Name of your website?Holiday Villa Direct
Your name?
Ian
Your Location (city, etc)
Manchester
Please give us a short summary of your website?
Our private self catering holiday villas & holiday apartments are available to rent direct from the private holiday villa or apartment owner in Spain to save you money on your next holiday rental villa or holiday apartment in Spain. Holiday-villa-direct.com link private self catering holiday villa rentals and apartment accommodation in Spain
What inspired you to launch your own website?
We tried asking the travel agents questions to help us choose the right rental property for our holiday in Spain but the agents didn't really know the answers to our questions because they had never even seen to the property in Spain let alone stayed there. Invariably we ended up booking our holiday based on brochures with artist's impressions of hotels that weren't even built yet. When we arrived on holiday we found that the artist's impression didn't match the reality. Not surprisingly we got fed up with package holidays that didn't cater for our personal preferences. We were frustrated and there appeared to be no alternative. We weren't prepared to give up our holidays in Spain.
So like more and more people are doing nowadays we decided to buy our own little piece of paradise, our own holiday villa in Spain. That done we solved all of the holiday dilemmas in one stroke. We have enjoyed idyllic holidays on the Costa del Sol in Spain ever since.
Soon we discovered that we needed a little help to pay the inevitable mortgage, so we started renting our holiday villa in Spain. Initially we used travel agents and holiday rental agents but we soon found out that they charged the earth and that they didn't really care about our holiday villa in Spain nor our rental customers. We then realised that we had a wealth of knowledge and experience both as holiday makers renting villas in Spain and latterly as owners renting out our villa on the Costa del sol, Spain.
We realised that by utilising this personal experience we could do a better job than the agents ourselves, we tried it and it worked. We soon learnt the sheer power of the World Wide Web as an advertising medium. But then we spent years learning the intricacies of how to correctly use The Internet to advertise our villa in Spain. Once we mastered that we found that we could save both renters of villas in Spain and villa owners the commission that the travel agents were charging. So we took the next logical step. We set up a website designed for renters of holiday villas in Spain by renters of holiday villas. We set up a website designed for owners of holiday villas in Spain by owners of holiday villas in Spain hence holiday-villa-direct.com
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
Holiday villa direct.com was the first and it launched in 2004 and offers free advertsing for private holiday home owners
How did you decide on a name for your website?
A good guess and what we wanted to offer
What makes your website different from other, similar offerings?
Its free offers no promises and is run by owners of holiday home owners in spain
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
Just o keep in growing with properties and information but any resonable offer will be Considered if anyone wants to buy it
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
Its a hobby although it does make a little from google adds
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
I would employ someone else to do it while I spent time on the beach
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
As above but I would have to balance the cost with he amount of adverts on the site. My intention has always been to keep it free
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
My wife complaining I aa always on the computer
What has been your biggest challenge?
Getting it ranked and getting back links
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
directories and blogs
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
Very time consuming
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
started 2004 and will keep going util it stops
What is your website address?
Holiday Villa Direct
No trackbacks.
Comments
