GoBC Newsletter

Newsletter March 2011

Monday Mar 28, 2011

Better Insights to Help you Maximize Effectiveness
GoBC ranks high in search engines and therefore can give you more online visibility than your own website. But how do you know if your listing grabs people's attention, perhaps even brings visitors to your website? We’ve added more information designed to help you monitor, and make the most of your listing.

Artists, be a Dot on the Map!
The concept behind GoBC is to give visitors more reasons to come to your community and stay - longer. GoBC showcases arts, culture, heritage, nature and adventure alongside accommodations and tour providers. As an artist, you are invited to promote your work on GoBC at no cost, and at the same time help promote your community. Please help put your community on the map by being seen on the map! Here is how...

Good News for Studio Tours: Use our Map as your official Map
In addition to providing free promotion on GoBC and social media, we've added a feature that lets you use GoBC's map as your official studio tour map. Read more...



Better Insights to Help you Maximise Effectiveness

Log in to your GoBC member area to find out how many people browsed businesses in your area or category, whether they took a closer look at your listing, and whether they clicked through to your own website.

Here are the new additions to your member area:

“Listing browsed” tells you how many people saw the summary of your listing. For example, someone looking for accommodation in Victoria will browse these listings: http://www.gobc.ca/city-of-victoria-travel/accommodations/

“Detailed page views” tells you how many site visitors opened your listing and read it in more detail.

“Click through to website” tells you how many site visitors followed the link to your own website, perhaps resulting in a contact by phone or e-mail or a reservation from your website.

As before, “Information requests” and “Booking requests” indicate the number of requests you received via the GoBC site.

Tip: Behind the scenes, we can see that most site visitors open listings that show prices, or a price range, right at first sight. An informative, concise summary and appealing image also help. Vacation planning is hard work – please make it easy on prospective customers: tell them what you offer and what price range you are in, at first sight.



Artists, be a Dot on the Map!

Why? Because a lively community with arts and culture, activities and attractions as well as accommodations will get more visitors to stop, explore, enjoy and yes, to shop. Please be sure to complete your address information in your member area. If you only accept visitors by appointment or show your work at other locations, please include the information in your listing. Here is an example: http://www.gobc.ca/saanich-travel/metal-lynn-lynn-laughren_2397



Good News for Studio Tours: Use our Map as your official Map

Thanks to those of you who have added and updated their studio tour listings! We look forward to promoting you on facebook, twitter and more, along with nearby places to stay. If you haven't had a chance to include your studio tour, please make it a priority! Here is an example of the end product: http://www.gobc.ca/tours/victoria-saanich-scattered-artists-studio-tour-2011_10

New this year: GoBC now allows organizers to use the Google map on GoBC as the official tour map, saving organizers time and money. Call us to find out how. It's easy, promise!

As before, all participating artists are encouraged to have their own, permanent listing, linked to the studio tour listing, to give your visitors complete information. You can use GoBC as your tour's official website, or include a link to your website in your listing. Tours that have their own url but no website can forward their url to their GoBC listing, to help your visitors find you.

Please visit www.gobc.ca/advertise and read the section for “BC artists, museums, theatre companies, performing artists, musicians”. And remember: it's free.