New Lite Site Checklist (Essentials)
In order to create a new StayTech website, you'll need content that will help inform and sell your holiday property. Please see below for our basic content requirements and suggestions:
Homepage Content
We recommend at least three write ups of approximately 75 words/400 characters for the homepage. Don’t worry about going into too much detail in each passage, you'll want to cover as much as possible, whilst keeping it brief. Navigational menus can take the user out to the main areas of the site and links can sit within your content to go out to specific pages where you have more detail.
Homepage content (Suggestion 1)
Consider having an introductory description, possibly the first piece of content that will be read and could include a description of the business, a mission statement, your high standards, whether it is luxury/great value, the bespoke experiences you can offer, ideal for couples/families/large groups etc.
Homepage content (Suggestion 2)
If the first segment is about your service, the second should be all about the property or properties. It’s really important to include how many they sleep and the number of rooms ("Sleeps 6 in 3 bedrooms"), any standout features or descriptions of the property, whether it has a garden, is dog friendly, suitable for young children/disabled etc.
Homepage content (Suggestion 3)
The third could then be all about the area, where you boast about your unique location, state how close a walk/drive to the coast, proximity from motorways or main roads, amazing food/pubs, days out for kids/adults etc. and really sell your local area as the perfect holiday destination.
The required amount of homepage content will vary depending on the theme you are using. Other suggestions are to include testimonials or if you have a larger portfolio, to have brief introductions of each of your properties. Please keep in mind that a majority of online visitors will only skim read so you will need to be concise.
Top Tip: Make sure you are also viewing your site on a mobile, so you can prioritise the most important information into the content areas that your guests will see first.
For instructions on how to add to and amend your homepage content, please see here.
Property Page Content
StayTech makes it easy to create great looking property pages, really quickly and with minimal effort. Simply populate the required fields to shape an informative page for your guests.
Property Summary
A few sentences are needed for the overview of the Property listing itself. Essentially a blurb, outlining why a guest should stay. Similar to the homepage, but expand on its main attractions, boast about its location etc.
Features
Bullet points for the property, five of these can be highlighted as the ‘Key Features’, and help an online visitor to quickly find why it might be suitable, such as “Sleeps 4”, “Quiet Village”, “Lovely walks”. "10 minutes drive to the beach" etc.
Top Tip: The Property Summary is often occompanied with the Features listed as bullet points directly below it, so try not to repeat yoursef when populating these areas.
Full Description
The Property has a dedicated page, so feel free to go into as much detail as you like with its written description. Aim for approximately 250 words/1500 characters. Additional pages can also be linked to from here, such as ‘Things to do’ ‘Reviews’, ‘History’, ‘T’s & C’s’ etc. so make sure this description doesn't cross over too much, as dedicated pages for other topics will be more suitable, to equally keep the reader's attention and allow them to find what they are looking for if interested.
Top Tip: Through out your site, try to make sure you are not recycling written content or just copying and pasting from elsewhere. Search engines like Google know which site was the original author and will place them in a higher ranked position within search results. So try to create as much original content as possible, as this will work in your favour and not someone elses.
Gallery
Using only descriptive writing is not enough. Remember that a good picture paints a thousand words and is essential to attracting guests. You'll need good quality images of the property, both inside and out, along with images of the surrounding area to convince someone to get in touch.
