Billabong Motor Inn approached us to provide a quote for a new website and growth assistance. They submitted our quote to the Queensland Gov as part of Round 2 of the Adaption Grant. Their application was successful. We then set about creating their new website. We strategically pre-planned and crafted a one-page website for Billabong Motor Inn. The benefits and features of our one-page websites are described on this page. We also added a 2nd page called ‘About Mundubbera’

The Brief

Billabong Motor Inn needed a website that was MUCH better than their previous website. They needed this new website to:

  • Be more appealing and a better representation of their business than their previous website
  • Promote and link to their online booking system
  • Contain information explaining that they are COVID-19 complaint
  • A fresh new design
  • A website that is modern, showcases their rural hospitality, what they offer and things to do in the area
  • Great imagery
  • Links to their social media channels

Below is a short video showing the website home page, the accommodation online booking system and the ‘About Mundubbera’ page.

Our Approach

We explained the many benefits of a one-page website (or a mini-website) to Billabong Motor Inn. They agreed with the strategy. We then had a preplanning discussion meeting and then set about designing a very attractive new website for Billabong Motor Inn. They supplied the photos and we also found a few additional photos from our own collection and stock footage. We utilised content from their old website and enhanced it. We chose to design a very vibrant new website for Billabong Motor Inn. They are located in Mundubbera which is considered one of the 2 citrus capitals of Queensland. We adapted the ‘citrus theme’ within the website… along with a ‘rural Queensland’ theme. The Mudubbera region is a very diverse farming food bowl region, as is the entire Burnett Region. The owner of Green Valley Digital grew up on a farm in that region. We made sure the website contained many great images. We also ensured the text was well written and informative. Some of the other features in this new website include:

  • A ‘Book Online’ button at the top of the website and in other key areas of the site
  • Mobile Phone Responsive. It works correctly on PC, Mac computers, laptops, Tablets and modern Mobile Phones
  • An embedded local Map
  • We designed and built this website within 2 weeks. Final tweaks were then done in week 3. We then launched the website once the client approved it.
  • Links to the client’s TripAdvisor profile
  • Enquiry form
  • Simple animation effects that display as you scroll down the webpage

This website was only launched 2 weeks ago. Billabong Motor Inn will book time with us shortly for their complementary website training and video tutorials so they can easily login and make changes whenever they need to. This saves them time and money by being able to do this themselves, instead of having to pay a website designer every time they want to change some text, add a PDF document, etc. This new website is build using the WordPress.org CMS (Content Management System) engine. It is free to use which means the client does not pay licensing fees. 98% of all the small business websites we create use the WordPress.org CMS. Not only is it free for them to use, it also saves them a LOT of money. It is also very easy for our clients to login to their website and make updates. To ensure we keep in-tact the existing marketing efforts of Billabong Motor Inn, we asked them the following questions before we started creating their new website. If any of these things we included within their old website, we would have made sure we included them within their new website:

  1. If they had login access to the Google Analytics account that was setup on their old website. We have a short article that explains the importance of using Google Analytics here.
  2. If they ever paid anyone to do SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) work or SEO campaign work in the past. If so, could they show me the last ‘Google Keyword Phrase Ranking Report’ supplied to them. We would have then added the correct SEO work into their new website so they would not lose any ranking in Google or Bing.
  3. If any landing pages for Google Ads or online marketing campaigns were set up in their old website.
  4. If any staff or sales login portals or any other hidden pages or features were set up in the old site that needed to be moved to the new site.

Each of the above points are very important questions to ask before creating a new website for any client. Always make sure your website designer asks you these questions when they are planning to re-design your website. Side note related to point 2 and 3 (above): These are VERY important questions to ask when doing ANY website redesign project for anyone and/or any business. Imagine for a moment this scenario: You have previously paid money for SEO and/or Google Adwords work to be done in your old site, and had good results with it (as in, it produced and still produces great increases in quality traffic, large increases in enquiries and sales)… but then the person (or team) who create your new website does not know to migrate the on-website SEO work or the Adwords landing pages (or other things) into your new website. Your new website will launch, your rankings and visibility in Google are gone and the numbers of enquiries (and sales) you have gotten very used to will disappear overnight. Why? Because the SEO work was not migrated and your Adwords efforts are also now taking a hit because their landing pages are missing. YOUR website no longer producing good enquiries and sales. It is now a dead-fish! OUCH!!

The Results

Billabong Motor Inn are very happy with their new website 🙂 We are now helping them with furthering their business growth work as part of the Gov Grant funding they received. We’re putting a digital marketing action plan together for them at the moment and will be implementing it. All work we do will be benchmarked, monitored and measured… as per any good marketing activity.

Jay Daniells

About the Author: Jay Daniells

Jay Daniells has been doing advanced SEO work for clients since 2010. He is an SEO specialist. He first started doing SEO work in 2005. He has also been creating websites full-time since 2003. Amongst things Jay is also a graphic designer, digital marketing consultant and creative person. His focus is helping businesses, community groups, clubs, charities, organisations and other entities achieve their goals. He is the owner of Green Valley Digital.