009 |
Advertising
on RyanairVillas
We decide to advertise with RyanairVillas and Euro Villas.
Within hours, site traffic shoots through the roof and we are
besieged with enquiries and bookings like never before! We revamp
our contacts page and introduce a form to make it easier for guests
to contact us from within our site. We set up auto replies and
email on our mobiles to help us respond to enquiries within two
hours. We translate the website into 7 other European languages |
get2sicily.co.uk
