Having a proper website that represents your RV Park has become more important than ever. Of course, then having a great homepage on that website is equally important. After all, if you have a poorly built homepage then chances are a majority of people will leave shortly after arriving, which means you won’t get those additional bookings you’re looking for. This is what we call the “bounce rate” in the industry, and you want to keep it as low as possible.
But how do you even get started?
What goes on a good homepage? What type of content should you include? What type of content should you NOT include? How long should it be? How do you get Google to find it? What tech stuff do you need to consider? How do you get more people to book and not just browse or leave?
These are all key questions, and the goal of this article is to give you a quick checklist to make sure you’ve got all the important parts included to have a killer and efficient RV park homepage.
Establishing your goals
Before doing anything, the first step is to clearly define your goals for the homepage (and website as a whole really). Are you a 50+ park looking for more long term residents, or perhaps you are a kid-friendly park that wants to attract more large groups traveling together? The homepages to these two parks will look very different, and as such, it’s important to determine your goals first.
Here’s the quick checklist for establishing your homepage goals:
- What are your primary and secondary goals?
- What do you want your visitors to do?
- Traffic flow-ways, how exactly will you drive users to do what you want them to do?
- A/B testing – set up variables to measure impact and improve the page over time.
Search Engine Optimization
Once you’ve set your goals, it’s time to consider how the search engines will read your page to make sure it’s discoverable. Including the right amount of keywords on your page, along with making sure the HTML code structure is correct are both important aspects of this step. We’ve included a basic checklist below for you to reference when planning the search optimization portion of your RV park homepage. All of the below will effect your ranking in the search engine results, so be sure to get help with anything technical you’re not sure about.
- Custom content with Inclusion of desired keywords
- Ensure the design has been optimized for mobile, tablet, and desktop devices
- Load times need to be fast, ideally under 2 seconds on all devices
- On-page SEO optimization of title tags, meta descriptions, and Image Alt tags
- Make sure that your analytics is installed and working correctly
Building Trust & Authority
Continuing forward in the homepage plan you’ll want to include various elements and content that communicate to your visitors that you’re the best park in the area to stay with. Testimonials, beautiful photography, and examples of good community standing are all great signals here to gain visitor’s trust. To get you started we’ve included the most powerful and relatable content section ideas for you here:
- Testimonials and Reviews
- Success stories
- Partnerships, sister-parks
- Any guarantees on offer
- Personalized photos
- Video introductions
Capturing Leads
Having traffic coming to your website can be worth a lot more if you have a good lead capturing plan in place for your homepage. One of your top priorities should be trying to get each potential camper to sign up for your newsletter, download your e-book, or give you a call for more information. Once you have their contact information and interest there is a much higher chance of an actual booking at your park.
Here are a few ideas that work great as lead capturing systems for your RV website. Whatever it is you do here, make sure you build a crystal clear and laser-focused Call-to-Action on your homepage. This will help keep visitors focused on doing what it is you want them to do.
- Custom e-book about destinations/events in your parks area
- Newsletter with weekly, bi-weekly, monthly offers and updates
- Giveaways & free-stays contests
- Dynamic pop-ups with intent triggers
Make Sure Your Available
To build further on the point above, having a lot of traffic come to your website can be much more powerful if your visitors have an easy and quick way to get in touch with you. If you send someone into your website searching for a phone number or contact point they are going to leave if they can’t find the information within the first 30 seconds or so. Make sure people can get a hold of you, as just being responsive and available can increase your bookings significantly!
- Highlight phone numbers, email address, and physical address
- Include your social media accounts, on as many platforms as relevant to your business
- Live chat modules
- Quick contact forms
Wrapping Up
We hope this article was a good overview of the key things you need to consider when building the perfect homepage for your RV park website.
As you probably know by now, there are a lot of things to take into consideration, and it’s a difficult task to get this done right. If you need any help, don’t hesitate to contact us and we’d be glad to give you some more guidance.
Good luck and happy camping!
