RV Park Web Design
Web design matters
Web design is an aspect of business that many RV parks overlook when planning their business and considering their marketing strategy. In this modern world, having a professional and accurate website is the best way to be sure your potential campers can not only find you, but know what you’re the best park for their upcoming stay.
We’ll outline the main factors that go into RV park web design here below to give you a better idea of what goes into making a great website for your park.
General Web Design
It’s a popular misconception that building a good website is easy these days. Sure, there are a lot of cheap and easy options that allow you to just place a few pictures along with your name and address online within a few hours, but typically they are limited to a select few templates and don’t really offer the user a memorable experience. Speaking of experience….
Presentation
Naturally the first thing that pops into most peoples minds when they think of web design is presentation. RV park web design is no different, in that consideration needs to be taken in to decide on the imagery, colors, and layout of elements on the website.
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Using big, beautiful, and captivating imagery will help motivate your visitors and get them excited for a stay in your park. Choosing images that appropriately represent your park is also important, so that expectations are set correctly, as we all know the horrors when a rig to big pulls up and can’t fit in the space!
Adding small elements such as icons and an easy to follow layout helps make sure your visitors can find what they are looking for quickly, making the chances of them staying at your park greater.
User Experience
User experience is the first important aspect of RV park web design we’ll address here. User experience, or UX, is the thought process behind how someone behaves once they have arrived on your website, and how to get them to do your desired action.
For instance, you dont want a user to just come by your website and leave after looking at a few pictures of the park, you want them to click that “Reserve Now” button!
A well designed website will have a good plan behind the UX, and every element will be planned to help drive your users to the pages, content, or action that you want them to see or do.
Great UX is hard to spot because when it’s done right, you don’t even notice it!
Responsive Web Design
A big part of the user experience we just talked about in the previous section is how well your potential campers can view your website on their phones, tablets, laptops, and everything in-between. This is where Responsive Web Design (RWD) comes into play, and today is a must for all websites.
Responsive web design means that your website will look good on cell phones, iPads, laptops, and normal desktops, and in any browser (Chrome, Internet explorer, Firefox, Safari), that your visitor is using. The website will adjust the way it is shown to make sure the visitor can easily read the text, see the pictures, and click the buttons on any device with out any issues.
Here’s a great example of what your visitors see on their cell phone if your website is not full responsive. As you can see, the mobile version is completely unreadable.
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We’re sure you’ve had the pleasure of working with a non-responsive website on your cell phone, right? All that pinching, pulling, scrolling, squinting… what a pain!
It is extremely important to have a responsive website so visitors can see the information you’re providing and use your RV park website properly even when they are not using a Desktop computer.
Google also takes the responsiveness of your website into consideration in their search rankings, so you better be sure if the park next store has a responsive website, that you do too.
Conversion Rate Optimization
At the heart of any new RV park website project is conversion rate optimization (CRO). Conversion rate optimization is the art of increasing the maximum amount of customers you can get from your website.
For example, if 100 people come to your website, would you prefer that only 10 of them book a pull-thru for the night, or that all 100 people book a place for the night? Of course, you’d prefer to sell out each and every night! A well crafted and thought-out conversion rate optimization strategy can help you increase this number from 10 to 100.
A/B Testing
Testing is a big part of making sure that your website is fully optimized at all times. A/B testing is the web development term we use to experiment by switching out things like pictures, buttons, and content on your website to see how users react.
For instance, we might switch a button label from “Reserve now” to “Book Now”, or maybe change a banner image from a picture of a lake to a picture of a family camping together.
While these might seem like subtle changes, they can significantly impact your conversion rate and increase the number of people booking camping spaces.
It is this continuous tweaking and testing that will slowly allow your website to convert as many visitors as possible into actual campers.
Analytics
Another key tool that we use in RV park web design is analytics reports. Analytics will give you the big picture as to who is coming to your RV park website, how they got there, and what they did. This can be very useful to help adjust the A/B testing mentioned above, and slowly increase your websites conversion rate to get more people camping at your park.
Google analytics and analysis can also provide you with data-drive insights to run very efficient advertisement campaigns. If you’re able to better understand your customers and what they are looking for when they are looking for it, you can tailor specific offers to them right when they need it, making a perfect win-win situation for you and your campers.
A great example of the above would be to drive seasonal specials for groups you know specifically travel in your area during the slow months, offering them special long term rates to stay with your park. This has proven very effective and everyone wins. All thanks to great analytics.
Get Started Today
Now that you’re an expert in what it takes to build a high quality website for your RV park, why not get started today?
Parks and Rec Media offers competitive packages are several different price levels for parks of all different shapes and sizes. Reach out to see how we can help you begin to grow your park today.
