Name of your website?Yangshuo Expat Services
Your name?
Ian Ford
Your Location (city, etc)
Yangshuo, Guilin
Please give us a short summary of your website?
This website advertises the range of travel services that my wife offers in and around Yangshuo.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
Yangshuo is a hot destination for visitors to China. The website allows us to pick up customers at the planning stage and help them even before they arrive in country.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
This is the first. We got help from a professional for the first draft but have added lots more information since. We'll continue to update the photo gallery, and intend to add a Testimonials page from satisfied customers.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
That follows the name of our business - Yangshuo Expat Services. That name was chosen as we originally provided arrangements for two Expat-only travel services, one in Guangzhou and another in Shanghai.
What makes it different from other, similar offerings?
The two partners, English names William and Faye, have both worked with foreigners for years and understand how their needs differ from domestic tourists. YagshuoExpat offers a quality service for the discerning traveler.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
The website will continue so long as William and Faye enjoy the travel industry. That is not likely to end soon.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
We are happy with the success rate so far. We can identify several customers who booked because of the website and that makes the effort worthwhile.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
We would like to offer tours throughout China. That would need a more sophisticated booking system. Currently we have a simple form and just an email address for other queries.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
That is not really relevant to us. There is a limit to the number of people coming to Yangshuo.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
We can control costs - mostly my time. My headache has been learning HTML et cetera
What has been your biggest challenge?
Getting the website DNS and hosting changed. It is an ongoing issue.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
Google adwords has been our mainstay. We expect pagerank to come soon, and then we should appear higher up the free listings.
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
Not too much - it is only a simple site.
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
Answered above. The site promotes an actual travel service and therefore continues whilst that does.
Why should anyone travel to Yangshuo?
Yangshuo has some of the most unusual mountains anywhere in the world. Try a search for images on any engine. Although the town is now quite touristy that does mean that travel is relatively easy for China and the countryside is always close by. At YangshuoExpat we can help you get here - to see the real China, learn about the traditional way of life and have a wonderful time.
What is your website address?
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