As Spring approaches RV Parks across the country are getting ready for their “Peak Season.” Well, of course the exception would be parks in the “snow bird” states, as they’ve been going through their busy season.
With the approach of the Spring and Summer travel season parks will be getting ready for a flood of vacationers, full timers, weekenders, and over-nighters. And while the parks are getting ready, most of them have neglected what is fast becoming their primary driver for new guests to find them.
Most parks websites that we review aren’t mobile ready. Heck, a lot of them are still looking like they were built in the late 90’s.
So why should parks think about re-designing their websites to be mobile ready? And really, are websites driving new clients to the parks, or are the old ways still working? Well, looking at our clients’ stats I’ve got the following thoughts.
- Thousands of inquiries per month to each client website.
- Averaging over 10 “Clicks to Call” per week. That means people using a smart phone to call the park directly from the website.
- 56% of all traffic to the sites is being driven by search engines (Google, Yahoo, etc)
- More than 20% of the web traffic is driven by RV Park Reviews.
- So, 70% of web visitors to my clients are finding them through search engines and one single review site.
- Less than 7% of web traffic is driven by RV Directory companies.
What I take away from this little list is simple. The mobile websites are producing contacts direct to the parks we’ve worked with. They’re calling right off the home page to inquire about services or make reservations. And the bulk of folks finding the park websites are searching with a regular search engine or RV Park Reviews. These are tech savvy customers.
So, do parks need to update their websites and mobilize them? Short answer, yes. Long answer? Well, everyone will eventually update, but those updating in the near future will start maximizing their profit potential sooner rather than later.