Hurleys of Queenstown accommodation website before search engine optimisation

Personally I think that this should be a criminal offence.  Unless a client says that they only want existing clients and personal referrals to visit their website there should be a minimum level of search engine optimisation built into the website design.

This means that the site should be search engine friendly and follow the basic guidelines that all the main search engines make freely available to the public.  Developers should aim to comply with current web standards, both WC3 and WAI for accessibility.  While this isn’t always possible where clients want their site to interface with other sites or legacy systems, there is simply no excuse anymore for building a website purely using static html and tables.  Even internet explorer can now cope happily with the CSS that all the other browsers have been running for the last couple of years.

Having been responsible for implementation of the Disability Discrimination Act programme at Tesco Personal Finance I am also particularly conscious of the accessibility of websites and I think that this should always be a consideration in search engine optimisation.

Anyway, back with Hurley’s, my first step was to review their website and make a list of the things that their web developers needed to do to improve the core site.  When this was done I began work on the content.

Search engine optimisation of content is always a balancing act.  It’s no good writing your website purely for the search engines – your customers need to be able to read it, navigate through it and take any actions that you want them to take too.  It’s something that I really enjoy doing, especially because I want the tone to suit the client and their product too. Many content writers aiming for search engine optimisation will start with the page keywords and write some blurb around them.  I start with what I want to say about the product then review and edit with the keywords in mind.

In this case, Hurley’s is a luxury motel. So nice in fact that the word motel doesn’t really suit it. So I wrote about that and all the things that make it much more than the average motel.  From my personal perspective it has advantages over a hotel too.  I always like the option to self-cater and Hurley’s have an arrangement with the Millenium restaurant across the street for meals (including breakfast) to be put on the room tab if you perfer being catered to.  I spent some time touring the accommodation with the Ann and listened to what she had to say about the place and the feedback she’d had from guests.

Search engine optimised content for Hurleys of Queenstown accommodation website

The result was completely new wording for every page of their existing website, search engine optimised to help their great facilities be found by people looking for somewhere comfortable and convenient to stay in Queenstown.  The new content went live this week and a new set of photos (post-refurbishment) will be added next week.  Already, before I really get into the link-building process and before Google has fully indexed the updated site, they are now at no. 51!

I’ll be writing about Hurley’s again as the search engine optimisation process continues but it’s certainly looking successful so far.

Queenstown Après Ski Apartments & Chalet Lodge

The colour scheme of the website reflects my overriding image of Queenstown in winter with the incredibly blue sky matched spectacularly by Lake Wakatipu with the snow covered mountains forming a crisp white border between.  Chalet accommodation in the European style is not very common around Queenstown. At the Chalet Lodge guests have the option of using the large kitchen to cater for themselves in the evenings or else having the resident cook cater for them.

The rooms are all very modern and luxurious with loads of comfy sofas and armchairs.  It seems like every living area has a real fire and there are plenty of bookcases dotted about.  I could happily spend a week here while B went snowboarding every day!  The  suites all have their own sheltered balcony / terrace areas too for those still and sunny midwinter days.  Oh and great views of course…

In developing the content for the site I have focused heavily on organic search engine optimisation, ie using the content itself to clearly show search engines what the site is about and what searches it is relevant to.  This is always a balancing act between what the search engines see and what web users coming to the site will want to know.  As always with a new website I have installed Google Analytics so that I can monitor the effectiveness of the current content.  I’ll review this with the website owner roughly every 3 months and agree any changes that are needed.  This website has gone live at just the right time to pick up people  starting to think about their next winter holiday.

Remarkable Supplies - Hospitality. Packaging & Cleaning Supplies

This dynamic young business, run by Eve Kilvington, aims to supply the Queenstown Lakes region’s many hotels, motels and other hospitality businesses with all their cleaning and packaging supplies.  I found it fascinating to talk to Eve about the wide variety of her clients.  Remarkable Supplies provides gloves to dentists and beauticians, gift packaging to small goods stores and Eco-friendly cleaning  products to accommodation providers and contract cleaning companies.

The website was designed to look sparkly and clean and match their great ‘blue drop’ logo.  The content has been kept simple and concise so it’s easy for customers to find what they’re looking for.  The usual contact form has been extended into an order form that can be used by existing customers to quickly and easily place orders for products that they need regular supplies of.  In the future, all going according to plan, Remarkable Supplies hope to put their entire product offering on-line and provide on-line sales.

Queenstown House, A luxury Boutique Hotel & B&B

Queenstown House is a boutique hotel very close the the centre of Queenstown itself (only 200 metres away) with luxurious rooms and suites including a honeymoon suite large enough to host your wedding reception.  The street that it is on, Hallenstein Street, is low enough to be a fairly easy walk back from the town centre but far enough up Queenstown Hill to get a fabulous view over the harbour and Lake Wakatipu.

Remarkable Theatre website

The website is a simple, classic design with just a single page for now but I expect this to increase rapidly over the next few months to include images and information about past performances, details of the group itself and more information on upcoming productions.  The line drawing of the logo design follows the shape of the Remarkables mountain range which looms above Queenstown.

Transcape Coaching & Performance

The website has a bold design and a thought provoking quote on the front page.  The details of what the company does and how it works are contained within the supplementary pages.  The aim of the site is to provide an online brochure for existing leads rather than generate new ones so search engine optimisation has not been a priority here.

Wildcat Charters website

I’ve launched another new website today, this time an overhaul for one of our neighbours on the Coast.  Michelle and Leigh Kelly at Wildcat Charters run fishing and sightseeing charters from the port of Greymouth in their boat, Mistral.

Brendhan went out with them back in November last year and brought us back a freezer full of fish that we are still working our way through!  There’s a photo from that trip of him with a Blue Nose on the Greymouth Fishing Club site.

The Greymouth and West Coast region is fast gaining a fantastic reputation for big game fishing, particularly Tuna.  Michelle and Leigh’s son Chris had a mammoth battle with a 270.5kg Blue Fin Tuna last year and won the Junior World record.  And last week another 16 year old topped that by 8.1kg. but the record still has to be confirmed by the world fishing ruling body. People travel from all over the world to fish out of Greymouth and Wildcat Charters are the only charter company based there.

Their website is designed so that they can update it as much or as little as they want themselves.  Michelle has already added a page and some photo galleries so I expect to see it continuing to develop over the next months as she adds trip photos and stories of fishing – after all it’s hard to beat an angler when it comes to telling a good yarn.

The name comes from Bruce Tuckman’s 1965 study that defined Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing as the four stages of group development.  As the article on my site says

“The word has a lot of resonance for me as a convenient label to put on that complex mixture of anticipation, nervousness, competitiveness, hyper-awareness and cynicism that I feel when entering a room full of a new project team for the first time.”

The website is also providing me with a forum for developing my thoughts and ideas on a wide range of business issues and I’ll be updating it on a regular basis as I read, see or do something that triggers new ideas.  I’m keen to add testimonials from people I have worked with too so if anyone out there reading this would like to add something please drop me a note.

I’ve joined the local Chamber of Commerce and Queenstown Business Network too and am looking for opportunities to volunteer time to not-for-profit groups to help build my network and start to get my name known.

Kaimata Croft websites is still a going concern as well and I’ll shortly be able to write here about another couple of websites that are due to go live.  In the meantime goand have a look at my new site and please do send me any feedback.

Forming

Food

Croft – Although we were eating a lot from our own garden during the summer at the Croft we were finding that the local climate on the Coast simply can’t be relied upon for many crops (many of our tomatoes and chillies didn’t ripen this year as the summer was so wet).  In reality we go to the supermarket once every week or 10 days to get fresh veggies, bread and tins of beans etc.  This means making a 15 minute trip by car (each way) and because of the lack of veg producers on the coast we buy food grown elsewhere (could be NZ, could be China – without origin labelling laws who knows?) packed in Christchurch and shipped over by truck.   Organic produce is impossible to find in Greymouth.

Queenstown – there is a small supermarket ( the Mediterranean Market ) that specialises in local and organic fruit and veg.  Last week I went there on a bus which stops right outside our flat every half hour and takes me right into town.  I have started making bread again now that we have a full size oven to bake it in.

I have managed to find a space to squeeze my bean sprouter into so we are still eating fresh home-grown sprouts.

Power

Croft – At the Croft we warm up on sunny days but lose that heat relatively quickly overnight as the workshop has two clearlight panels that break the insulation.  We use the combination of an oil filled electric heater with an electric fan heater as a booster.  We have a small bench-top oven which uses a lot less power than a full size one while limiting what can be cooked and of course we have our ultra-efficient fridge.

Queenstown – Power use for cooking and heating is one of the hardest things to manage when in temporary accomodation.  We get no benefit from sunshine here in Queenstown and have electric underfloor heating (Gulp!) that is surprisingly efficient now that we have heated up the concrete fabric of the building.  Power is definately from hydro schemes as generation is nearby.

Our hot water and cook top are run by gas in both locations (bottle at the Croft, pipe in Queenstown) but the shower is certainly used for longer here as it is indoors!

We brought our washing machine with us and have changed light bulbs to energy saver ones so no change there.

The Remarkables

Transport

Croft – Car is the only option as we’re too far from anywhere to cycle or walk and no public transport.

Queenstown – Local buses galore in both directions – Queenstown and Arrowtown.  Walk to town or shopping centre in 40 minutes, bike in 20 minutes.

Rubbish

Croft – Weekly collection of rubbish bags from the end of the road.  We minimised our rubbish to a bag every 3 or 4 weeks.  No recycling collection but we take paper, cardboard and tins to the tip.  Glass and plastic has to be taken to the tip in Hokitika as Grey District don’t have any collection points for these.  Organic waste is all composted at the Croft.

Queenstown – Weekly collection of wheelie bins – one for rubbish and one for every kind of recyclable.

Daily Activity

Croft – Building is a high impact activity.  Most materials are energy intensive and/or produced using noxious chemicals and it makes lots of waste.  Minimising this is hard work and you end up compromising all the time in the interests of actually making some progress.

Queenstown – Brendhan flits about town fixing people’s computer networks and wi-fi problems.  Uses company van where necessary.  At weekend’s he goes snowboarding by bus (from just outside the front door).

Conclusion

On balance I don’t think that our lifestyle in Queenstown is much, if any, less environmentally sound than it would be at the Croft.  The main difference is how much more expensive it is.  If we are still here in spring though we will have to find somewhere to live with a small garden so that we can grow some of our own food.

Moulting chicken with tail feathers growing back and others feathers fluffed out as much as possible to compensate for missing ones.

It is not really that cold here in our micro climate at the croft and the grass is still definitely growing down in the paddock.  Sitting typing this requires 3 tops and thermal leggings under my jeans though.  The sheep are happy with the cold as the grown ups haven’t been shorn since spring and the lambs were done in March.  The chickens have been busy moulting over the last few weeks.  If you read the chicken care books they all talk about moulting happening gradually over a long period but ours tend to go from fully clothed to almost bald overnight and then spend a couple of weeks looking more like a hedgehog as their new feathers grow through.

There are bigger changes than a new coat of feathers on the horizon for me and Brendhan though.  We are heading off to Queenstown for the winter.  For many months now we have been considering whether the Croft is the right place for us and we’re hoping that a few months away will help us to reach a conclusion.  There are many things that we really enjoy about living here such as growing our own food and building.  However, we have found ourselves feeling the lack of the kind of cultural and social opportunities that really suit us on the coast.

The fact that we have spent over 2 years living with temporary accommodation has also ground us down and a few months away (with an inside loo!!!) may enable us to get a clearer perspective on the place.  By the end of the winter we will decide whether to start the house foundations or put the croft on the market and move elsewhere permanently.

woven scarves

So in the meantime Brendhan has been offered a job with one of Queenstown’s main wireless internet providers, Headquarters, and I am hoping to combine selling my weaving and felt at local markets with running fibre craft workshops for people looking for a break from the ski slopes.  Much more on this to follow over the next few weeks.

I will also be coming back here regularly to keep an eye on the sheep but we have decided to find other homes for the chickens.  So if any West Coast readers would like some or all just respond to this post.

chickens looking for a new home