Angelfish focus exclusively on the Bed & Breakfast/Guest House sector and we have specialist knowledge of how to market your type of business online. We are happy to include a bespoke online marketing service as part of your website development, or even completely separately. To get you started, here are some useful ideas for your B&B business.

A website is the most cost-effective form of advertising you can possiblity invest in. With reasonable development costs (a good site should cost no more than £500 - £1000 to set up), no limit on the amount of information you can display and a worldwide audience, your website has the potential to bring you more bookings than all your other advertising put together, and at a fraction of the price.

Remember, though, that your website will be the first impression of your business for most of your customers, so you must invest time and money to ensure that it attracts and retains the interest of online visitors. Unless you are a competent web developer and up to speed with the latest web design trends, do at least consider using a professional service such as Angelfish rather than building the site yourself. You will find it a good investment.

You can have the best looking website in the world, but it has no value if internet visitors can't find it. Most people locate websites through search engines, with Google being by far the most popular. You need to do all you can, and if necessary invest a propotion of your marketing budget, to ensure that your website ranks highly in relevant Google searches. For example, if you have a B&B in Chichester, you would ideally like your site to show up within the first 10-20 result for seaches like "B&B Chichester" or "Guest House in Chichester".

The good news is that Google ranking can be achieved by good, accurate wording on your website and by providing links to and from your website from and to other services (e.g. local attractions, taxi firms & restaurants). The only cost here is your time in coming up with good text for your site and in finding services that you can link your site to.

However, even with all of this, it can take time for your site to climb the Google rankings and it can be especially difficult to reach the top if you are in a popular area like a big city or coastal resort. While you wait to reach the front page of Google, consider investing in Google AdWords which for a fixed monthly budget of as little as £20 - £30 can provide front page exposure for your business and those all important click-throughs that lead to online bookings.

There is an increasing and diverse range of online directories that list B&B's and Guest Houses. Many of these directories are free to list with, and of those that charge an annual fee, many are priced at less than £100 per year. However, if you are paying money to a directory, do your research first. Ask other B&B owners about their experiences and which directories work for them. Ask the directory owners for references and examples of how listing with them has helped other owners. Try doing Google searches, and notice which directories are consistently at or near the top of the search results.

Angelfish can provide you with our own comprehensive list of directories, and our own insight into their effectiveness based on our extensive experience in the industry. Please contact us by phone on 01747 825283 or e-mail us if you would be interested in this.

A referral service is usually a well-known nationally or internationally branded accommodation website that will either refer visitors to your website or allow visitors to make bookings with your B&B/Guest House in return for a percentage of the booking cost. Referral services typically charge between 10% and 25% of the booking value, which does eat into your profit margin, but they can be a good way to boost visitor numbers in the short term while you are waiting for your website to take off.

However, a note of caution. Make sure that you don't end up paying these commissions on bookings that come through your own website. Some companies will charge you commission on every online booking you take, and can end up costing 10% of your yearly turnover, which might equate to 50% of your profit!

To avoid this, consider using a commission-free booking engine like Angelfish, that allows you to take as many bookings as you like through your own website for a fixed yearly fee, starting at only £50.