PageRank VS ApartmentRank

While a group of creditworthy scientists in Italy seems to have found the missing link between quantum phisycs and, yeah, the ever changing Google PageRank equation (see: PageRank equation and localization in the WWW) I feel lost in entropy trying to find a sound way to rank our listed apartments.

A seemingly simple task as ranking your apartments can turn into a real conundrum once you start looking at the numbers.
First let me tell you we're going upstream by separating the renters rating reviews from the ranking algorythm, on Roman Reference you'll soon be able to sort apartments on the base of reviews alone, forget our own ranking criteria which are (see below) in quicksand

And now let's look at the figures:

Most Visited equals Less Profitable:
Our 20 most visited apartments gets nearly double visits than average and feature a bounce rate 30% higher than average and a $value 22.5% lower than average.
They also have an actual ranking much higher than average which determines being displayed higher in search results and more on the homepage. The question is: since they are underperforming they shouldn't be ranking so high or are they undeperforming because they are ranking high?
Only 20% of visitors come to the website with a clear idea of what they want (and go straight to the search engine) the remaining 80% just want to take a look and is therefore less likely to book, they will click on the first apartments they see, hang in there and not book. This may explain the lower dollar value, although it doesn't the higher bounce rate.

Better Bounce Rate = Better $ Value:
The 20 apartments featuring the best bounce rate (40% lower than average) have 8.5% better $value. The 20 apartments featuring the best $Value (40% higher than average) feature 5.5% better than average bounce rate.

Engagement VS Revenue:
If numbers talk overall engagement goes against $Value.
Apartments with best bounce and $value rate feature respectively 26.5% and 10% less than average time on page spent by visitors and 40% and 25% less owners' engagement (the number of times a owner logs into our back office per week).

If I were to translate this into simple talk
1- clients lingering on a page to read amenities, other clients' reviews and nearby attractions lists book less
2- owners with high value of engagement are overvalued in our algorithm and get higher than deserved rankings (best performing apartments have half then average visitors and owners' committment rates).

Leontief, Schrödinger or, yeah, Larry & Sergey please do come to rescue!

Photo Credit LinkaLab

Nouveaux appartements

C'est bientot le printemps et de nouveaux appartements ont rejoint le site!
Dans la zone du Vatican appartement 458, le flat 458b et le studio 458c qui lui se trouve dans la zone de San Lorenzo et qui sont gérés par le meme manager ont déjà eu un franc succès.
Toujours dans la zone du Vatican, s'est ajouté l'appartement 374, et l'appartement Rome 183 avec une vue spectaculaire sur St.Pierre.
Dans la zone proche de Via Veneto, il y a ce nouvel location à Rome #480 très calme, au rez de chaussée avec de très beaux trompe l'oeil aux murs.
Dans le quartier de Trastevere, 3 nouveaux appartements sont sur le site: Lelogement 345 qui est proche des transports, l'apartment 457, qui est petit mais le tarif est très aventageux, et l'appartement 319b dont la décoration est neutre et moderne à la fois.
Parmis les appartements qui ont ajouté de nouvelles photos, il y a l'appartement 208 situé à San Lorenzo, l'appartement 199 à Trastevere et l'appartement 103 proche du Colisée.

#pcITB - Chaos Calls - Bloggers Summit is Great

Great opening of the bloggers' summit today brainstorming with Phillip Wolf on the chaos expecting the online travel market.

Our approach to SEO and internet marketing has been revolutionized by
-social marketing already (that includes at least facebook, twitter, linkedin, youtube and, oh yeah, your blog obviously),
-OTAs like expedia are likely to grow and lock in a chunk of our market and, most importantly,
-new devices will call different technology (think: iphone apps).

So what to do, specialize on something and cross fingers or embrace it all?

And while we're at it, will a bloggers' summit be held again at all?

How do bloggers compare to journalists?

Little note on how the conference closed yesterday with P. Wolf interview with David Roche, who is president of Hotels.com and Venere.com (see Expedia). Very interesting, with omissions drawing attention at least as much as what was explicitly said.
These sub-brands of Expedia are, attending Mr Roche, competing to one another and to Expedia. Sounds like a good example of coopertition.
Is it true?! Rumors have it, in Rome for example regarding Venere.com, that sub-brands business models are being gradually changed as to resemble Expedia's more and more. Rumors, that is, have it that Expedia is largely playing a catch and kill, slow killing, so the user base don't go wasted, but competitors (and their competing models) fade away by brute force and they keep locking in on us.

Chaos is Calling! Whichever way you look at entropy is better than the law and order of a lock-in effect under a big whole OTA controlling us all.

#pcitb - Not So Sure I know what to Make Of It

Well over half through the PhocusWright conference here at ITB Berlin and don't feel so sure what to make of it.
'What am I doing here?'
I'm feeling a bit like Bruce right now, I'm not so sure about the other attendees, but they all seem busy like me on their computers and iphones during the conference. The smartest looking one I met outside during a keynote. Asked him how comes, 'Too dark in there' he replied briskly. Half way through I'm afraid I start getting the meaning.
What was I expecting
Information I guess. I mean we're talking #1 think tank in our field! I flew expressly 1000s kms because I was expecting some fire hose of information to go crazy and drawn me. Most of what I see here is presentation of firms (small to huge) and talkbacks (with the notable exception of severine philardeau/tripadvisor VS matthew goldberg/lonely planet) which are not engaging or confrontational, really. Case studies, ok, but that kind of info is pablic and burdering advertising.
On the good side
These guys here are big time professionals. You get your iphone app with instant updates, schedule is respected literally to the second, they call the conference 'show' and, hey, they know how to be spectacular!
When you go into the hall it feels just like '2001 a space odissey' revisited, with video effects and stereo soundtrack you end up wondering how could they make the 3D effect work without glasses.
@itb, show starts again now, we'll catch up later

Roman Reference: Reporting and Trends #3 - Google metrics and benchmarks

Let's now give a look at year on year google metrics. What's improving and what isn't.

The Metrics

Overall visits to the website have gone up almost 40%. I think we can credit half of this growth to the renewed efforts and investmens made towards organic SEO and the other half to a general growth on the engagement rate.

Pageviews and Pages/Visits went down. The previous slightly (3%) the latter rather dramatically (30%). This is most likely due to the growth in engagement. Clients more than last year keep coming back to the website and they know more precisely what to look for.

Bounce Rate to reconfirm the above, albeit less than we would have hoped, it has improved (-1.5%)

Same goes for the Average time on Site which has gone up 5.6%.

New Visits instead have gone down almost 6% and that's another indicator of a higher level of engagement.

Onsite Conversions went up almost 50%! which is a great result and conversion rate raised by over 7%