The blog for SellMyTimeshareNow.com, a 2-year-old site advertising timeshares for sale and rent by their owners, got little attention until Hurricane Emily and other tropical storms threatened timeshares in the Caribbean and other areas this summer.
“Timeshare owners were curious about whether their property was damaged, and resorts wouldn't give them information,” said Jason Tremblay, CEO of SellMyTimeshareNow.com, Hampton, NH.
Soon, the 3-month-old blog, Timeshareownersblog.sellmytimeshare.com, became the only source for news on storm damage in specific areas where timeshare residents own property. Many other news organizations gave only general information on the storms.
Word about the blog spread as a result of this reporting, and more people visited the blog and the Web site. Site traffic originating from the blog has shifted from “fairly negligible” to 5 percent, Tremblay said. The site gets 20,000 visits a day.
The blog visitors also have produced qualified leads. Conversion from leads to sales on the site is greater from blog-generated visitors than general visitors to the site, Tremblay said.
Tremblay and other SellMyTimeshareNow executives started the blog shortly after attending the Search Engine Strategies Conference & Expo in New York in May.
“We thought the blog might be a way to educate people,” he said.
The timeshare industry historically has not had a good reputation, Tremblay said, and people have even more misconceptions about timeshare reselling. The blog provides informational articles on reselling timeshares, the timeshare industry and news affecting the segment.
Advertising is not offered on the blog pages, though Tremblay is considering this revenue stream.
Christine Blank covers online marketing and advertising, including e-mail marketing and paid search, for DM News and DMNews.com. To keep up with the latest developments in these areas, subscribe to our daily and weekly e-mail newsletters by visiting www.dmnews.com/newsletters
