Website Guidelines

Important factors when creating/altering a page

(Please treat this as an 11 point checklist and check every page you do against it. Do so and we'll have industry leading websites, don't do it and we won't.)

1) Keyword Density (*see description for Keywords at bottom of document)

- mention lodge / country / area as many times as possible.

- Combine with optimization (see below)

2) Optimization

- Keywords (i.e. name of property, area and significant words as explained at the bottom of this page) should be in italics or underlined or boldened.

- when optimizing keywords within a sentence, then use italics, as this is more subtle, and does not break up the page for the reader.

- if the keyword is in a title or heading, then you can underline it or bolden it to optimize it.

- For example – “Il Moran Camp is based in the heart of the Masai Mara in Kenya and game viewing here can expose the Wildebeest Migration at its best.”

3) Prices

- any accommodation description should have a “From” price on it.

- If necessary, include all the prices for different seasons.

- Include child prices if it is a place families might stay

- This is particularly important for lodges / camps / hotels we use a lot.

4) Special offers

- if there are special offers relating to the page you are creating / editing – then make sure you mention this at the bottom under the pricing section.

AND – if you want to drive further traffic to the page, then put a link on the main “Special Offers” page that takes you directly to the page in question.

5) News Item

- is the page newsworthy?
- if you want to drive traffic to the page, you can also mark the page as “newsworthy”. This is done at bottom of the page with the WYSIWIG editor, just above the ‘update page’ button. This will now create a link to this page direct from the “Latest News & Specials” page on our home page.

6) Call to Action

- A “call to action” is an email us link and/ or telephone number that lets the browser of our website make contact with us. It is called a “call to action” as it does exactly that. It is prompting a browser to actually make an “action” by either emailing us or telephoning us. Therefore every page we create should have a “call to action” at the bottom of it that encourage the user.

8) Pictures

- Picture Size. There are no hard and fast rules, but images must be in proportion to the page and its content.

- we use the table function in the WYSIWIG to provide a provide a frame for the image.

- ALT* tags for the image must contain keywords, and also describe where necessary, what the image is of (see full description of ALT tags at bottom of page).

- on a typical accommodation description, try and use 3 images where possible. These should aim to show (1) where you sleep (2) communal areas (3) activities, or local area.

9) Links

- place hyperlinks within the body of the text where it would be helpful for the browser to see other related content within our website.

- never create hyperlinks that take the browser out of our website. we want to keep them on www.imagineafrica.co.uk for as long as possible

- at the bottom of accommodation descriptions - place hyperlinks to other places within our website such as Customer Feedback, Special Offers and Honeymoons. (These links are normally placed after the price, but before the call to action.)

10) Contact Person

- for accommodation and area descriptions that we have visited recently – consider placing text at the bottom of the page indicating who in our office has been to the area / property.

- for example: Jonathon is the last person from our office to have been here - ask to speak to him for an up-to-date opinion.

11) Picture Galleries / Maps

- if there is a property or area that warrants it - consider making an IMAGE GALLERY like this one: Chumbe in Pictures - www.imagineafrica.co.uk/Content.asp?PageID=310

- if the property or area would benefit from a MAP then add one like this: Sayari Camp location map - www.imagineafrica.co.uk/Content.asp?PageID=635

12) Examples of good pages on www.imagineafrica.co.uk.

Garonga - www.imagineafrica.co.uk/Content.asp?PageID=669

Quilalea - www.imagineafrica.co.uk/Mozambique/Quirimbas_Archipelago/Quilalea_Lodge.html

Sayari - www.imagineafrica.co.uk/Content.asp?PageID=409

Special Offers East Africa - www.imagineafrica.co.uk/Content.asp?PageID=373

Il Moran - www.imagineafrica.co.uk/Content.asp?PageID=85

Chumbe In Pictures - www.imagineafrica.co.uk/Content.asp?PageID=310

Onguma - www.imagineafrica.co.uk/Namibia/Etosha/Onguma_Tented_Camp.html

Swakopmund - www.imagineafrica.co.uk/Namibia/Swakopmund/Activities_and_Adventure.html

Vamizi - www.imagineafrica.co.uk/Mozambique/Quirimbas_Archipelago/Vamizi_Island_Lodge.html

* Keywords. Best way to describe these are - words that you would use when doing a google search aiming to find the page in question. (For example – keywords for Governors Camp would be; Governors Camp, Masai Mara Lodge, Masai Mara Safari, Kenya Safari, Family Safari Holiday, Safari Lodge, Wildebeest Migration, Hot air balloon safari, Masai Mara Honeymoon)

* ALT tag. This is the ‘text description’ label that you assign to an image when you use it on a website. This will then appear when you place your mouse above an image on the live website. The aim of the text description should be to describe what the image is of BUT search engines do also place a lot of emphasis on the keywords contained in ALT tags, therefore you should also try and make them Keyword dense. (For example – ALT tag for the bed image on the Il Moran Camp page of our website could be; <<Il Moran Camp, Masai Mara – Luxury Safari Holidays in Kenya.>>)

Wharthogs

Compiled by Rose & Ben – 05 February 2007