Advice On Developing 3 Spanish Sites

[shimeal]

I own three domain names that are cities in Spain. All of the domains receive a fair amount of type-in traffic, particularly Spanish-based traffic.

I would like to develop each of the domains into a portal about their respective places. I would appreciate your input into what type of information & features should be incorporated into such a portal. Specifically, are there any good referal booking engines for hotels, car rentals, etc. that are Spanish (i.e. return information from Spain)?

I don't mind writing the content initially, however, I would like to incorporate features such as a discussion board, an RSS feed of the snowfall (ripped from Weather.com or some other weather-related site), trail maps, etc.

Also, I have thought about outsourcing a daily blog post on the sites to a writer in Latin America in order to keep the site fresh. It could be something as simple as reporting the snowfall for the past 24 hrs, thereby allowing skiers & potential skiers to comment.

Any specific advice you folks can offer is appreciated! :-)

[calicochris]

shimeal, I don't know your market, but seems to me you need to do some work in terms of what your prospective visitors will want or expect from these sites. Are you marketing to skiers? To vacationers? .. Who are going to want to go to your sites? It is not clear to me who your target market is and how you are going to get to them. If you know this piece, it should be easier to decide on content.

You may also know that Latin American Spanish could be very different from Mainland Spanish.

[shimeal]

calicochris,

Thanks for the reply! My target market is both vacationers & skiers. The majority of people who come to the site are both.

Visits to my three sites increase every year beginning in October. Visits stay high through approximately early March and then begin to slowly fade away until the following October. I mention this because it is clear that these people are looking for ski-related vacation information. The names I have are places that are known as ski resorts (ex: Vail, CO).

I am aware that a Spaniard's Spanish is much different from the Spanish spoken in Latin America. I will also probably need to do a version of the site in Catalan, as two of the names are places located in Catalonia (Northern Spain). According to Google Trends, there are a roughly equal amount of searches in Catalan & Spanish from Spain for these two places in Northern Spain.

Having noted all of this, I would like to divide the site up into the following categories:

1. Regional information
2. Chalets & apartments
3. Hotels
4. Ski Conditions
5. Ski & snowboard rentals
6. Car rental
7. Dining
8. Nightlife

Thoughts?

[calicochris]

something to make the visitor to the site feel special .. like 'insider reports' .. can be anything from Spas to tennis courts...

[conor]

Apres ski ?
webcams?

[Marcia]

Some of the categories you've listed could fit together into broader categories for a leaner site architecture, and then branch out further into the more specific.

Outdoor and recreation go together: some folks ski, others go backpacking, some like beaches. Dining and nightlife go together, and vacation rentals (villas) and hotels are all accommodations.

[vincevincevince]

Dining and nightlife go together

Common mistake that. They have nothing to do with each other. Most people look for dining OR nightlife, not both.

[shimeal]

Thanks for all the solid info thus far. A question I'd like to bring back up that I mentioned at the outset of the post: Have any of you seen a Spanish villa or hotel reservation booking engine?

I'd like to offer some sort of accommodation & car-rental booking on the site as a sort of affiliate $$ program, however, I haven't seen one that is in Spanish or even Spain-centric.

Any thoughts?