Buddy Web Design

Having website traffic does not automatically guarentee you will get new clients or make money directly from a website. For a few years I have been having two hobby websites . One of the websites is a website about the Kruger National Park and another website is about Kalk Bay in Cape Town.

I love both of these places and have spend quite a bit of time in both. Both are international and local tourism destinations.

www.kalk-bay.mobi and www.mykrugerpark.mobi

Tourism must be one of the most competive industries so I was pleased when both of these websites did generate some traffic . Both of these websites are information websites. Usually these kinds of websites are monetised via selling advertising space or charging commsision per booking with accommodation establishments.

My competion is this arena are extremely popular and established websites like Safari Now, Where to stay, Cape Stay , Kruger Park. These companies have been around for years and most employ full time copy writers.

So what have I set out to do differently with these two websites?

The website about Kruger is written primarily in Afrikaans. We now have a new website that also exclusively provides information in Afrikaans on accommodation in South Africa namely Lekkeslaap.co.za . More are expected to follow. I know for a fact that people to do Google in Afrikaans. At least when you do your website primarily in Afrikaans you are catering for a niche market. One of our most recent clients are www.bobbjeaanskloof.co.za and their website copy is primarily done in Afrikaans. It seems to be working well for them. They are getting business from the internet because of being unique / different.

Kalk Bay is a small town within the greater Cape Town. Kalk-bay.mobi focuses on Kalk Bay alone. I do write about nearby attractions like the Cape Point vineyards in Noordhoek around the corner.

I wish I had two months for each project but that would only be to "finish" the copy writng on the information like what to do, where to stay, where to eat, usefull information, what you can expect to see etc. I would still then need to set up agreements with accommodation establishments who can either pay me an adverising fee or commission . Both these projects are possibly feasible but it will require a lot of my time and effort. I am keeping them open for the moment. Because I live in Cape Town and Kalk Bay is easily accesible I will probably finish or have a more respectable website for Kalk Bay before the one for Kruger.

Both these websites do get traffic but I am not making any money out of it. Since my idea was to make money out of accommodation establishments I would have done better had I started out writing about that and that alone. I get a lot of raffic to the website from people looking for general information about Kalk Bay, information about fishing off the harbour wall, information about buying fresh fish from the harbour wall etc. (I plan on getting phone numbers of some of the fishing vendors and adding it on the Kalk Bay website to assist people wanting to buy fresh fish from the harbour wall. I know that people are searching for such information and maybe I can sell the fish vendors a website?

I also use both the websites to engage in conversation with business owners in the areas to whom I can market my web design services. Once I have improved the quality of the information on these websites I can more seriously push this strategy of mine.

But currently for Kalk Bay I am not getting any enquiries for accommodation type enquiries. The competition in that area seem to competitive or the quality of my information on that very specific subject seems inadequate. I can change this if i invest enough time.

I will make it a goal for 2014 to complete these websites , not neccesarily make money out of it but to have something I am proud of. To have created a useful website, filled with relevant up to date information and news on both the Kruger National Park and Kalk Bay. The South African National Parks does not seem to bother about writing in Afrikaans so I could get information from their website and create articles in Afrikaans writing about news in Kruger in Afrikaans without copying website text. I would like to donate a lot of advertising space for anti Rhino poaching campaigns.

What is there to be learned from all of this?

If I wanted to make money from accommodation then the primary subject should have been accommodation.

I have gained an understanding of website tarffic for both areas and have valuable data available to myself on what people are searching. The most valuable lesson I have learned is that you will be found for the unique information on your website. Whether you website is in Afrikaans or whether your website contains the only information on fishing off Kalk Bay harbour being unique guarentees that you will get visitors searching for that exact information.

Writing on fishing and pubs will not bring you visitors looking for accommodation.