# Using the internet to get customers



## capta

I learned quickly that having a website was not the path to a season full of bookings, or even inquiries. 
At first, I built my own and tried to follow the advice available online about everything from SEOs to the color of the pages, all to no avail.
Then we had a professional build what I believe is a pretty nice site, but hits and inquiries were still way below expectations, so we started looking for a broker.
That has been where we get the majority of our customers and we feel fine about them taking whatever cut they take because we are working and not sitting around waiting for the doorbell to ring, so to speak.
We are not really in it for the money so much as the occupation. Even though I bought this boat as my retirement home/boat Nikki and I found ourselves sitting in the places we liked, too much. We needed some sort of kick in the butt to get us off ours, so we began chartering and it fit the bill for us perfectly.
We are nearly as busy as we want to be, but I am still disappointed with the return on investment from the website. So I'm wondering if any of you have found the secret to getting enough hits on your site to get the inquiries necessary to get actual customers.


----------



## sailingfool

One thing you need to do with a website is to be sure that it is well populated with any and all key words related to your business (even if their text is not visible) and spend some dedicated time with Google to get your url properly set in their search database. This can take some time andpatience.

If your url does not show in the first two or so pages when searching several of the key words, then the site won't drive much business to you.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk


----------



## RegisteredUser

Interesting post.

You have exposure and incoming biz for...say market X, via broker. 
Maybe that is the broadest market.
Are there others....for biz...or personal satisfaction...
You are probably feeling antsy... Got that urge


----------



## jeremiahblatz3

My understanding is that the web only helps the very biggest and the very niche-iest players. If you're the Moorings, everyone will link to you and everyone will find you. If you're Zanzibar Yacht Charter, everyone looking to charter a boat in Zanzibar will find you. In between, having a web site won't be super helpful. I think if you really wanted to have a go at it (which is seems like you don't), one strategy would be to find a niche (or better yet, a bunch of niches!), and try to fill those empty spaces on the web.


----------



## MacBlaze

At the risk of sound cliche, for the small players (and the big) its about "virality." You got to show up on Google et al and that's always going to be about connections. You want something to take off and have everyone talking about it. The more people who link to you, tweet/post about you, repost your url etc. the more you are going to move up the rankings. For a lot of businesses that means diving in to Pinterest/Twitter/Facebook/Instagram/Youtube and trying to get people interested in what you are posting. It's not hard but it is mucho time consuming.

I saw the other day Caroline from Boat Galley was actually hiring some help to try and get her Pinterest presence more focussed. And she has a pretty good brand as it is.

Websites just aren't much of driver anymore. They're great for giving out info once you've attracted attention but people look to the more "word of mouth" of active social media to motivate them to do things. Been there, done that with the whole website thing. It's changed so much in just eh last 5-6 years. With places like Squarespace making a website easy it becomes less and less worth it to spend the cash to have it done professionally.


----------



## capta

Thank you all for your contributions. 
It sounds like since we have neither the time nor the inclination to spend masses of time and effort networking online, our website will just be a nice place for our broker's customers to go to check out the boat and crew they have booked, for the most part.
Oh well, another computer/internet dream dashed by reality. Like that paperless world, they promised us when computers were becoming popular!


----------



## boatpoker

It's all about content. My shabby looking site in a small specialized market averages 10,000 page views per month with an average time per visitor of 2.8 minutes. about 60% of my business comes from that site.

I am no computer guru, in fact my site was built and is still updated with IBM Front Page from 1994.
There are no fancy graphics, music or video and the whole thing is text based which automatically ads hundreds of key words. You have to give people a reason to go there. I have about 100 articles and a couple of thousand photos and that's what draws the audience ... information & content! Start adding articles about whatever is relevant to your hoped for audience and before you know it you will have 20 articles and see your profile steadily rise.


----------



## Towguy

For the record ,,I found your website very informative and made me want to book a week or so with you and Nikki,( wife liked it too,,somwhat) but not the pampered trip ,the hands on learning from an experienced captain ..but you seem to have quit that style of trip,,,,just thought I would throw in my 2-bits,,,..Ralph


----------



## RobGallagher

Links to your sight via social media. Put anything and everything you can on all the big ones, (FB, Insta, Twitter, Youtube, etc.) You have to be a social media whore.

Younger people use FB for everything. I have a side hustle that uses only one of the most popular social media platforms and it keeps me about as busy as I want/choose to be (I could probably scrape by a living if I had to but I'd never get rich).

You don't want to be a social media whore, but you have to be if you want to eventually reduce the amount of work you must get from a broker.


----------



## SV Siren

When I was doing internet marketing the rule was an hour a day. Instagram and Twitter are big, and youtube as well. Younger people are not using FB so much, but then again their disposable income is not there, and they are not your market. 


We used to have our blog do an automatic feed on our website, and nowadays you can have twitter and Inst do the same thing. it changes and updates your content, making it fresh for Google. The worst thing to do is have a static website that never changes. We would also add a bunch of Google "widgets", as they used to seem to favor them on your page, and rank you higher. I am not sure if that is the case anymore.


It sounds as though you seem pretty happy with the status quo...to do more business requires much more work, and it is your decision as to whether the law of diminishing returns will have you do that work down the road. I used to be listed on page 1 of google for many search terms, and I have to tell you my gross sales went up 40-50%. In one day, when google changed their algorithm I lost 30% of my revenue in 3 months...It took me many hours, to get somewhere close to what I was...


----------



## dwedeking

I've done digital marketing for the last 20 years. As stated above you need to create buzz, a passive seo optimized page/pages aren't going to be the traffic drivers they were 10 years ago. Keyword density is one of the minor factors driving search engine results. They are now using AI to grade the performance of your site, so the more social likes, the more page views, the longer someone is on your page all play into this grade. If your starting out fresh in this arena social media plays an even larger role. The old site mentioned above has a long track record, deep content and a following which a new site will not have. On my blog I get a trickle of traffic from SEO, but heavy spikes when I post new things to social medias (about every 2 weeks). The blog is just a hobby as I'm now out of the business but old habits of walking traffic etc are hard to give up.


----------



## hellosailor

capta-
A successful web site like writing a Tom Clancy thriller these days. Anyone can do it, right?
Sadly, EVERYTHING that a clever web designer can do, to give you the #1 place in search engine hits, can be done by EVERY clever designer, so you have to play whack-a-mole constantly trying to get a step higher.
Then even worse...maybe you've heard the news, the EU and US are both running government investigations and talking about megafines because the big search engines (including Gargoyle) seem to be putting paid advertisers and other special customers in the top places--not the most popular sites, or the best ones. They haven't been using their original algorithms (which did put the most-accessed sites up top) for a long time.
If you want a high spot on a major search engine, you have to buy the key-word results and place your site as advertising. And for something like "boat charter" there's probably a lot of competition and a higher cost for the spots.
Which leaves you to come up with clever tricks. Promos with the hot YouTubers. Exploiting search terms that others might be missing. All things that can be copied, and will be if they work and push you up top. 
Depending on your web designer...the server logs for your web site should be generating a lot of information from every hit. They can be using cookies (against my religion but) they can be identifying whether your viewers are using Macs or PCs or iPhones, tying into the cookie marketing cabals to actually show the name of most guests, their demographics, and where else they have been coming from and going to. All of that is *normal* information that browsers are interrogated for.
Then you are into the job of datamining, to find out who really is looking at the site, and who is not. And comparing them with who your potential audience is. There's probably someone who can get you a list of "sailing school graduates who went to charter boats" and then also give you a list of what other web sites the same folks visit. That won't help you in the search engines, but it does tell you where to place web ads that might direct them to your site. Guaranteed there are places they visit besides the sailing forums.


----------



## Minnewaska

I look at it this way. What does a website do? One of two things....... it supplies information and/or it tries to sell something. 

In either case, the question is one of credibility. Does the random reader know you're legit? 

If you provide interesting content and update it religiously, you can obtain legitimacy over time. This is a huge effort.

The better way is via referral. If someone I trust, sends me a link to your site, it's suddenly much more legit. Particularly, if they're only one or two steps removed from anyone who's actually been on a cruise with you. That's the point of social media. You need others to be indirectly promoting your site. Setting up the social media sites (FB, IG, SC, T) isn't hard. You must have them, if you're looking to improve your web presence. It's getting prior clients and those that already know you to Like your pages, etc, that is the driver. It's best if you interact, although, you do not have to. As you note, that's time consuming. Still, just getting others to legitimize you is the best way for a static webpage to sell. Second best is constantly changing information that bring people back and understanding your expertise. Otherwise, it's just a phone book entry, with your contact info.


----------



## Yamsailor

I started a Captained sailing charter business two years ago. One of my captains is a marine marketer and has helped me ALOT. Here are a few things you can do to get business:

1) Promote on Facebook and Instagram
2) Google Adwords is a must when you are a new business. Yes it is expensive but the ROI can be very good. I achieved a 633% ROI using Google Adwords. Note, You have to spend a significant monthly amount or it won't work; Google Adwords was the source for 65% of my revenue;
3) Need to make connections with Hotels and B&Bs;
4) Need to do simple SEO;
5) Make sure you hook up Google Analytics and Facebook Pixels to your website;
6) Use on-line booking software. I use Fareharbor.
7) You have to spend a significant amount of time on 1-6, monitoring and making adjustments.

Good luck.


----------



## celenoglu

Your site does not contain enough words. Google and others are mainly searching for information on the subject. You should have more text giving information about what you are doing with the keywords inserted in the text. Keywords in the title tags and heading are more important. alt text in image tags and others help but not as much as the main text body. If these were really important for search engines, how come PDF's appear on the first search page? Increase the amount of information. Try to use pure HTML for your pages.


----------



## SanderO

capta said:


> I learned quickly that having a website was not the path to a season full of bookings, or even inquiries.
> At first, I built my own and tried to follow the advice available online about everything from SEOs to the color of the pages, all to no avail.
> Then we had a professional build what I believe is a pretty nice site, but hits and inquiries were still way below expectations, so we started looking for a broker.
> That has been where we get the majority of our customers and we feel fine about them taking whatever cut they take because we are working and not sitting around waiting for the doorbell to ring, so to speak.
> We are not really in it for the money so much as the occupation. Even though I bought this boat as my retirement home/boat Nikki and I found ourselves sitting in the places we liked, too much. We needed some sort of kick in the butt to get us off ours, so we began chartering and it fit the bill for us perfectly.
> We are nearly as busy as we want to be, but I am still disappointed with the return on investment from the website. So I'm wondering if any of you have found the secret to getting enough hits on your site to get the inquiries necessary to get actual customers.


Your website is fabulous! I am sitting here in windchill of -16°F and wishing I was on your boat humming along between the Islands. Everything on that site is first class, professional and inviting. Well done Cap!


----------



## SV Siren

I really like your website, but yes the SEO needs some help, but that is a time consuming thing to do, or an expensive thing to hire out. When I owned my business I was always told to spend an hour a day on SEO if I wanted to do really well. I added a bunch of google widgets, basically their plug ins on my website, I also had a google blog, that was automatically posted on my website, and that also was building content on my site at the same time by archiving posts, that were loaded with keywords. What I spent a lot of my time on was looking at what other competition was doing to get their site on page 1 of google. They are the only player in website driven customers...in all seriousness. At one point I had myself listed on page one of google for a number of terms, and my business skyrocketed. I was listed above all the big boy players, for my area, but then google changed their algorithm..and I dropped. Things change, and you must adapt.

I did notice that looking at your competition for just Martinique, your competitors are using https://yoast.com/wordpress/plugins/seo/ to monitor and update their webpage, as well as https://www.googletagmanager.com/ to keep their keywords and tags hidden from the competition. For "Martinique Sailing Charter" search on google, the "Dream Yacht Charter" company destination page comes up #1 and #2 locations on the free search returns.

I could go on for a long time, but in the end you will have to decide how much time and money you *really* want to put into social and network marketing.


----------



## outbound

Capta. You’re presence here suggests you are a very skilled sailor. There are people who have done the ASA and prior charters but are smart enough to know they know little about running a boat. They want to charter with the goal of having the skill set to allow ownership of a cruising boat. They want to know if the cruising lifestyle fits them before jumping in to such a major commitment. 
So another angle maybe not offering a charter experience but rather a school /lifestyle experience. Perhaps a blog/internet presence that answers the questions this sector has would feed the “school”.
(Think MaineSail). 
I’ve recruited my best crew when they know they will learn on passage. Unfortunately they then go on to buy their own boats and are no longer available to crew.


----------



## SanderO

Out makes a good point. I am not interested in chartering a vanilla bare boat and if I were to charter a larger tricked out offshore boat with a captain could be more interesting. For me it wouldn't be so much as just sailing or learning to sail or anchoring... but to experience and learn from an experienced skipper with a great boat. Capta's boat and him as skipper could interest me were I to charter down in the Islands.... but I already know he's a great sailor from reading his comments on Sailnet.


----------



## capta

I want to thank each and every one of you for your input.
Last year and the year before we were only a couple of charters shy of our goal of 20 charters, but there seems to be a huge downturn this year and we believe we need to do more than just rely on a broker.
We have made the move to trip advisor and many of our former guests will be putting a good rating in there for us, which may help.
We are also adding a second language to our site, as our pricing is specifically geared to the additional transportation costs for European clients.
However, when you only need 40 people or twenty couples, to make a successful season, it's pretty hard to seriously consider the work and expense some have mentioned above. We hardly need to be on page one of Google. But, I have to admit, I rarely go beyond the front page when I Google.
It seems we are going to seriously have to change how we do business on the web if we expect to continue in this business, and if we consider what the broker takes, it might make sense to hire someone to help us with the social networking aspect of the web, especially as we are out of internet range much of the time when we are on charter.


----------



## SanderO

Cap are your charterers first time or have they chartered before?
Are you keeping any survey data about how they found you? What was the reason they chose you and not another charter? How was the charter different than expected? Do you post reviews written or video on the site? 

It'a hard to know what is PR promo stuff and actual information these days. It's hard for a consumer to sort that out. Sometimes well written reviews are helpful... other times not.

One thing for sure these days... people use the www to find what they are looking for and trust the web to inform their decisions.


----------



## Minnewaska

Spreading the word, via social media, makes most sense for the small volume/niche operator. You need two people to each tell two people, who then tell two people, etc. It's been proven we are all under 2 degrees of separation now. 6 degrees is ancient history. 

However, this needs to be managed every day, no downtime (not all day, just every day). Eventually, someone will also post a negative comment and dealing with it timely and professionally is a serious skill. You never argue, you only offer to make happy. Everyone else will watch one's response and draw conclusions. 

Tough new way of marketing.


----------



## capta

outbound said:


> Capta. You're presence here suggests you are a very skilled sailor. There are people who have done the ASA and prior charters but are smart enough to know they know little about running a boat. They want to charter with the goal of having the skill set to allow ownership of a cruising boat. They want to know if the cruising lifestyle fits them before jumping in to such a major commitment.
> So another angle maybe not offering a charter experience but rather a school /lifestyle experience. Perhaps a blog/internet presence that answers the questions this sector has would feed the "school".
> (Think MaineSail).
> I've recruited my best crew when they know they will learn on passage. Unfortunately they then go on to buy their own boats and are no longer available to crew.


For three years we offered what we called The Cruising Experience, where folks joined us while we were cruising, as crew. They would go through everything from provisioning and clearance, to cooking (see how much fun cooking is when the kitchen is moving), washing dishes and perhaps a manufactured emergency at 3 AM or two.
Not one single interested party in all that time. So we shifted to the idea of a more pampered sailing *vacation* on which any level of involvement by our guests was welcome, keeping in mind that Skipping Stone has electric jib winches and main roller furling, which really cuts down on any human involvement. However, my button pushing finger does get tired from time to time, so it would have been good having help aboard at those times. We do have a big double handed winch handle for the 65's and should anyone wish to get that involved, especially in 25 knots of wind, I wouldn' stop them. lol
So far 95% of our passengers have not set foot on a sailing boat before and it is truly an experiment for them. Few will go on to become sailors, but some will go on to charter another sailboat (oe SS again) somewhere else. Most of the rest had a really good time but would most probably never sail again, unless it is a harbor tour.
I'm not sure going backward now when we have found such a successful niche, would be a good thing. I just need to get what we offer out there to a whole heck of a lot more people.
I'll be working with Google Ads today and see where that leads.


----------



## capta

SanderO said:


> Cap are your charterers first time or have they chartered before?
> Are you keeping any survey data about how they found you? What was the reason they chose you and not another charter? How was the charter different than expected? Do you post reviews written or video on the site?
> 
> It'a hard to know what is PR promo stuff and actual information these days. It's hard for a consumer to sort that out. Sometimes well written reviews are helpful... other times not.
> 
> One thing for sure these days... people use the www to find what they are looking for and trust the web to inform their decisions.


All but one charter in the last 3 years has come from our broker. All but one charter was Europeans and only a few will ever take this sort of vacation again. The majority of them want us to be somewhere else in the future if they come back. As mentioned above, we have begun on Trip Advisor and with 3 years of happy guests we should start out with a nice number of pretty positive reviews. My only question regarding Trip Advisor is how easy it is to find our niche on there.


----------



## Yamsailor

capta said:


> All but one charter in the last 3 years has come from our broker. All but one charter was Europeans and only a few will ever take this sort of vacation again. The majority of them want us to be somewhere else in the future if they come back. As mentioned above, we have begun on Trip Advisor and with 3 years of happy guests we should start out with a nice number of pretty positive reviews. My only question regarding Trip Advisor is how easy it is to find our niche on there.


Capita makes good points. One additional item regarding SEO versus Google Adwords:

Are you running your charters all year round or seasonally? If you are running your charters all year round it makes sense to put resources into SEO. Good SEO takes time and if you hire someone it may cost anywhere from $250-$400/month ($3000-$5000/year) for a small business. However if you run a seasonal business it may make sense to spend most of that money on CPC (Adwords) for the few months you are operating.

You have to spend a lot of time and effort on marketing for the first 5 years in order to get things going.


----------



## mbianka

Capta

I remember watching a You Tube video a few years ago. The marketing guy was surprised to find that the most traffic that came to his website was not from Google searches but, from a You Tube video he produced. You might want to try it. Seems counter intuitive but, you are not fighting for position in Google search pages with the big guys when you have a You Tube video.


----------



## SanderO

Wifey has gotten into youtubing surfing... There's a lot of content out there on all manner of subjects and some excellent with great production values and lots shabby. We often set it on some sort of auto select and it goes from one to another... when one stinks we move to another. Many are very informative. I prefer this to slick TV shows or movies. We haven't done a sailing YT series, but when she was missing sailing as the boat as laid up she found some to watch... That was a surprise. The few sailing YTs I've seen the producers are selling their experience. But a sailing YT that invites viewers to get off their sofa and smell the salt air could work.


----------



## SV Siren

Capta,

How far down the rabbit hole of SEO and internet marketing do you want to go? How much time are you willing to put into it?

As previously mentioned, for short seasonal impact, PPC(pay Per Click) is the best bang for the buck, as long as it is focused, and set max expenditures per day. I think you can also set target times for the adverts to run, which may cut out running out of money before your target audience gets online...for example running out of money before 7 AM EST here in the United States. Be careful in picking your keywords you wish to pay for, as diluted ones that are broad will not be what you want, as you will get tons of hits for a keyword that may not be exactly what your target audience might not be looking for, but will click on the link and run you out of daily funds. Google Adwords will have a very good keyword suggestion too that I highly suggest you use. It will give you the amount of traffic, and suggest alternative keywords that you may or may not want to use.

That said, if you do a bit of homework, you can then use those keywords in your text, be it TripAdvisor, blogs, facebook, and any other internet tools, and gadgets, such as Reddit.

There are a bunch, I mean a bunch of online tools that you can use. Find out what works for you, check out what keywords your competition is using. Check out using inbound link tools that you can run on other more higher profile sites for your area and business.

If you really want to go all in there is a bunch of things that you can do.

I ran a traffic report on your website, and it came back with only one visit to your website in the recent past, so I am not surprised that your business comes from your broker. That right there is not good, it means your website although it looks great, is not working for you. There is little SEO on your website, and I would highly suggest using the google keyword tool for meta-tags and keywords in the coding of your website, it is not something that is seen, it is just in the coding of your page.

First off....BEFORE you do any of the following, do your homework using the aforementioned keyword tools, if you don't you are going to waste all of your time!!!!

Here are a few links that I found for SEO of your page and what you can look into for getting a higher visibility of your website on Google.

https://www.webceo.com/blog/seo-trends-2019-infographic/ Read this, and take it to heart, there are many good suggestions that you can implement from this article. Read this link on the article as well....it is very good and features some cutting edge new to marketing suggestions.

https://backlinko.com/seo-techniques Some very good ideas on here as well. This tool in the article is a very good read: https://backlinko.com/google-rankbrain-seo

www.spyfu.com/ This tool is great to use, you can use it to test out and look into what other higher visibility websites for your business are doing and using to get their returns.

TripAdvisor.com I see your page up there, with one review..good start...beg if you have to, but get more reviews. I also noticed that in searching for things to do on tripadvisor, that you did not show up under the box for "things for couples" when doing a tripadvisor search...fix that. there are probably a few other boxes that I did not spend time on trying, but add those that may apply on your tripadvisor page. Also add more text, and use those keywords

Blogging: Spend a bunch of time doing this: Nice pictures of course, but also links to your website home page from the blog that can be clicked from each individual keyword as a link. Use your keywords a few times in each blog post. If you have a video, even better. Post on youtube and your blog, and also fill the description and text with your keywords that link to your website. Many people surf youtube, and this is a great way to get traffic to your website.

Speaking of blogging, have your webmaster install a widget that will automatically post your blog posts to your website. You might also wish to create a pinterest account, snapchat, and Instagram. I believe that you can have them linked to automatically update when you post to one, they update all of them. You can also have that on your webpage on auto-update.

Inbound links: Basically a link to your website from outside sources. They can certainly help, but they can also do damage. The links that you might wish to go after have to be Inbound links from authoritative and relevant sites that are considered of higher quality than sites with information that's not relevant to your topic. You can use google search tools on your competition to see where they are getting their incoming links from.

If you're still up for work after all that, what I have done in the past was to go after travel writers. For example near me, the Chicago Tribune has a great travel section. If you can get highlighted in a story, and let's face it, where you are at right now has a huge market, and a readership on Sundays over 850,000 people in print or digital media, who would be appealed by your charter. I hear people talking all the time at the Chicago Boat Show about the charter they are doing this winter. You can write press releases, and locate outlets for them, if they are well written travel writers and bloggers will love that and post away. Writers will sometimes need interesting and relevant things to write about, and you would be right up their alley.

A list of articles and their authirs from the Chicago Tribune website: https://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/travel/la-tr-your-next-vacation-storygallery.html

If you are still reading this, well done.

Here is a blog from one of the best marketers in the US. I know a few properties and resorts that use this company, and they have seen DRASTIC results in revenue....Read it. I know it is for a different industry, but still lodging and vacation getaways, much like your own.

https://www.whitestonemarketing.com/travel-industry-news


----------



## Yamsailor

SV Siren said:


> Capta,
> 
> How far down the rabbit hole of SEO and internet marketing do you want to go? How much time are you willing to put into it?
> 
> As previously mentioned, for short seasonal impact, PPC(pay Per Click) is the best bang for the buck, as long as it is focused, and set max expenditures per day. I think you can also set target times for the adverts to run, which may cut out running out of money before your target audience gets online...for example running out of money before 7 AM EST here in the United States. Be careful in picking your keywords you wish to pay for, as diluted ones that are broad will not be what you want, as you will get tons of hits for a keyword that may not be exactly what your target audience might not be looking for, but will click on the link and run you out of daily funds. Google Adwords will have a very good keyword suggestion too that I highly suggest you use. It will give you the amount of traffic, and suggest alternative keywords that you may or may not want to use.
> 
> That said, if you do a bit of homework, you can then use those keywords in your text, be it TripAdvisor, blogs, facebook, and any other internet tools, and gadgets, such as Reddit.
> 
> There are a bunch, I mean a bunch of online tools that you can use. Find out what works for you, check out what keywords your competition is using. Check out using inbound link tools that you can run on other more higher profile sites for your area and business.
> 
> If you really want to go all in there is a bunch of things that you can do.
> 
> I ran a traffic report on your website, and it came back with only one visit to your website in the recent past, so I am not surprised that your business comes from your broker. That right there is not good, it means your website although it looks great, is not working for you. There is little SEO on your website, and I would highly suggest using the google keyword tool for meta-tags and keywords in the coding of your website, it is not something that is seen, it is just in the coding of your page.
> 
> First off....BEFORE you do any of the following, do your homework using the aforementioned keyword tools, if you don't you are going to waste all of your time!!!!
> 
> Here are a few links that I found for SEO of your page and what you can look into for getting a higher visibility of your website on Google.
> 
> https://www.webceo.com/blog/seo-trends-2019-infographic/ Read this, and take it to heart, there are many good suggestions that you can implement from this article. Read this link on the article as well....it is very good and features some cutting edge new to marketing suggestions.
> 
> https://backlinko.com/seo-techniques Some very good ideas on here as well. This tool in the article is a very good read: https://backlinko.com/google-rankbrain-seo
> 
> www.spyfu.com/ This tool is great to use, you can use it to test out and look into what other higher visibility websites for your business are doing and using to get their returns.
> 
> TripAdvisor.com I see your page up there, with one review..good start...beg if you have to, but get more reviews. I also noticed that in searching for things to do on tripadvisor, that you did not show up under the box for "things for couples" when doing a tripadvisor search...fix that. there are probably a few other boxes that I did not spend time on trying, but add those that may apply on your tripadvisor page. Also add more text, and use those keywords
> 
> Blogging: Spend a bunch of time doing this: Nice pictures of course, but also links to your website home page from the blog that can be clicked from each individual keyword as a link. Use your keywords a few times in each blog post. If you have a video, even better. Post on youtube and your blog, and also fill the description and text with your keywords that link to your website. Many people surf youtube, and this is a great way to get traffic to your website.
> 
> Speaking of blogging, have your webmaster install a widget that will automatically post your blog posts to your website. You might also wish to create a pinterest account, snapchat, and Instagram. I believe that you can have them linked to automatically update when you post to one, they update all of them. You can also have that on your webpage on auto-update.
> 
> Inbound links: Basically a link to your website from outside sources. They can certainly help, but they can also do damage. The links that you might wish to go after have to be Inbound links from authoritative and relevant sites that are considered of higher quality than sites with information that's not relevant to your topic. You can use google search tools on your competition to see where they are getting their incoming links from.
> 
> If you are still reading this, well done.
> 
> Here is a blog from one of the best marketers in the US. I know a few properties and resorts that use this company, and they have seen DRASTIC results in revenue....Read it. I know it is for a different industry, but still lodging and vacation getaways, much like your own.
> 
> https://www.whitestonemarketing.com/travel-industry-news


WOW! Great post! When I blog, I place the blog on my website and I have it set to automatically push to Shardana's facebook page. I also boosted my latest blog post for $20 and am running it for 7 days. 3 people have signed up on my mailing list so far just from the blog post being boosted.


----------



## hellosailor

capta-
Incidentally, as a Colonial I find "Half Board Charter" and "Full Board Charter" to be confusingly meaningless. What does chartering half or all of what, a surf board? mean to me? And confused viewers often simply leave, rather than enquire. To the US customer...that's jibberish.
Also, requiring folks to have javascript--which is discouraged as a security risk--in order to send you email, is going to make many folks just walk away. Better to use a rotating disposable email address, or some other means of validation or scanning for humans. There are better ways to screen email, like telling people their email MUST contain some word, or the date, etc. in the subject line, and then setting up a whitelist/gatekeeper to pass on only that mail.
Similarly, being offshore for several days is no longer an excuse for not having email. You can have an email account set up to just forward subject lines (not whole messages) to you, and then just to send text, and pass that on through something not totally exhorbitant like InReach, so you get a heads-up and you can at least sent back a short "Got your message, at sea until Thursday, will reply then". Something, so it is quick and easy to acknowledge the customer--and still not very expensive from your end.

These days, it is very easy for a potential customer to say "this is a turn off" and simply click on the next site. You want to seduce the customer, give them no excuse to click on the next site.


----------



## KayakerChuck

I was probably the visitor to Capta's website. I spent more than one evening poking around. I'd love to spend a week soaking up skills, knowledge, and sunshine. Business woes are keeping me working.


----------



## chef2sail

I think your site is great.

I would think seriously sailing with you. As SanderO said not to learn to sail, but to pick up the profound experiences you have in the. Areas you sail in as well as the perspective of the sailing/ cruising life. 

While we have as few bareboat chartered in the Carribean, California, and San Juans I think it would be way different to charger with you. Awesome boat too. I would appreciate it more than the chlorox bottles I have chartered.


----------



## capta

Off on charter again tomorrow. I hope to return to this thread when back in the land of internet and discuss further. Thank you all for your input.


----------



## capta

A lot of changes since I was here last!
First and foremost, we now have unlimited data internet (fast internet at that) 24/7/365, if we can get telephone reception, which is at least everywhere we anchor or stop. Sometimes between islands, the phone won't work, but that's rarely more than 6 hours. Whoopie!
Next, we joined Google Adwords and boy did I not do my homework there. It has taken me about ten days to get rid of all the 'keywords" that were getting me clicks from people who would never, ever be our customers.
For instance; 
sailboat cruise Hawaii, sailing trip canary islands, sailing atlantic south africa to caribbean, sail yachts for sale in usa and my personal favorite, rent yacht company long beach city california. 
The questions I can't seem to find answers to, or I just do not understand the data, like what are the productive search hours for buyers, not just bored web browsers, and since we basically want our ads to appear from Northern Europe to Vancouver, BC, again, what the best times for that, are driving me to a few more boat drinks than normal. How can we economically advertise (either actually advertise like PPC or put the time into a social media campaign) 12 months of the year for a 7 month season that requires only 15 to 20 sales? And I think that is the really big elephant in the room. A maximum of 20 sales a year. Who else does that, and how do they do it? The web is so geared to how many and how much it seems.
Nikki is working the facebook side and I am trying to come up with a name for a blog that might be intriguing. 
But, it is really not how I want to spend my days in the tropics, on a boat, in a lovely anchorage. However, we have so much enjoyed the last 4 years of chartering, that I'm going to go at it wholeheartedly and we'll see where it goes.
Thank you all for your contributions and, though it may take some time to digest it all, I am going to pay attention to it all.


----------



## RegisteredUser

Its the net marketring.
Great if Nikki is into it.Youre lucky


----------



## capta

hellosailor said:


> capta-
> Incidentally, as a Colonial I find "Half Board Charter" and "Full Board Charter" to be confusingly meaningless. What does chartering half or all of what, a surf board? mean to me? And confused viewers often simply leave, rather than enquire. To the US customer...that's jibberish.


I don't mean to be rude, but it is my assumption that anyone preparing to pay in the neighborhood of 5 grand or more, for a sailing charter would be enough of an informed consumer and that terms like half-board and full-board would be second nature to them.
And, as a matter of fact, whoever invented the half-board idea was a true genius. Before that, all charters were all meals paid for onboard and if the customers chose to eat ashore, they were, in essence, paying double for the meal.
With half-board, the cost is less for the charter and the guests can eat a number of their meals ashore in the local eateries like Foxy's or the lobster meals prepared ashore in the Tobago Cays. A win-win for everybody!
So, as you weren't actually looking for a charter, you had no idea what these terms meant, but hopefully, anyone on my site seriously looking for a charter, will.


----------



## MarkofSeaLife

capta said:


> I don't mean to be rude, but it is my assumption that anyone preparing to pay in the neighborhood of 5 grand or more, for a sailing charter would be enough of an informed consumer and that terms like half-board and full-board would be second nature to them.
> And, as a matter of fact, whoever invented the half-board idea was a true genius. Before that, all charters were all meals paid for onboard and if the customers chose to eat ashore, they were, in essence, paying double for the meal.
> With half-board, the cost is less for the charter and the guests can eat a number of their meals ashore in the local eateries like Fox's or the lobster meals prepared ashore in the Tobago Cays. A win-win for everybody!
> So, as you weren't actually looking for a charter, you had no idea what these terms meant, but hopefully, anyone on my site seriously looking for a charter, will.


I, too, think it needs an explanation. Just a few words so different cultures are included.
I haven't heard the term for decades.


----------



## hellosailor

Capta-
As Mark said. (Thank you, Mark.)
If I was in London and we were taking the car out one night and I said to you "Pass me the torch, I need to get some ****** out of the boot" it would be perfectly sensible to you.
But in the states, it would be offensive jibberish about getting homosexuals out of something probably involving bondage or kidnapping. We'd say "Pass me the flashlight, I need to get some cigarettes out of the trunk". RADICALLY different.
Now, do you want to appeal to both audiences? And perhaps give your viewers the benefit of the doubt, that they come from different cultures and backgrounds?
The world (probably) understands that hotels are booked as "European Plan, American Plan, Modified American Plan" but the sharp folks, the ones that don't want to scare their potential customers away, will at least add an asterisk that says which of those plans includes exactly what meals. Just in case they can snag a first timer, and that kind of thing matters to first timers. 
In marketing speak it is all part of the cost of *getting* a customer, as opposed to customer retention. In many businesses, it can cost $50-200 in advertising and marketing just to gain ONE customer, and then anything you can do that costs less than that, is a better value than having to spend it all over again to find a new customer. 
Marketing can really be a black art and finding someone who really knows the details of it for your particular niche trade can be, well, like trying to find "the good witch". Some of the demographics you are looking for may be "out there" in various surveys or industry reports, but you may be able to get more of it by contacting your last 50? 100? customers and asking them if they'd mind talking to you. Questions like "How far ahead do you plan a charter?" "Why did you pick us?" By all means get granular and promise them something, whether it is a free dinner or a discount, for their time. let them know, you appreciate the time that your own surveying will take.
In terms of scheduling...that's going to depend on their country's culture and laws and their business. In the US, some businesses and companies plan out their vacation calenders after the first of the year--or some other date. They may allow anyone to ask for vacation time up to a year in advance--but pending seniority and other issues. In many corporate gigs you can just walk into HR or your boss and say "I want two weeks off next August" and maybe they'll say yes, or maybe they'll say "pending seniority". So, will I be looking six months ahead? Or ten? Depends on the society/firm I'm working in, and I'd bet northern europe and california do that differently. 
Yes, granular marketing can be a full time job! In theory, a good ad agency or broker has someone with those skills, and that information or access to it, and is worth what they charge. Sadly, often not.
Which is all part of why Gargoyle and Facebook and everyone else is trying to get incredibly granular data on every user, because their customers really do want to find "middle managers in hospitals who have been employed more than five years, married without children, own a car costing over $65,000, with at least two brokerage accounts and an Amex Black card who book at least two airline flights for two costing over $1500 and made six months in advance."
Yeah, that's all available, and the more specific you want it to be, the more they (presumably still) charge.
Most cost effective? May be to simply bring back repeat customers, and give them referral perqs.


----------



## capta

MarkofSeaLife said:


> I, too, think it needs an explanation. Just a few words so different cultures are included.
> I haven't heard the term for decades.


It's really not a 'cultural' thing. It's the same term in Tokyo, Sydney, London, Paris or Moscow, at least for anyone seriously shopping for a term charter.
But hey, if it will help I'm all for it, so we'll try to make it more definitive.


----------



## SanderO

curious here... how many of your customers are from word of mouth recommendations from former customers? Obviously the referred customer will do diligence and still wanted to me wooed... and study the web site.

Have you considered having a link where you do a post charter interview and people can read watch/listen to satisfied customers... and I would think most would be satisfied. Interviews should be informal and shot on board.

I know if I were considering staying at X hotel, resort etc. I would like to speak with someone who has been there.


----------



## MarkofSeaLife

capta said:


> But hey, if it will help I'm all for it, so we'll try to make it more definitive.


Maybe just 3 or 4 words will be enough for the penny to droP: example: "...Half Board, where you eat out at local restaurants"


----------



## capta

SanderO said:


> curious here... how many of your customers are from word of mouth recommendations from former customers? Obviously the referred customer will do diligence and still wanted to me wooed... and study the web site.
> 
> Have you considered having a link where you do a post charter interview and people can read watch/listen to satisfied customers... and I would think most would be satisfied. Interviews should be informal and shot on board.
> 
> I know if I were considering staying at X hotel, resort etc. I would like to speak with someone who has been there.


We have just added rotating reviews from former customers to the home page and started the trip advisor page.
As for word of mouth referrals, the answer is zero, which has me very bothered. We have had so many wonderful thank you emails and about 70% of our former customers are still in touch with us on a regular basis. They send pics and stories of their post Skipping Stone lives and adventures (skiing, several have done trips to Asia and Africa, etc), and even invites to visit them at home anytime, that it is hard to believe they are not genuine. But not one referral? I don't get it. Do they just not discuss the sail with their friends?
We have done everything possible to keep our prices down so that the extra transportation costs from Europe will still keep our trips affordable to Europeans, however, that hasn't helped us with Europeans or North Americans. But of course, if no one is getting to the website.....


----------



## MarkofSeaLife

capta said:


> We have had so many wonderful thank you emails and about 70% of our former customers are still in touch with us on a regular basis...


Thats great... but bloody useless. Unfortunately.

Small, lone, businesses find it very difficult to cut through the 'noise' to be heard.

I think you are doing fine by being very pro-active and searching for solutions.
Keep honing the key-words. Keep the website fresh. Rotating reviews are great. "Mention friend told you about us and get 10% off" works.
Dropping prices does not often work. People don't want a cheap vacation, they want a great vacation!

On the Search Engine stuff you are still not doing well enough:
(dont blast me for putting in the "wrong" keywords. Im putting in the ones I can think of!)
skippingstone cruises doesnt hit your Home page but goes to St. Vincent and the Grenadines and some icecream shop.
skipping stone cruises works better and you have the top 3 spots.
sailing cruises grenada doesnt work at all 
Nor does private sailing cruises grenada

Optimising search engines is very difficult and not necessarily the way you are going to get clients.

Becoming facebook friends with all your ex-guests may be a good way?

Your website main page is too busy. Put all the stuff in menus instead of having everything right there.
I cant recognise either of you from your photos. They need to be re-done so we can actually see YOU and Nikki. Not a hat, and not a blurr sailing a dinghy. You are selling a personality, 4 actually: the boat, the location, you, and Nikki so make them comfortable with you. 
Every word on the page must work - not for you, but for the reader.

I'm sorry, but the video "beating hard to windward" just scared off every woman in the world. Don't sell the Bacon, sell the SIZZLE! Get footage going downwind at sunset where everyone has a cocktail. Thats what people are buying! The dream. They can get wet at home.

Sorry, im so blunt but Im in a tearing hurry atm 

Mark


----------



## hellosailor

For that matter, if you drink the Facebook KoolAide...and have a FB page where guests can post comments about you, as well as talk to each other...

FB targeted advertising should allow your ads (not just search hits, but targeted ads) to be shown to all the "friends of friends of friends of friends" who are friended by any of your existing guests. They're more likely to either say "Isn't that the charter Sam and Ann took?" or go to your FB page and see the comments their friends posted there.


----------



## capta

MarkofSeaLife said:


> Thats great... but bloody useless. Unfortunately.
> 
> sailing cruises grenada doesnt work at all
> Nor does private sailing cruises grenada
> 
> Sorry, im so blunt but Im in a tearing hurry atm
> 
> Mark


Mark blunt is OK. 
We are trying to accent the SVG/Bequia/Tobago Cays advertising right now as our customers would have a much better trip going south than north, generally. 
We will definitely address the pics and the video; really positive suggestions we think. Thank you.
Careful of those ATMs, it may seem like free money, but it really isn't. lol


----------



## RegisteredUser

Sounds like yall are having fun with it anyway.
Nice gig.
People spending charter bucks are looking for a fun and safe escape...something exciting but doesnt create too much stress.
Its a short chapter thing in their life

You might make an effort of taking snap shots of your clients during the cruises...done the right way...and give those to them.

Its not everest but i understand why great review and word of mouth to friends has not panned out. What you offer is a leap....comitment thing when they buy in. 

Good thread....


----------



## Minnewaska

If I understand correctly, you have no return clients and no referrals. I might consider a survey of past clients to get some intel. Offer a prize or discount to anyone who completes the form. Just be careful that writing good surveys is a real science.


----------



## capta

Minnewaska said:


> If I understand correctly, you have no return clients and no referrals. I might consider a survey of past clients to get some intel. Offer a prize or discount to anyone who completes the form. Just be careful that writing good surveys is a real science.


99.9% of our customers are Europeans, and this was a once in a lifetime experience (economically and most came for a vacation in the West Indies and we were but a 4-day portion of a two week or longer total package). Some have requested to return if we moved to another area (the Leewards), which we have plans to do next year, after several inquiries and one sure booking. But as the emphasis of our advertising is the Grenadines, we must be careful to not be unavailable for what the majority of our new clients are seeking, a difficult balance.
The lack of referrals does bother me, and if you check out our Trip Advisor page, it is even odder.
Happily, whether from incorporating some of the suggestions so many of you have contributed or the Ad Words and Facebook campaigns Nikki and I have begun, we have added one charter in April and possibly one in March, already!
So, though we must admit a lot of what you all have contributed we are still trying to learn as it is such a new and difficult subject to grasp for us (Nikki is the failure of her generation computer wise, and for me please, just give me a full gale at sea instead), I thank you one and all.


----------



## Minnewaska

Sounds like you’re doing pretty well overall. If the Europeans decided to spend 4 days aboard, during a longer trip, can I assume it was planned ahead that way? Do you know how they found you and what caused them to have the confidence they displayed in their booking?


----------



## capta

Minnewaska said:


> Sounds like you're doing pretty well overall. If the Europeans decided to spend 4 days aboard, during a longer trip, can I assume it was planned ahead that way? Do you know how they found you and what caused them to have the confidence they displayed in their booking?


I'll PM you the answer.


----------



## hellosailor

Not just snapshots, but swag. I don't know what would be culturally appropriate for what parts of the EU, but in the US this could mean giving each guest a baseball cap with the skippingstones logo on it. Or a t-shirt, hoodie, whatever you can have personalized at a reasonable cost. That goes home with your happy customer, who potentially will be asked questions about it from their other friends, so you are turning them into advertising billboards (discretely) for you.


----------



## SanderO

hellosailor said:


> Not just snapshots, but swag. I don't know what would be culturally appropriate for what parts of the EU, but in the US this could mean giving each guest a baseball cap with the skippingstones logo on it. Or a t-shirt, hoodie, whatever you can have personalized at a reasonable cost. That goes home with your happy customer, who potentially will be asked questions about it from their other friends, so you are turning them into advertising billboards (discretely) for you.


I like this idea of giving guests a memento of their experience. There are so many possibilities... Logo coffee or travel mugs, key chain and things that people would use every day and have a reminder.


----------



## Minnewaska

Swag, or what I think is now referred to as Merch, is a good idea. However, I caution that it should be the highest quality stuff of its kind, or don’t bother. There is nothing worse than a giveaway that falls apart, is too small or cheap. I think that backfires on one’s brand.

T-shirts are a good idea, but you need to stock many, many sizes. Quality is important, but the dry-fit style might be most appreciated. The graphics should be obvious, but not so overdone it can’t be worn just about anywhere a T-shirt is acceptable.

As to hats...... one size fits all, does not fit all. They make adjustable hats in different sizes. You really need a normal and large version, but certainly fewer than shirts.


----------



## SanderO

Minnewaska said:


> Swag, or what I think is now referred to as Merch, is a good idea. However, I caution that it should be the highest quality stuff of its kind, or don't bother. There is nothing worse than a giveaway that falls apart, is too small or cheap. I think that backfires on one's brand.
> 
> T-shirts are a good idea, but you need to stock many, many sizes. Quality is important, but the dry-fit style might be most appreciated. The graphics should be obvious, but not so overdone it can't be worn just about anywhere a T-shirt is acceptable.
> 
> As to hats...... one size fits all, does not fit all. They make adjustable hats in different sizes. You really need a normal and large version, but certainly fewer than shirts.


I don't know the economics of these sort of gifts... but Andrew could "stock" several things that the guests can choose from. T shirts are not a bad idea, but size and quality is an issue and they are not worn except for very casual occasions where they ARE visible and good PR.

I am thinking there is little repeat business. This may be because they charter in one area which is diverse and they know well. Perhaps repeat business would happen if Stepping Stone had 3 or 4 regions they do their charters. In the end I think most people search for vacation experience on the net.


----------



## SV Siren

I must be old school as I still call branding merchandise as swag.

My reply is based on my personal experience marketing my business, take it or leave it. Swag can be great or just a disaster. I had my own swag, and it worked for me, eventually. But I did not get it right the first 10 times I tried it. 

Here's a few reasons why: I tried giving it away, this failed for several reasons;
1. it was not something that people would really keep, brochures got tossed, shirts were never really worn often, they were just plain T's, and a whole host of gifty knick knacks..did not work. I tried things that just were not tied to my branding, or had a lot of keeping appeal to my customers, they all failed, and guests would tell me they did not keep them.

What did work: I ran a high end Bed and Breakfast, catering to the foodie crowd, which is huge by the way!!!! I eventually settled on coffee mugs. I did not give them away, but sold them at an 80% profit. These were not your ordinary mugs, everyone has a cupboard full of **** mugs. My mugs were custom made for my business and were the best darn ceramic mugs out there. I can guarantee that my mugs were too cool to go in the toss pile. They had my Inn's artwork on it, along with our business name, they were gorgeous, and still to this day I use it daily, everyone loved the mugs. I SOLD sh*t-tons of them, every day, sometimes selling many to a single customer that they would give away to friends, who later made reservations. 

For you Capta, if you decide to go the swag route, find something that people will want to keep, and use/wear/display often. Something that is a conversation piece, that has your info on it, and just says "this is cool" and something I want to look into. You just have to find that niche or item that works for you. Don't give swag away, things given away often appear to have no value attached to them 'cause they got it for free.


----------



## capta

SV Siren said:


> For you Capta, if you decide to go the swag route, find something that people will want to keep, and use/wear/display often. Something that is a conversation piece, that has your info on it, and just says "this is cool" and something I want to look into. You just have to find that niche or item that works for you. Don't give swag away, things given away often appear to have no value attached to them 'cause they got it for free.


We had a professional photographer take a couple of dozen shots of the boat sailing (as on here) and if our guests have a chip, we give them the pics hoping they will show them around to their friends. I just couldn't see charging for them as they are better out there than on my computer. We also give some customers who we think will appreciate them the limited edition painted one EC$ coins, which are becoming quite rare now. 
Cups sound like a good idea and we may look into them. I'd appreciate seeing what you had, why it was special and who could make us some, perhaps ours with a pic of the boat on them?
But honestly, when one has a business that seeks only 20 sales per year, it is hard to justify the advertising schemes and expenditures that businesses selling hundreds to millions of their products use. I doubt your B&B would have done well on 40 guests a year.
We don't have a lot of competition, as most boats will cram on as many guests as they can, while we only take two, giving a more personal and private touch with better service, in our opinion. Should two couples wish to sail together, we can offer another boat at the same price, so nothing is lost. We are not prepared to deal with children (a long story from many, many years in the business), so family vacations aren't our thing. A romantic sailing vacation for two. That's us in a nutshell. 
So, we are attempting to walk the razor's edge and have the business survive. If it doesn't, well, we will miss it as we consider it more fun than a barrel of monkeys to give folks a great sailing vacation, but we won't be in dire financial straights and since we aren't in debt we will be fine.
Thanks again for your suggestions.


----------



## SanderO

Speaking for me only! We attend ballet and they have a small stall where they sell ballet memorabilia. I bought some mugs for home and for the boat which has delightful little line drawings of 6 or 7 ballerinas (from that date)... I love these mugs and drink my morning coffee every day from one and I do think of ballet when I see it and people who I serve coffee in them comment as well. Practical and conversation starter.. I can visualize a mug with blue sea on the bottom with Stepping Stones sailing and the name on the opposite side or something. A baseball cap is also practical... for sailing whatever...I don't think this has to be spendy. You can order stuff from your artwork online.


----------



## MacBlaze

capta said:


> We had a professional photographer take a couple of dozen shots of the boat sailing (as on here) and if our guests have a chip, we give them the pics hoping they will show them around to their friends. I just couldn't see charging for them as they are better out there than on my computer. We also give some customers who we think will appreciate them the limited edition painted one EC$ coins, which are becoming quite rare now.
> Cups sound like a good idea and we may look into them. I'd appreciate seeing what you had, why it was special and who could make us some, perhaps ours with a pic of the boat on them?


I don't know if these are a good idea or not, but I got 4 of them when I first chartered 5 years ago and I see it every morning when I take my coffee to my desk


----------



## Zahabiya01

One thing you should make sure that your site is properly optimised and user-friendly. You need to have user-friendly URLs and your websites listed on social media.


----------



## hellosailor

In the States, "swag" is not "merch". Merch is the UK? or just young? way of saying "mechandise", the stuff that you sell, that is branded.

Swag really got into the vocabulary with things like the Emmy Awards, when folks would pick up a shopping bag that literally had things like an iPhone in it. The idea being, give it to the stars, it will generate good pr for your brand. Way pricier or more unique (special editions) than "the stuff we sell on our web site".

Kinda like the difference between a fine single malt, and bar well scotch.

One of the more interesting things I've seen lately are stainless steel doublewall wine glasses. They're not the only heavy camping gear, and if you drop them on a hard surface, the dimple in the stainless ain't gonna come out. But, they're quite durable and they don't sweat in the heat.

I think travel mugs are overdone at this point, although there are some nice ones that really are spillproof, double insulated, metal, that would probably replace the ones your guests had at home.

And there are also a number of interesting LED minilights, keychain lights that are USB rechargeable with incredible brightness, again, metal, brand names. People tend to keep those, unlike the usual "promo" plastic jobs.

And speaking of giving them picture files? Pony up. USB drives are DIRT CHEAP. Give them a small metal USB drive, the kind you can hang on a keychain. Include the keychain or loop, preload the sticks with their photos, AND you current "brochure". So if they want to show someone pictures of their vacation, there they are. On the flash drive you gave them--with your logo on it, one hopes.

But promo and premium companies can all give you ideas and prices.

Only catering to couples is going to pretty much cut your market to less than half of the overall market, where something like 50% have dogs and a similar number have kids. It could mean targeting "Send the kids to camp and take a week for yourself" or some other strategy targeted at people who are "just" couples.

Or partnering with that other boat and advertising together, if you both are looking for the same markets.

If you're just in one area, and return customers may want to see other places, that could mean splitting your season, offering trips "here" for two months, then "there" for two months, and changing that second area every year, to give repeaters something new each year. Plus, the "repositioning" cruise.(G)


----------



## capta

hellosailor said:


> Only catering to couples is going to pretty much cut your market to less than half of the overall market, where something like 50% have dogs and a similar number have kids. It could mean targeting "Send the kids to camp and take a week for yourself" or some other strategy targeted at people who are "just" couples.
> If you're just in one area, and return customers may want to see other places, that could mean splitting your season, offering trips "here" for two months, then "there" for two months, and changing that second area every year, to give repeaters something new each year. Plus, the "repositioning" cruise.(G)


I really appreciate the time and effort you are putting into your responses, but losing 50% of the market doesn't really bother me when I'm only seeking 20 charters a year. I started chartering in the early '70s and I'm not even slightly interested in the dynamics of a family with children aboard a small boat for a week, especially when the boat is my home, not a vessel specifically laid out and used exclusively for charter, that I'm operating for an owner.
The repositioning thing has already been discussed, but suffice to say, our 'niche' is at this point quite unique, so I don't see a lot of value in spending a lot of time in places saturated with charter boats, like the Virgins and Leewards, and where there is very stiff competition. We will, of course, make any effort we can to accommodate former guests wherever, but I wonder if losing even a quarter of our season by being unavailable for our niche could ruin our whole business. It is a delicate balance.
That would be like a day boat having a minimum number of passengers to go out and not adhering to their advertised schedule. Just being seen out on the water, even with only two aboard, is better advertising than canceling trips on which you might lose money.
And speaking of pets, my wife would absolutely *love* a 'warm & furry' aboard, but that alone can limit your customers by a lot more than 50%, and that's not a 50% I'm willing to lose!


----------



## SanderO

capta said:


> ......
> The repositioning thing has already been discussed, but suffice to say, our 'niche' is at this point quite unique, so I don't see a lot of value in spending a lot of time in places like the Virgins and Leewards, where there is very stiff competition. We will, of course, make any effort we can to accommodate former guests wherever, but I wonder if losing even a quarter of our season by being unavailable for our niche could ruin our whole business. It is a delicate balance.


It's not a long sail to say do a charter from Des Hais down to St Bequi

Or St Martin to Antiqua

or the VIs

You can offer a few location package alternative location. I don't see this as anything but making you MORE competitive.


----------



## capta

SanderO said:


> It's not a long sail to say do a charter from Des Hais down to St Bequi
> 
> Or St Martin to Antiqua
> or the VIs
> You can offer a few location package alternative location. I don't see this as anything but making you MORE competitive.


I'm afraid you aren't considering the wear and tear on the boat of what you suggest when Christmas Winds are blowing. In the 7 years I've been down here this time, we have had Christmas Winds extend all the way through April one year and last considerably longer than the two weeks of yesteryear, most years. Charter boat regulations in the BVI have become nearly prohibitively restrictive and expensive there and I really don't think they are a tenth as interesting or as much fun to sail as the Grenadines. They are also probably *the* the most congested and overpopulated islands anywhere as far as charter boats are concerned. They are no longer even a remote possibility for a charter boat that is not based there full time. 
At a certain point bashing across channels in 30 to 35 knots of winds in the Leewards is not a commercially profitable endeavor, especially when there is so much established competition up that way, for one or two charters, costing me three or four down here.
We considered all these options carefully when we began chartering and found our niche to be the most acceptable option. We actually are available anywhere in the Antilles, but the relocation fee (an industry standard like a one-way bareboat trip) is rather stiff for a single charter.
Still, it's just not all that simple. There are charter boat licensing fees (not even slightly cheap: SVG over us$500.00 per season) as well as travel time to consider and even the cost of groceries and liquor are much different in each area, changing the costs of the charters significantly.
At present, if we were to begin a charter in St Lucia (which we do) groceries and liquor are about 20% higher, reducing our profitability. Adding overnight sails in Christmas Winds to a vacation for folks who have never set foot aboard a boat before, except perhaps the occasional ferry, isn't the best route to happy customers. 
It isn't as though we haven't given all these things a lot of thought. Before we hung out our "shingle" we had 5 round trips from Grenada to StT. We checked out the regs, customs/immigration fees, park fees, costs of provisions (we have receipts from every market we shopped at), anchorages and length of travel between anchorages, etc. before we slipped into our present niche.
I know I'm sounding a bit argumentative, but there are areas where we either can't work (like the Franch Islands) or we are just not well enough established to actually offer the exceptional vacation we can here. And that is what we seek to offer; the exceptional. At least 75% of our days on charter, we are not sailing with other boats going in the same direction at the same time. We sail through the reefs right up to the cut in the Tobago Cays whenever possible, not dropping our gear outside and powering in, as 99% of the other boats do.
As for Deshaies (a favorite of ours), Guadeloupe (way, way far from the airport), to Bequia, about 200 nautical miles, that is a whole lot of sailing (including 4 channel crossings) for folks looking for a relaxing vacation on a boat.
Again thank you for the suggestions and we will make every effort to use those that we think will help us.


----------



## mbianka

capta said:


> It is a delicate balance.
> That would be like a day boat having a minimum number of passengers to go out and not adhering to their advertised schedule. Just being seen out on the water, even with only two aboard, is better advertising than canceling trips on which you might lose money.
> And speaking of pets, my wife would absolutely *love* a 'warm & furry' aboard, but that alone can limit your customers by a lot more than 50%, and that's not a 50% I'm willing to lose!


Your boat ideally should be marketing for you weather you are on a charter or not. When I was docked at Chelsea Piers in New York back in the 90s. There was a fellow who had started a sailing school and kept his four J boats docked next to mine on the outside dock on the river. Very few people walking the docks would see them out there. I suggested to him that he should move them inside the marina right in front of the outdoor brewery/restaurant. His boat's would have high visibility there and would be advertising his school to all the restaurant patrons. He never took my advice and was out of business in a year and a half. Seemed like common sense to me.

Agree about the no pet rule. Seeing any furry animal on board makes that boat a no go for our charter considerations.


----------



## SanderO

capta said:


> I'm afraid you aren't considering the wear and tear on the boat of what you suggest when Christmas Winds are blowing. In the 7 years I've been down here this time, we have had Christmas Winds extend all the way through April one year and last considerably longer than the two weeks of yesteryear, most years. Charter boat regulations in the BVI have become nearly prohibitively restrictive and expensive there and I really don't think they are a tenth as interesting or as much fun to sail as the Grenadines. They are also probably *the* the most congested and overpopulated islands anywhere as far as charter boats are concerned. They are no longer even a remote possibility for a charter boat that is not based there full time.
> At a certain point bashing across channels in 30 to 35 knots of winds in the Leewards is not a commercially profitable endeavor, especially when there is so much established competition up that way, for one or two charters, costing me three or four down here.
> We considered all these options carefully when we began chartering and found our niche to be the most acceptable option. We actually are available anywhere in the Antilles, but the relocation fee (an industry standard like a one-way bareboat trip) is rather stiff for a single charter.
> Still, it's just not all that simple. There are charter boat licensing fees (not even slightly cheap: SVG over us$500.00 per season) as well as travel time to consider and even the cost of groceries and liquor are much different in each area, changing the costs of the charters significantly.
> At present, if we were to begin a charter in St Lucia (which we do) groceries and liquor are about 20% higher, reducing our profitability. Adding overnight sails in Christmas Winds to a vacation for folks who have never set foot aboard a boat before, except perhaps the occasional ferry, isn't the best route to happy customers.
> It isn't as though we haven't given all these things a lot of thought. Before we hung out our "shingle" we had 5 round trips from Grenada to StT. We checked out the regs, customs/immigration fees, park fees, costs of provisions (we have receipts from every market we shopped at), anchorages and length of travel between anchorages, etc. before we slipped into our present niche.
> I know I'm sounding a bit argumentative, but there are areas where we either can't work (like the Franch Islands) or we are just not well enough established to actually offer the exceptional vacation we can here. And that is what we seek to offer; the exceptional. At least 75% of our days on charter, we are not sailing with other boats going in the same direction at the same time. We sail through the reefs right up to the cut in the Tobago Cays whenever possible, not dropping our gear outside and powering in, as 99% of the other boats do.
> As for Deshaies (a favorite of ours), Guadeloupe (way, way far from the airport), to Bequia, about 200 nautical miles, that is a whole lot of sailing (including 4 channel crossings) for folks looking for a relaxing vacation on a boat.
> Again thank you for the suggestions and we will make every effort to use those that we think will help us.


Andrew I get it and was somewhat aware of these barriers. I don't know your business and my suggestion presumes decent sailing conditions and flexible customers.

You can and should adjust your fees for the area your are chartering... and hell no leave the BVI to the others. I only sailed thru them and spent my first honeymoon on Tortola before I sailed much at all and I have no desire to be sailing there.

My suggestion was more in the spirit of offering more choice to your customers. And no I don't expect you to make long sails up or down island to do a charter... like a yo yo.

I was unaware that you couldn't anchor in a French Island without paying large fees.


----------



## capta

SanderO said:


> I was unaware that you couldn't anchor in a French Island without paying large fees.


You misunderstood. Other than St Barths, the French Islands are very cheap for cruising and transit fees, but unless you are an EU citizen you absolutely cannot work there. They do not take at all kindly to that and never have.
As La Marin is the biggest yachting center anywhere in the Caribbean, with marina docks filled to the brim with charter boats, bareboat and term charter, it is a very hard market to break into, even if you are an EU citizen.
Most who come to the Caribbean can do fairly well until they run out of friends and family, then it's a very difficult row to hoe. We've been amazingly lucky since we have neither. Again, thanks and keep the ideas coming. We have taken quite a few seriously and are hoping they will help.
We are now researching Pinterest and Twitter, but man is that a foreign language and hard to understand.
We'd trade a charter for a strong internet marketing presence, but so far no takers.


----------



## capta

mbianka said:


> Your boat ideally should be marketing for you weather you are on a charter or not. When I was docked at Chelsea Piers in New York back in the 90s. There was a fellow who had started a sailing school and kept his four J boats docked next to mine on the outside dock on the river. Very few people walking the docks would see them out there. I suggested to him that he should move them inside the marina right in front of the outdoor brewery/restaurant. His boat's would have high visibility there and would be advertising his school to all the restaurant patrons. He never took my advice and was out of business in a year and a half. Seemed like common sense to me.
> 
> Agree about the no pet rule. Seeing any furry animal on board makes that boat a no go for our charter considerations.


Walk-ons are almost unheard of on term charter or even bare boats. When folks lay out a couple of grand on flights and hotels, there is rarely a way to get out of the hotel reservations for a few days of sailing.
What most folks do not realize, without a bunch of paperwork and permits you cannot take passengers on your boat if you do not leave the country. Even in the states, a foreign flag vessel cannot do coastwise trade. This means any non-American registered boat must take their passengers to the Bahamas or Canada (and clear in and out) before returning to the states with their customers.


----------



## SanderO

I was aware that the French Islands are closed to non citizens working there and St Barts is very spendy. I spent a lot of time anchored in St Bart, Iles de Saintes, Pointe a Pitre and Martiniique and a bit of St Martine. I loved all the French Islands... ashore

Perhaps the winds were more reliable and somewhat more tame in the 90s when I lived down there.


----------



## RegisteredUser

Am i the only one who thinks capta has a pretty good handle on his biz and just wants to make better use of the Net?
Low competition....gimme that bronze ring...


----------



## SV Siren

RegisteredUser said:


> Am I the only one who thinks capta has a pretty good handle on his biz and just wants to make better use of the Net?


There might not be as much competition locally for them, but the internet competition is fierce, and if Google does not place your website high it will kill any business that is forced to reply on internet bookings to survive. I've seen my reservations drop over the course of one day due to Google changing their algorithm and moving my website lower after I finally got it to page 1 with a lot of work.


----------



## mbianka

SV Siren said:


> There might not be as much competition locally for them, but the internet competition is fierce, and if Google does not place your website high it will kill any business that is forced to reply on internet bookings to survive. I've seen my reservations drop over the course of one day due to Google changing their algorithm and moving my website lower after I finally got it to page 1 with a lot of work.


I have switched to Duck Duck Go https://duckduckgo.com/as my primary search engine for a number of reasons and do not miss Google or their company policies. You might try to do a search on their site and see if you reach higher in the search results compared to Google. IMO Google and others like Patreon need some good competition in the market place. They are starting to appear and should be promoted.


----------



## capta

mbianka said:


> I have switched to Duck Duck Go https://duckduckgo.com/as my primary search engine for a number of reasons and do not miss Google or their company policies. You might try to do a search on their site and see if you reach higher in the search results compared to Google. IMO Google and others like Patreon need some good competition in the market place. They are starting to appear and should be promoted.


As much as it might be fun to imagine a business seeking an internet presence could survive w/o Google, the 2018 facts just don't support it.
world wide;
1) Google. Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors: 1.6 billion. ...
2) Bing. Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors: 400 million. ...
3) Yahoo. Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors: 300 million. ...
4) Ask. Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors: 245 million. ...
5) Aol Search. Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors: 125 million. ... 
Europe;
•	Google 92%
•	Bing 5%
•	Yahoo 1%
•	DuckDuckGo 0.6%
•	Yandex 0.2%
But thanks.


----------



## Minnesail

mbianka said:


> I have switched to Duck Duck Go https://duckduckgo.com/as my primary search engine for a number of reasons and do not miss Google or their company policies. You might try to do a search on their site and see if you reach higher in the search results compared to Google. IMO Google and others like Patreon need some good competition in the market place. They are starting to appear and should be promoted.


This is drifting a bit, but: I've tried some tests with Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, and Google, and Google was clearly better than the rest.

I tested using sailing terms and Google more frequently had a result on the first page that gave me the answer I was looking for. The rest seemed to favor commercial pages over informational pages.

For most of the tests I used normal search terms, but at the end I went off the rails a bit and entered:
that one guy on ST:TNG who goes on to be superhuman or a god or something

Google's first result gave me the answer, the character was Barclay and the episode was "The Nth Degree." None of the other search engines came up with a page with the answer.

Regarding Andrew's webpage, I think I would put in some good interior pictures. Since a lot of his customer haven't been sailing before they might not have any idea what the accommodations are like. Good professional (ahem, wide angle bordering on fisheye) pictures would do a lot to reassure people that they'll be spending a week in luxury, not cramped before the mast in a Master and Commander situation.


----------



## mbianka

capta said:


> Walk-ons are almost unheard of on term charter or even bare boats. When folks lay out a couple of grand on flights and hotels, there is rarely a way to get out of the hotel reservations for a few days of sailing.
> What most folks do not realize, without a bunch of paperwork and permits you cannot take passengers on your boat if you do not leave the country. Even in the states, a foreign flag vessel cannot do coastwise trade. This means any non-American registered boat must take their passengers to the Bahamas or Canada (and clear in and out) before returning to the states with their customers.


My point was the fellow did not see the opportunity that his boats could help sell his Sailing School services while just sitting at the dock. Not as walk ons but, might have gotten people sitting at the restaurant thinking about taking lessons. Likewise when we just chartered in the Maldives the boats sail cover had the name of the charter company in big letters. A few "cattle boats" doing snorkeling trips would pass by perhaps sparking some interest from some of the passengers who then would turn to an Internet search for a possible future charter.


----------



## mbianka

Minnesail said:


> Regarding Andrew's webpage, I think I would put in some good interior pictures. Since a lot of his customer haven't been sailing before they might not have any idea what the accommodations are like. Good professional (ahem, wide angle bordering on fisheye) pictures would do a lot to reassure people that they'll be spending a week in luxury, not cramped before the mast in a Master and Commander situation.


We've done over twenty five charters over the years and one thing that is critical is a picture of the boats boarding ladder. It has to meet my gals approval for ease of boarding since snorkeling is the primary reason for doing the charter. We often have to ask for a photo as many boats rarely will show it on their webpage. They do however often show those lovely interior shots of the main cabin which we rarely ever use as we spend most of our time including having all meals in the cockpit.


----------



## hellosailor

When the population of Red China was merely one billion, they had a saying:
"If you are one in a thousand, there are 999 others just waiting to replace you."

Literally, one thousand fungible replacements for every position.

And it is the same way with Gargoyle and the other internet search engines. Anything that anyone can do to make their page number one? Anyone else can do, and unless you've got the time and resources to constantly rework your page, it will float and and down depending simply on who is fastest at gaming the algorithms.

In the very early days, supposedly Google ranked a page largely by how many people had visited it, by how popular it was. Which made it of limited use as a research tool, because the results were always a popularity game--not one designed to give you the best sources of information. Very different from today.

So realistically, you can either try to buy very precise ad words (unlike the Target store chain, which apparently buys everything and then when you click on a link, promptly says "There's nothing like that in our stores" more often than not) or else keep trying to chase the algorithms. With paid help, or as a hobby (beats stamp collecting?), or simply as an Augean task. 

Maybe Capta would at least have more fun if he hired out the Goodyear blimp? (G)


----------



## Yamsailor

I agree with your assessment regarding interior photos. I am working on it this spring.

"Regarding Andrew’s webpage, I think I would put in some good interior pictures. Since a lot of his customer haven’t been sailing before they might not have any idea what the accommodations are like. Good professional (ahem, wide angle bordering on fisheye) pictures would do a lot to reassure people that they’ll be spending a week in luxury, not cramped before the mast in a Master and Commander situation."


----------



## Zahabiya01

Wow! Thanks for sharing these facts. Many of us didn't know how much traffic does other search engines get.


----------



## Zahabiya01

There are no. of ways to get thousands of hits on your site.
1. Your content should be the most attractive one.
2. Promote your content through blog posts.
3. Reply to those comments regularly and in a polite way.
Build Backlinks so that Google places your site in higher positions. You can do that through Web 2.0, Business Listing, Image Submission, etc..


----------



## Zahabiya01

Hey I have found an amazing website (Commercial message removed in accordance with SailNet Forum Rules- Jeff_H SailNet Moderator)


----------



## Yamsailor

Yamsailor said:


> I agree with your assessment regarding interior photos. I am working on it this spring.
> 
> "Regarding Andrew's webpage, I think I would put in some good interior pictures. Since a lot of his customer haven't been sailing before they might not have any idea what the accommodations are like. Good professional (ahem, wide angle bordering on fisheye) pictures would do a lot to reassure people that they'll be spending a week in luxury, not cramped before the mast in a Master and Commander situation."


Does anyone know if an IPHONE X will give you great hi res photos versus a camera. I have an iPhone X and either I am doing something wrong or I need to use a proper camera for great photos to put on a website.


----------



## hellosailor

Most high end smartphones can give you excellent photos. There's a Youtube by Tony & Chelsea Northrup that goes into the detail of how and why smartphones have destroyed the low-end camera business.

Question is, if that phone will give you the effective focal length you need (wide angle?) to get proper shots inside the boat. A "prosumer" camera with a wide zoom range *might* do a better job for you. The image quality itself usually will not be the issue, a lot of that depends on whether you are actually PRINTING or just using digital pix on the web. There are a lot of videos online about the issues that get involved. For instance, pictures on a web site will generally be low resolution, low tonal range, low color range, compared to high quality print. But, they can still be excellent photos. You may want to tweak them (using Lightroom or other software) before posting them, and you can't really be sure of how they will look--unless you know the monitor that the potential customer is using to see them, ha. But at least if you know that your monitor is "as good if not better" than average, you'll probably be in the ballpark.
Like sailing--it looks easy, but some folks do it better than others. It might be worth doing a little bartering with a pro photographer, let them get shots of you and the boat, and be sure they are done professionally. Which also lets customers see you working the boat, whether that's a still or short video clip.


----------



## Yamsailor

hellosailor said:


> Most high end smartphones can give you excellent photos. There's a Youtube by Tony & Chelsea Northrup that goes into the detail of how and why smartphones have destroyed the low-end camera business.
> 
> Question is, if that phone will give you the effective focal length you need (wide angle?) to get proper shots inside the boat. A "prosumer" camera with a wide zoom range *might* do a better job for you. The image quality itself usually will not be the issue, a lot of that depends on whether you are actually PRINTING or just using digital pix on the web. There are a lot of videos online about the issues that get involved. For instance, pictures on a web site will generally be low resolution, low tonal range, low color range, compared to high quality print. But, they can still be excellent photos. You may want to tweak them (using Lightroom or other software) before posting them, and you can't really be sure of how they will look--unless you know the monitor that the potential customer is using to see them, ha. But at least if you know that your monitor is "as good if not better" than average, you'll probably be in the ballpark.
> Like sailing--it looks easy, but some folks do it better than others. It might be worth doing a little bartering with a pro photographer, let them get shots of you and the boat, and be sure they are done professionally. Which also lets customers see you working the boat, whether that's a still or short video clip.


Thank you for the advice! Makes a lot of sense!


----------



## hellosailor

Coincidentally, last night, I came across "the" apparently original definition of "swag", which I couldn't find on any internet fictionary. Someone who was naively working at a club run by an alleged New Jersey mobster mentioned that they were amazed at the bargains they could get, until someone else explained to them (this being in the early 60's) that everything was swag. Meaning, "stolen without a gun".

Not the same as the lavish gift baskets given out at Hollywood galas, but very much the same spirit: Stuff you ain't getting a chance to buy, you're getting a steal on it. Like, free.


FWIW.

Curious how sometimes the oddest sources come out to answer odd questions.


----------



## Minnesail

hellosailor said:


> Someone who was naively working at a club run by an alleged New Jersey mobster mentioned that they were amazed at the bargains they could get, until someone else explained to them (this being in the early 60's) that everything was swag. Meaning, "stolen without a gun".


Cutesy acronym etymologies are almost always incorrect. Posh never meant Port Outbound Starboard Home, F*ck never meant For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, and I don't think Swag was ever Stolen Without A Gun.

Snopes debunked another origin of Swag - Secretly We Are Gay - and mentions the the gun one also. Both Snopes and Merriam-Webster say that it came from the old Scandinavian word "svagga."

swag

Did the Word 'Swag' Originate as an Acronym?


----------



## capta

Minnesail said:


> Cutesy acronym etymologies are almost always incorrect. Posh never meant Port Outbound Starboard Home, F*ck never meant For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, and I don't think Swag was ever Stolen Without A Gun.
> 
> Snopes debunked another origin of Swag - Secretly We Are Gay - and mentions the the gun one also. Both Snopes and Merriam-Webster say that it came from the old Scandinavian word "svagga."
> 
> swag
> 
> Did the Word 'Swag' Originate as an Acronym?


Go-oly. 
Another one of my childhood 'truisms' gone forever.
Plymouth Rock was where the Pilgrims first landed, the T-rex was the biggest and baddest dino and Columbus was the first white guy to 'discover' America.
Can't an old guy go to his grave believing anything he was taught in grammar school?


----------



## Yamsailor

Back to the original post. I have not yet started my Google AdWords campaign yet people are starting to find me on the internet search. I guess my minimal SEO is starting to pay off. The is going to be ny 2nd full year.


----------



## wharris

WordPress is the best platform to make a website and there are very easy guide for learning wordpress and get your business online.


----------



## capta

wharris said:


> WordPress is the best platform to make a website and there are very easy guide for learning wordpress and get your business online.


Thanks. We've got a pretty good website I think, it's just getting people to it.


----------



## SanderO

capta said:


> Thanks. We've got a pretty good website I think, it's just getting people to it.


There are SEOs... search engine optimazations... read up on it here... maybe you will find help.









SEO Starter Guide: The Basics | Google Search Central | Documentation | Google Developers


A knowledge of basic SEO can have a noticeable impact. Explore the Google SEO starter guide for an overview of search engine optimization essentials.




support.google.com


----------



## capta

SanderO said:


> There are SEOs... search engine optimazations... read up on it here... maybe you will find help.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> SEO Starter Guide: The Basics | Google Search Central | Documentation | Google Developers
> 
> 
> A knowledge of basic SEO can have a noticeable impact. Explore the Google SEO starter guide for an overview of search engine optimization essentials.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> support.google.com


Well, obviously this thread is pretty old and we aren't yet even booking charters for NEXT season, so thanks for the new ideas. We have hired a media company to deal with getting the word out there when the time come, so we'll see.
I tried google ads and found out very quickly that if you aren't 100% specific about your target audience, you will definately get plenty of traffic , but from folks with no interest in what you are selling. "Caribbean yacht charters" not ony brought me many catamaran seekers, but yacht brokers from Fla and charter inquiries for Indonesia. It cost me a pretty penny to learn that one, but once I did, I got much less traffic (less cost) but more over all sales (sails).


----------



## Yamsailor

I have had no problem getting people to my website. I do very little SEO because I am seasonal (ie, Summer only). I have had success with adwords and with marketing person creating a consistent message,


----------



## capta

Jonathan Bennett said:


> I would advise you to use the keyword grouping tool you have already selected in order to optimize your site even more successfully for search queries. It helped me a lot when promoting my own site.


"keyword grouping tool you have already selected" Since I don't know what that is, I guess I selected it by accident. So, how do I select it not by accident?


----------



## capta

Jonathan Bennett said:


> I meant that you have already selected the keywords, and then you should group them with a special tool for better optimization. Sorry for not expressing my opinion correctly.


It's not about your opinion, it is about my ignorance when it comes to computers. Thanks for the input.


----------



## celil8593

That is a great idea. You should definitely think about it!
I bet there are other markets out there for trading stocks, aren't they? And even if this one doesn't work out you will always have your passion and creativity which can be used to do whatever else in life that makes YOU happy."


----------



## capta

celil8593 said:


> That is a great idea. You should definitely think about it!
> I bet there are other markets out there for trading stocks, aren't they? And even if this one doesn't work out you will always have your passion and creativity which can be used to do whatever else in life that makes YOU happy."


Happy is now a relative term. Covid killed our business overnight, literally. I've been forced to move ashore for medical and financial reasons, slips here in New England being so outrageously priced, and mooring out being unreasonable, at least half the year.
I've been a liveaboard, in one fashion or another, since 1969 and I could never have imagined that moving ashore would be in my future. But, as one of my bands sang, "Changes (Changes), Changes (Changes) Rearranging things to bring me down." If you catch a Jack Crevalle, make a curry.


----------

