A Witney guest house run by Richard Turner and his sister Penny is enjoying greater success thanks to its new website.

Richard Turner, owner of Corncroft Guest House in Witney’s picturesque Corn Street, takes up the story: “We had a website, built by a friend, which we wanted to achieve good rankings on the major search engines and therefore increase direct room bookings through the website, rather than through agencies which apply a fee of 15% of the booking value. Unfortunately, as the site had no professional copy or search engine optimisation work this wasn’t being accomplished.”

Richard continues: “I knew I needed assistance with enhancing the general look and feel of the website, our communications with our guests and the promotion of special offers in low season and therefore improve our occupancy levels. Lynne Jones of IRUN Oxford approached me as she had a previous working relationship with me, knew the industry and knew she could help.”

Lynne Jones of IRUN Oxford comments: “After discussions with Richard, we decided IRUN’s WebBuildPRO Lite package would be ideal option for Corncroft’s new website. WebBuildPRO is 100% internet-based and includes a full set of management tools which allows the client to update the site anytime, anywhere. As Richard knew he would not have the time to build the site himself, it was handed over to IRUN’s website construction team to design and build with keyword-rich copy. However, Richard and Penny have received training from Andrew Allen, IRUN’s Customer Service Manager, so they are able make changes to their site when they want to.”

Lynne continues: “Richard has subscribed to IRUN Customer Relationship Management system, InTouch, which will mean communications with both past and potential guests will be quick and easy. They also have a digital brochure which is viewable over the internet and therefore eliminates the time and cost of posting out brochures in response to enquiries.”

Richard concludes: “Since the launch of the new site, Corncroft Guest House is now ranked on page 1 of Google for the search terms ‘weekend break witney’, ‘last minute break witney’ and ‘guest house witney’. Penny and I are both very pleased with what has been achieved so far and look forward to working together with Lynne on marketing ideas for the coming months to increase occupancy rates further and reach our ultimate goal of 100% direct bookings.”