Price is Right in Devon

Kate Price's background is in marketing and tourism. She moved to Devon to set up a holiday cottage business and soon realised that she would have to get onto the internet to drum up business.

"It is where the future lies," she told ManageIT. "I did the site out of necessity for my own holiday cottage business." Price had a head start in the business as she had experience of design and using PCs in her previous marketing and tourism career.

"I learned all about the software and created my site, and I got it really high in the search engines. Now 95 per cent of my holiday cottage business comes from the internet," she said. Price uses Adobe software and a number of hosting companies. As soon as she had completed her own site, she was asked by friends and business contacts to do sites for them.

Price has no difficulty attracting business and does not advertise her web design services. "I could do web design full time but I limit it to 20 hours a week as I have my holiday cottage business to run as well. I don't look for work, it comes to me," she claimed.

Most people who approach her for website design are completely ignorant of what it entails. "I talk through it all with them and try not to use too many technical terms," she explained. One of her success stories is robharvey.com. "The site has done very well and has raised Rob Harvey's profile completely. He is in the aviculture trade, where there are not that many people who are used to PCs. However, he has had lots of interest from bigger companies and is forming links with them," she said.

"His site also has 1000 associated links and has become one that everybody in the field knows about. It provides everything bird-related from cards to food and consultancy. Recently, an African bird park contacted him wanting advice. So with the website, his small business has become global," she added.

Price believes it is essential to achieve a high ranking in the search engines, as she has done with her own holiday cottage business. "People just need information up there. Then they will get found," she said.

She also advises that the copy on each web page should mention the key subject many times. When she was designing the website for a doll's house shop the proprietor originally wanted one web page to contain a large photograph with a caption. Price persuaded him to have the page include 200 words of copy and three or four pictures.

Most of the sites that Price has been involved with do not have online shopping facilities as they tend to be offering services or holiday cottage rentals. Her next move is to look into how best to add these services. "I am not impressed with the shopping cart packages I have seen," she said.

Price does offer the facility for holiday cottage companies to provide details of availability on their websites. "The only problem is that most people think they can update the availability details themselves. This is not really possible unless they have the same software and learn how to program it. I ask them to let me have the changes, then I do it for them," she explained.

Price charges quarterly for any further work and updates but, in practice, this amounts to relatively little. "If people send me simple changes I can do it in 10 minutes and I just record the odd 10 minutes and invoice once a quarter," she said.