[smokeyone]

Hello

I run a very small travel business organising a few group tours each year for a niche market. Next year I plan to expand a little by also running a couple of long weekend breaks for another niche market.
In need of some inspiration please for a home page, no so much the technical
although that would help but an idea for a layout.
The best I can think of at the moment is company sales blurb in the middle of the screen with a couple of photographs plus say three buttons on the left with the holiday dates but it is not very exciting.
They are expensive ish holidays and my typical customer is retired and has several holidays a year. It would be easy to get a software programme but I like doing things the hard way.
Cheers

[Maerk]

Buying the program wouldn't make you able to produce a site worth having either.



Would suggest you decide how much money you stand to make by having a successful well designed site (you say the holidays are expensive - so money shouldn't be tight) and sort out an appropriate budget and hire a web designer.

If you want someone to buy an expensive holiday, will a rather crude home built site convince them?

[smokeyone]

Thanks for the reply. there could be a budget in the hundreds but not more.
We are only talking about two or so weekend breaks a year, barely 90 customers maximum. The logistics get extra complicated if there was more and hidden costs skyrocket.

[Vorpal]

My suggestion:

Don't splash the photos on the very first page, perhaps some small ones, but the bulk of the photos should probably be in a gallery link or some similar.

Write a decent description of the service that you are providing and include all the enticing features. Especialy the reasons why your service is better than your competitions, which i suppose by your description are all hoilday destinations, so perhaps some testimonials from happy customers about how wonderful the experiance was. Then add links to the pretty pictures of people enjoying themselves.

Maerk has a decent point though that if your site site is not up to scratch then people will most probably not be inclined to spend a premium price on the service.

Try to think about the internet habits that your customer base has and where they will find the links to your site. If they googled it then they will want a landing page with lots of info. If they found it in a brochure then perhaps they might just need pricing and dates? Will they want alot of contact information so they can get in touch with you to ask all thier questions?

The pourpose of a site is the best indication of its layout.

Regards,
Vorpal

[smokeyone]

Thank you for your ideas. I am glad you mentioned about not putting the bulk of the photos on the front page because I would have put a bunch.

[pgo]

Originally Posted by Vorpal

Don't splash the photos on the very first page, perhaps some small ones, but the bulk of the photos should probably be in a gallery link or some similar.

I completely disagree.

Even though a photo gallery is a great idea, a business needs to attract customers. A general rule of thumb for your homepage is that you need to grab your visitor's attention and make them want to learn about your business in less than 2 seconds.

In other words, prominent imagery on the homepage is essential (especially for businesses).