Pictured above, we see the system architecture for S-World Networks System Core.
We are currently working on the first component, the Villa Secrets Software Framework.
Magic Keywords, White Hat SEO Software
Due to the ‘Magic Keywords’ software, despite having no links or local SEO, Cape Town Luxury Villas gets a considerable amount of free organic traffic from Google and Bing for long keyword searches, bringing in 25% of enquiries.
Villa Secrets JQuery Mobile Website
VS Mobile is a stunning mobile website, that looks and functions like an App, created on the words most stable mobile platform JQuery Mobile.
This project is 75% complete.
When complete, the cost for adding VS Mobile to Cape Town Luxury Villas is $8,700.
After 8 years struggling with systems not compatible with the villa rental industry, and in particular financial systems Nick ray Ball created a development plan for software that would revolutionise the industry.
It started in 2011 with a networking plan for Virgin Group that included, a multi website system, interlinked to GDS’s and PMS to provide inventory, a customer orientated CRM, that went as far as sending presents to previous clients. All tied together with automated financial software that was error free and provided perfect management accounts and forecasts for managers and CEO’s.
‘For Cape Town Luxury Villas.com the cost of the Villa Secrets Frameworks Software: Magic Menus, VS Mobile & the Divergent CRM will cost $229,000, which is less than 8% of its development cost.’
This software is as unique as it is awesome and is being developed over three years at an estimated development cost of ZAR 45,500,000 (£3,000,000) ($2,900,000). Cape Town Luxury Villaas.com will only pay for software after it is installed, working and training videos have been created.
However, for Cape Town Luxury Villas.com the cost less than 8% of development being ZAR 3,499,000 (£162,000) ($229,000)
The Software is as much about improving efficiency as it is about marketing, so far 93 different ways to improve conversions and increase one’s market are considered. And in so doing Cape Town Luxury Villas.com is expected to increase turnover by 450% in three years for only a 60% increase in costs.
It is further expected that during the three years of development many more profit enhancing factors will be included within the Villa Secrets Software Framework design, leading to maybe 200 different individual profit components.
It starts with six items that are currently in development, from the addition of ASTA & PRS Memberships presented nicely in the footer of the website and emails of a cost of only R316 (£15) ($20) which is expected to increase turnover by 3% and costs by 1%
To the awesome VS Mobile, soon to be one of the world’s leading property / travel mobile websites for R136,955. (£6,350) ($9,020). $8,765. Including a new AdWords campaign VS Mobile is predicated to increase turnover by 34% and costs by 10% marketing cost.
However, most VS Software updates have a very low or no cost, for instance Magic Menus is desired to increase turnover by 11% and has no associated ongoing cost. Just the initial ZAR 95,888 ($4,444) ($6,313) fee to Villa Secrets for development and instillation. Paid for only after completion, testing and training.
Most software specified will have additional components added, such as VS Mobile showing the Divergent CRM. All new upgrades not mentioned on this list will be available for free, unless there is a general licence fee applicable to all Villa Secrets franchises.
Development Cost of Divergent CRM and other VSF Software Updates
By Nick Ray Ball 19th Feb 2016
This page presents a spreadsheet that shows the 93 different components within the Villa Secrets software, which when combined increase profits by 400% over three years.
The Estimated cost is $3,000,000 (for 62,000 development hours.)
This section is accompanied by the spreadsheet ‘Cost of Divergent CRM and other Software Updates’ See it here, or download it here which one can find in the ‘Business > Cape Town Luxury Villas.com’ section of http://blog.villasecrets.com
We present two accompanying Videos, one long with details on all updates and one short that looks at the very basics. This is the shorter 12-minute presentation.
Both videos refer to the following pages from the Villa Secrets Business Blog:
In this above video we see the estimated development cost of the Divergent CRM and other software considers 93 different components that lead to an increase in turnover or a decrease in cost.
Some components that increase turnover have an associated cost, such as the Email Remarking campaigns to previous clients, enquiries and emails addresses captured can increase turnover by 12% for a 0.1% increases in cost to VS franchises and members. Another example is the creation of advanced client and owners CMS’s which can increases turnover by 16% but have no associated cost for the franchise.
However, we start with ASTA membership and footer and then AdRoll which, is not actually a software system cost, rather a marketing costs. And in this case we suggest that a 15% increase can be made from a 6% increase in costs, if optimised correctly.
In terms of software , we are looking specifically at improvement made in the following systems: Magic Keywords + Magic Menus + Enquiries System + CRM + Email Marketing + Clients & Owners CMS + Booking Systems + Financial System + Marketing Platform + Content Marketing + Analytics + Sienna-bot + Hospitality + Live Chat + Experience Africa Safari Systems + Financial Predictions + Tutorials and the Tutorial Game
In conclusion we account for 31,000 hours of development considered over three years.
Cost: £1,000,000 or $1,500,000 or ZAR 23,000,000
However, it is likely that the hours will double, due to new considerations found along the way.
Eventually leading to about 200 different parameters that create a direct increase in turnover or provide a cost saving. And quite the best system for a vacation rentals company by a country mile.
Cost: £2,000,000 or $3,000,000 or ZAR 46,000,000
In addition Villa Secrets monthly costs could equal $235,000 a year ($164,000) (ZAR3,600,00) for software licencing. Note this is a Villa Secrets cost not a franchise cost, the cost to each franchise or member would be no more than a few Sales Force Sales Cloud Enterprise licences, currently £1000 per user per year, however this price comes down the more franchises and members Villa Secrets has.
For companies that are very small we are creating a version that can be used without the need for a Sales Force licence.
For more details, please watch the detailed video,
Cost of Divergent CRM and other Software Updates (82 Minutes)
Presenting over four hours of Video on the plans on for multi-purpose marketing and efficiency software, the Divergent CRM, the future in Consumer Relationship Management
Welcome to the Divergent CRM & Marketing Platform
Video 1. Divergent CRM – Introduction – 24 Minutes
Original Plans + Magic Keywords + Magic Menus + Enquiries System + CRM + Email Marketing + Clients & Owners CMS + Booking Systems + Financial System + Marketing Platform + Content Marketing + Analytics + Sienna-bot + Hospitality + Live Chat + Experience Africa Safari Systems + Financial Predictions + Tutorials and the Tutorial Game
What are we trying to achieve?
One single integrated CRM to follow the enquiry journey staring with the moment the client came to any Villa Secrets website and the search term used, then the journey to the specific agency’s website including all pages visited so far and over what timeframe.
When an enquiry is received the system starts emailing contacts for appropriate villas to assess availability, and the ‘Magic Menus’ system presents villas for review. By the time the agent gets to the enquiry a lot of work is already done, in some cases their will not need to be an agent. In some cases, the client will deal directly with the property manager. But at first we are assisting the sales agent.
The enquiry process is handled from one interface, emails sent and received all actions recorded in the agent CRM and client suite.
Once confirmed the CRM changes to hospitality and accounting modes. The Hospitality reps and concierge staff present additional options and deal with requests, assisted by the system. Created to handle complex logistics for Safari bookings, the system creates itineraries and when assisted by live chat becomes equal or even superior to any experienced agent, available 24/7.
In tandem to the hospitality, in the financial CRM the booking is matched with the automatically captured bank transactions. Mostly the allocation of payment is automatic and in all instances the management accounts are updated.
The ‘Magic Management Accounts’ are also updated with all bookings and well-considered estimates of the enquiries in the sales tunnel. Using a unique two step assessment process based on availability of the product and the average amount of sales made from enquiries at the specific stage in the sales tunnel.
This 2 step process and the rules that are required to action it, are very specific to the niche ‘top end vacation rentals’ and as such the CRM contingent is uniquely useful.
Since day one of planning in 2011, each niche needed its own customised version of the software, as this is what makes the difference between it and multi industry leading CRM’s such as Sales Force.
In addition to the above: booking systems, newsletters, analytics, content marketing, SEO, customer service, hospitality, logistics, pricing, reviews, product listings and tutorials all combine within a single system.
The Divergent CRM is not being built for sale, instead the divergent CRM is being created for all who use or start a S-World franchise, initially in Villa Secrets but soon after in safari travel and property sales and in time many other industries, or if we consider American Butterfly.org we see a plan for all industries
It’s a lot of work to do, initially quoted in Video 2 at five or six years. However, the two most theoretical components have been moved into independent software categories and so we would expect to see most of what is presented created within two years, with the systems that will make the most impact created in stages during 2016.
Video 2. Divergent CRM – Parts 1 to 3 – 48 Minutes
Original Plan + Current Projects + Enquiries System
1. Original Plan: Looks at the original software development and networking plan created in March 2011. Which describes a CRM connected to a human error proof financial system and an automated on line booking system, within a framework that would create many web franchises.
2. Current Projects: Looks at our existing in-built SEO software ‘Magic Keywords’ which provides about 25% of Cape Town Luxury Villas.com’s current business, from long tail keyword Searches. As well as considering our current software development project ‘Magic Menus’ alongside our unique way of programming systems which we call ‘CMS Logic.’
3. Enquiry Systems: Looks at our current basic enquiry system and considers ways to automate new enquiries to send emails to property managers and villa owners, to get availability and pricing on the hundreds of villas that are not on online bookings systems. Later in ‘Analytics’ we see how we wish to increase our knowledge of each enquiry with data that happens before the ‘book now’ button is pressed.
4. CRM: In this video we look at current CRM systems. We are looking for a clear path from enquiry to sales, that is simple for Microsoft Outlook users. In addition to we need to consider pricing, as it is our intention to create thousands of franchises often for small business.
First up us the HubSpot CRM and its ‘Microsoft Outlook’ component ‘Sidekick.’ At only $10 per person with no restriction on API calls. This CRM is currently being tested, but so far it does not work in the way we wish the Divergent CRM to work.
Next we look as Sales Force, which we are yet to test. But from what we have seen from the tutorial videos, the workflow seems closer to how we want and it has excellent management reporting tools. However, at about $1,500 per user per year, paid upfront, for small franchises starting up in countries with weak currencies it becomes expensive. We also expect that it has been created for standard retail or b2b sales staff.
At the time of writing ’17 Feb 2016’ it’s currently a case of system architect Nick Ray Ball simply using the various options for his own tasks as seeing the strengths of weaknesses of each. In the long term we would wish all the above to be connected to the Divergent CRM API, so the system can easily integrate with businesses that use one or the other.
Video 4. Divergent CRM – Parts 5, 6 and 7 – 29 Minutes
Email Marketing + Clients & Owners CMS + Booking Systems
5. Email Marketing: Picks up from part 3 ‘Enquiry Systems.’ Looking specifically at contacting property owners using Customer.io or Intercom, albeit none are a perfect solution. This section also looks at contacting guests before and after their holiday using SalesForce, MailChimp or Tribulant. And in addition offering gifts to previous clients and potential clients.
6. Clients and Owner CMS’s (Content Management Suites): Looks at the creation of good looking, user friendly client and villa owner/manager CMS’s. In the case of clients presenting their favourite villas, their day to day itinerary, email history, financial information, hospitality and concierge requests, all found in one great looking set web suite.
In the case of property manager and villa owners the CMS would present all the options necessary to complete standard and enhanced webpages alongside calendaring options and property management options, plus options to see current clients requests and the option to make offers.
7. Magic Prices: Considers a system designed to make pricing of villas and estimation of income simple by using ‘Magic Prices’. Which gives an accurate 1, 2 or 3-year income forecast in a matter of seconds. Including seasonal variations and occupancy. Using this as the starting point for any potential new mandate will likely secure the villa for the franchise.
This video also look briefly at the research for Villas Cloud.com the Villa Secrets property management and marketing system in preparation.
Video 5. Divergent CRM – Parts 8, 9 and 10 – 33 Minutes
Financial System + Marketing Platform + Content Marketing
8. Financial System: In this video we see the concept ‘Magic Management Accounts.’ Starting with the dataflow at the earliest point, the enquiry recorded all the way through the sales process then fed directly into the financial suite.
Before the data is processes in the financial suite, the banking data will have been captured, initially via spreadsheet download and input to our system, but later using banking API’s such as Barclays.net. Once the data from the bank meets the data from the enquiry in most cases the part to payment of supplier would be auto assigned just needed to be authorised.
The data, updated daily creates management accounts so accurate and so well presented it cuts costly of accounting for tax returns to just about zero. And could be adapted easily to handle all accounting.
9. Marketing Platform: Starts with Villa Secrets special source ‘Google AdWords’ which is the driving force for any new franchises created in new locations. Cape Town is already the world’s most expensive location to bid on the word ‘villa’ and recently Cape Town has seen a failed assault from AirBnb looking for the No1 spot.
Whilst we are No1 and No2 in Google AdWords things can still improve with better analytics as is explained later in the article. The stablemate of AdWords in re-marketing and AdRoll, which again can be improved by better analytic reporting.
However, in terms of direct integration into the Divergent CRM both HubSpot and SalesForce have competent and quite different marketing systems. We will likely run with both, some franchises using HubSpot Marketing and some using Sales Force both integrated into the Divergent CRM. Marketo also looks good, but as we would already be connecting to the HubSpot and Sales Force API’s for their CRM, they marketing software will likely be evaluated and tested first.
10. Content Marketing and Media: Looks at Social Network Integration and Inbound marketing with our hybrid WordPress system creating really good looking blog displays and individual blogs. Which are automatically syndicated/shared to about 20 different social networking sites. Which could be syndicated/shared a lot more, by sharing to multiple Facebook, Google Plus or Linked in business pages or main feeds.
Using PitchBox we will soon start searching for luxury travel blogs with high domain and page authority asking to guest blog, each time linking back to our Villa Secrets websites.
The hospitality and concierge teams, in each location will be staffed from persons with a primary skill as a journalist/copywriter, photographer, camera man or presenter, so creating a team capable of producing top quality blogs, videos and even TV shows.
Using the material created from the above, and in addition to considerable experience and an original concept the 2017 Villa Secrets & Experience Africa Magazines will be created, organised within the CRM.
Video 6. Divergent CRM – Part 11 – 35 Minutes
Analytics
11. Analytics: Starts with Google Analytics and mentions that only Google Analysis can extract Google AdWords data. Then presents our desire to track booking requests back to the campaigns and keywords that created the enquiry, from both PPC and organic searches. And explains how we would do so.
Presents 120 different pages on Cape Town Luxury Villas that due to ‘Magic Keywords’ have all shown in Google and have received clients.
Continues to discuss and looks at HotJar which provides analytics that assists in the client’s flow through the website, page to page, button to button.
Follows on to KissMetrics, which we show us the amount of visits and page views that clients have looked at the time of and after their enquiry.
Also considering Optimizely, Adobe and various social networks such as Facebook and an multiplatform toll from Coosto
Video 7. Divergent CRM Parts 12, 13 and 14 – 31 Minutes
Sienna-bot + Hospitality + Live Chat
12. Sienna-bot: Looks at the creation of a friendly automated robot that assist the agent and client. The Sienna-bot will be the vehicle to improve the clients experience and to gain more valuable/specific information from the client to the agent during the enquiry process.
Create a system that connects the client to the villa owner, within a limited capacity, such as getting availability, prices and presenting offers. Or allowing direct communication in a AirBnb manor.
13. Hospitality & Concierge: Looks at the likelihood of the Divergent CRM creating a custom application for itineraries alongside a system for clients to add concierge items to their stay, via mix of online bookings for cars, and bespoke emailing of vendors for items such as shark diving. Alongside a wealth of blogs made by the hospitality team on free activities such as hiking or choosing a beach.
There are a number of software applications we could consider such as the Service Cloud by SalesForce & FreshDesk. Which we will try and evaluate, and connect if necessary, however its most likely we will create a custom application ourselves, particularly as for Experience Africa we need a very competent system specific to the needs of the ‘Safari Booking’ niche.
In addition, since the original 2011 plan, we desire to send our clients gifts on special occasions.
lastly we mention two companies that appeared for searches for concierge software: ResortSuite and 10Concierge which may be of interest.
14. Live Chat: For live chat we will likely use the market leader ‘LiveChatInc’as they seem as good as any other system, with a superior API. However, we have a unique system for live chat that is not software based rather it focuses on the live chat operators, who will first be qualified as copywriters. Who blog and write articles when not on line.
The constant blogging will give each operator experience of our villas and safaris and their natural penmanship skills combined with product experience added to Magic Menus and the Sienna-bot may create a team that can close enquiries directly. It will certainly greatly add to content marketing and SEO.
Video 8. Divergent CRM Parts 14, 15 and 16 – 37 Minutes
Experience Africa Safari Systems + Financial Predictions + Tutorials and the Tutorial Game:
15. Experience Africa as a non-profit business is described in described in a separate video. The project started 2009, but the first website CMS was buggy, by 2011 it became centre stage of the original system business plan and then in 2013 was suggested as loss leader in American Butterfly part 4 in 2013.
It was restarted in October 2015 with plans to creating a string of 16 non-profits that would contribute half of turnover to Conservation. But paused in December.
It has its own unique system that evaluates safaris, based on thousands of pages of data on other tour operators, awards and travel authorities have said, creating a ‘best of the best’ product presentation.
Data will be the key ingredient for Experience Africa, with CMS’s on all aspects of a trip, from experiences such as air ballooning, to how many Rhino’s one should expect to see, from each individual safari, creating a far more accurate overall picture of wildlife than can be found on any one website.
A strong CRM is required to handle logistics and assist the sales people, or live chat operators. An equally strong CMS tool is required to monitor the progress of the causes Experience Africa companies donate to.
Work will continue on this project after the parent charity of Experience Africa ‘The Sienna Foundation in registered in the summer of 2016.
16. Financial Predictions from the CRM
this point and the last point, stray significantly into the theoretical work created as American Butterfly. However, there are some parts specific to the Divergent CRM.
In particular the spreadsheet created for the programmers that shows the two sets of averages, generated by the system to assess the likelihood of the booking. First is the availability, depending on the time of year an enquiry is made. For instance, a 10-night stay in February may receive a 100% possible score if requested ten months in advance, but receive just a 12.5% score if requested at the last minute.
The second factor, considers the average conversion rate of the sales person, created from past data. If the sales person converts one sale in 4, due to competition this factor is considered asides the availability and combines with other rules such to create an intelligent automated sales tunnel.
Some work on Chaos Theory and better long term financial projections is presented alongside the SUSY Hierarchal Spin Equalizer. All of which continues within the final section of The Divergent CRM, the Tutorials and at a later time the tutorial game.
17. Tutorials and the Tutorial Game:
For users of Cape Town Luxury Villas, Villa Secrets or any future brands we will be creating many individual +/-90 second videos for quick reference on any individual point of the CRM and CMS’s, in addition edited mini movies will look at sections and eventually the entire process.
The BFA ‘British Franchise Association states that good tutorials are essential to any franchise. From systems use to sales techniques to the use of Super String theory within the network. We will create a vast bank of tutorial videos and recommended other videos and in time create a game as is described in various points within S-World & American Butterfly book 1 ‘The Theory of Every Business’ Chapters seven and eight. More on this in future videos.
Magic Menus | Super Intelligent XML Sitemap | CMS Logic
By Nick Ray Ball 05th March 2016
Magic Menus is a system to improve product ordering and display, incorporates a next generation XML Sitemap. Programmed using a system unique to Villa Secrets ‘CMS Logic™.’
Magic Menus was created as an improved way to order our product lists ( the order properties appear in searches) which creates an advanced XML Sitemap, as mentioned as a key SEO factor within Googles ‘Search Engine Optimization – Starter Guide.’
XML sitemaps are a way to tell Google and Bing, which pages on a website are most important, and how often they change. Each page is given a priority of 0.0 to 1.0 and offers a change frequency of always, hourly, daily, weekly, yearly or never. Here you can see an example of the Cape Town Luxury Villas XML SiteMap.
Our objective with our advanced XML sitemap was to give high XML priorities to properties that Google would respect, such as: pages with original content, pages that had high Moz page authority or pages that Google Analytics showed that were getting a lot of visits.
The theory being that Google often takes a ‘quick look’ at websites, looking only at high XML priority pages. So if one has 1000 pages on a website of which only 100 had high XLM priority, Google may rank a website on its top 100 pages, not the complete website. And so we create the sitemap in a way that Google only sees pages it approves and there for thinks more of the website.
Please note, this may have no effect in Google at all, it’s just a theory. However, the process created is great for Villa Secrets websites in general, as it has made us work a lot harder on the top 10% of our properties, creating blogs for the best Villas and Safaris. And from the blogs looking making a ‘reviewed by owner’ online magazine, remaking the best of the blog post into magazine pages.
In addition as is mentioned in the ‘Divergent CRM’ we are creating advanced product/villa pages, that require photos wider that 1200px and will be created more like this.
And so, when expending internationally to the likes of Bali and Hawaii where there is a PMS (Property Management System) system that can give us a hundred or more villas in one locations. We will connect to it.
However all its system pages with duplicate content will be at low XML priories and will appear low in searches and will not be found on the homepage. And instead, the best properties from the portfolio will be remade into blogs, magazine articles and enhanced product pages displayed at the top of all search pages and often featured on the websites homepage.
These villas, become the ‘Secret’ in ‘Villa Secrets’. This is not only a good way to present our ‘Villa Secrets’ to Google, it is a much better way to present to clients in general.
In the following video, we see a snapshot of the Magic Menus as of 13th February 2016. The videos cover 22 different points and is an hour long, which is a testament to the level of detail requited to create the system.
Magic Menus & CMS Logic (59 minutes)
CMS Logic
CMS logic is a term we have given to the programming style used to create Magic Menus. In short instead of giving many php instructions to the programmers, we have created many CMS (Content Management System) pages, which detail over 100 different parameters over dozens of pages. So that the system architect can adjust the setting for each variable and a incredibly complex system can be created and made simple to both the system architect and the end users alike.
To start with we split the XML priority into two, properties that have duplicate content (a description that has been seen on another website before) are all below Priority 5 and fresh content properties are above 5. Then many rules are applied including: page views, quality links and manual actions. Over time the villas priority changes moving higher or lower in the master list.
This is a good system, but not perfect, as it does not allow any good properties with duplicate content into the top of lists. The general principle is that all such villas should have a new and improved description created, and where possible new pictures. But this is time consuming and not always practice, especially when a franchise is starting from new. (Albeit in general new franchise would start with original content and PMS villas over time.)
But in case that is not practice an additional layer of functionality is added, to display whichever villa one wishes in the list regardless of its content status.
Rotating Magic Menus
To create a better system, we are creating a ‘Top 64 List’. Here we can add different lists of properties, to different position that will appear in the 64 places in a specific location, such as ‘Cape Town’
(Note when a user looks at a ‘collection’ such as ‘On the Beach’ the system will follow the Top64 list showing villas in the location that have the ‘On the Beach’ attribute.)
To display the best villas, regardless of the content, and in general as it simple for system users, we have created a ‘Top 10 Rotating List’ where one adds their top ten villas which rotate positions every day or so. Why the rotation? Well in looking at the current Top 10 Cape Town Villas we have nine villas that on their day could be No 1. So we rotate them.
One can make the ‘Top 10 Rotating list’ appear in positions 1 to 10 in the Top 64 villas Rotating’ list. However, there are other lists that we want to display. Such as:
1. Highest Attribute Score for Villa under $700 on Feb 24th
Attribute Scores are explained in the ‘Magic Keywords & Attribute Scores’ page.
Often one’s favourite villas will be the most expensive, and so there is a danger of losing out on mid-range clients who may be put off by a presentation off villas all of which are above their budget. So we add the highest scoring villas under $700 in hi season (Feb 24). One can change the price and date in the CML Logic pages.
2. Highest Attribute Score for Villa under $450 on Feb 24th
Same as above but different low price
3. Mandates Villas (Villas that have signed a mandate)
4. High Discounts (Villas that offer higher STO’s)
5. Different lists/portfolios, such as Cape Villas, Razor, Cape Town Luxury Villas and soon Nox Rentals, Village and Life & Nightsbridge
6. Highest Google Analytics page views
7. Highest Moz Page Authority (pages with good links)
8. Blog & Magazine pages
9. Adds (Someone may offer $???? a month to be in the top 5 villas.
Lastly we are working on a set of CMS Logic pages that work for newly added villas, that sees them fall through the top 64 villas, in a way that visually looks a little like the code from the film The Matrix. This system gives new properties time to be seen in high positions and so we can count the page views and links to assess their popularity, some will find themselves automatically placed in a prominent position, others will fall down the list, to live in obscurity until manually assessed.
In regards to manual assessment, since creating the video we have now made a very simple and good looking way to look at the master list and drag and drop villas into a preferred order. This also applies to sets of villas that need a manual overview. For instance, the new properties that fell through the list into obscurity. They end up in a catch all list, which displays all the properties, and it’s easy to quickly look and see if any properties should be more prominently placed.
All the above combined creates ‘Magic menus’ and whist it is specifically designed for vacation rentals can be adapted to any industry that displays numerous products on line.
VS Mobile is a stunning mobile website, that looks and functions like an App, created on the words most stable mobile platform JQuery Mobile.
This project is 75% complete.
When complete, the cost for adding VS Mobile to Cape Town Luxury Villas is $8,700.
Welcome to ‘VS Mobile’
The mobile website that looks and functions like an App.
The best way to see VS Mobile is to look at www.VillaSecrets.com on a mobile, you cannot see it by making the browser on a laptop smaller, as it uses code to recognise and only shows to mobile devices.
VS Mobile was first sketched out in 2013, we wanted a complete different website for mobile that ran from our existing database, which was simple, easy to navigate and did not use much bandwidth.
We started work on the engineering proper in June 2015 after establishing that the best framework by a county mile was JQuery Mobile, which was tested and works on dozens of devices and had a gallery presenting many examples from which to seek inspiration.
Below we see our current mobile homepage on the left and on the right (and in the graphic above) is the next update. Currently the top image changes every few seconds, but we will be making this into a top 10 villas display and staring with the logo. Then sliding in the other text elements and then photos. Working on the 8 second rule (On average one had only 8 seconds to impress the client, before they move on to another website).
In addition, we see a link to the ‘Villa Secrets Magazine,’ which will be similar to http://blog.villasecrets.com. A WordPress blog which works well on mobile, this blog/magazine is the common denominator between the desktop website and the mobile site.
Navigation
In the graphic above we see the options: Top 10 villas, Search, Locations, Collections & VS Magazine as the perfect launch pad for the client, whichever direction the client takes, it delivers them to our product pages. The homepage is in effect 6 different ways to navigate to our products plus 2 contacts. Whatever button is pressed or picture clicked leads to a product or contact.
In making this navigation for VS Mobile, we lined its simplicity so much that realised we needed to change the navigation on the main Villa Secrets website. Which when updated will only offers ‘Search, Locations, Collections or Blog/Magazine. Due to thin, in a way one could say that Villa Secrets is a ‘mobile first’ website, as it was completely redesigned after we completed VS Mobile V1, following the simplicity of the mobile version.
Below we see a graphic that shows the current options from the homepage, the Search Locations and Collections.
In the second picture we see the advanced search, that askes for dates and delivers villas that can be booked on line.
It the third picture we see the results of clicking ‘Locations’ which offers collections of locations and individual suburbs. Only showing the popular options. Displaying both ‘online’ and ‘bespoke’ (not on line/call or email owner) villas.
In ‘Collections’ we see groups of villas such as ‘on the beach’ and ‘family villas’. Both Locations and Collections are simple one click navigation pages to the product pages.
In addition to the navigation options from the big buttons on the homepage one can use the navigations from the static (always there) top right menu button. Which mirrors the homepage options and then offers Contact, Enquiry and more options. See picture 3 and 4 below.
In addition to the many ways to search for product pages there is always a ‘Call Us’ and ‘Enquire’ buttons at the bottom of the page.
Importantly please note the button at the top left, which either says ‘Back’ or ‘Home’ this is the primary navigation past the home page. As we use simple ‘Forward <|> Back’ navigation
In the graphic below we see this in practice, from the home page the first button leads to the search page. Then once the client has searched he/she arrives at the product page. Once at the search results page to view individual villas, and details we use a simple back and forward option to see the villas and return to the search results page. Click a picture to go forwards and arrive at the product page, which gives the option to swipe and look at all the pictures. Or scroll down for descriptions and details.
If the client likes the villa they can enquire, but if they wish to look for more villas they just click the ‘back’ button and they are on the search results page again. Then one goes forward and back through the portfolio until the client wishes to enquire. All the time having the back-up of the menu at the top right.
Each picture that is seen has been resized to 300px wide and optiomised to use minimal bandwidth. There are also some advanced options for agaents to use.
Currently (as of 2nd March 2016) we are 75% complete, all the functionality we see above is done, the connection to the PMS is complete and we are looking and behaving more like and App than a Mobile Website.
In the immediate developemnt que we will be working on the product pages, adding the Magazine button, which takes us to our WordPress blog and most significalt we will we adding a top 10 countdown on the homepage. Which will start with our logo.
Due to the ‘Magic Keywords’ software, despite having no links or local SEO, Cape Town Luxury Villas gets a considerable amount of free organic traffic from Google and Bing for long keyword searches, bringing in 25% of enquiries.
Magic Keywords was created specifically to improve the Structure of our websites in accordance to the first 2 points presented in Googles ‘Search Engine Optimization – Starter Guide.’ Specifically the need for each page on the website to have different and relevant Meta Title’s and Descriptions.
We knew from our 10 years’ experience with CapeVillas.com that if there was no system, many pages would have the same Title. In making Magic Keywords we created a system that would uniquely name each page and go further by repeating variations of this name on Header tags on the product pages.
The result is that every single page in Cape Town Luxury Villas is shown in Google Search Results. In the last three months over 120 different pages in Cape Town Luxury Villas have received clients from free Google and Bing Organic Searches, creating about 25% of enquiries.
In the following video, we see how the system works, by using keywords from each villas attributes. And we show and example for Villa ID:571 (Bond House), where we see three different automatically created headers that rank in position 1 on Google for their specific phrase.
Within the video the point is made that this is a good starting point, from which to perform traditional link building and Local SEO, which will increase our websites position for shorter keywords such as ‘Cape Town Villas’ & ‘Villas in Cape Town.’
In addition, we go into detail about how the attribute points work to not only create good Meta Titles and Descriptions but also create a score, which can be used to present the best villas at different price categories. This point is further developed in the ‘Magic Menu’s’ presentation.
For Magic Keywords an additional video created on Google Analytics is useful as it demonstrates that all pages on the Cape Town Luxury Villas.com website and shown in Google’s free Searches and that 120 different pages have attracted clients within the last three months.
