A recent review by Google sent A1 Vacation Rentals.com, a site promoting regional resorts, lowered the site

A recent review by Google sent A1 Vacation Rentals.com, a site promoting regional resorts, lowered the site’s search results dramatically. Hawaii vacations, for example, went from position No. 5 in search results to 55.

The site, which had been sending visitors who clicked on the Google results to its home page, began directing visitors to land on the a page devoted to the region the user wanted to vacation in. So now, people looking for a Colorado ski vacation, land on a page devoted to resorts in Colorado.

That was a smart move, but there are still problems with the landing pages, a panel running a clinic on ad copy and landing pages told an executive of A1. The regional landing pages list the resorts in alphabetical order in line after line of gray copy. No graphics, few links, sparse descriptions.

“Because these are expensive vacations, you might want to romance them a bit [in the copy],” said Lee Mills, media director of MEA Digital.

Also, bid on individual resort names and locations on the search engines, Misty Locke, president of Range Online Media, advised. And, it would be helpful if specific resorts were hotlinked on the landing page, she added. The only live links are to the locations where the resorts are.

The landing page for another resort site, Sandals.com, is attractive and well-organized, said the panel, but where is the pricing information?

“There’s two schools of thought on this,” said Mario Kuntz, Sandals’ webmaster. “We don’t want to have the pricing information up high on the page because if they see it costs $400 a night per person before they read the content that explains the resort is all-inclusive, they’ll be scared away.”

Another problem: the offer (25% off) and the booking form are at the bottom of the page. The user must scroll to find them these.

“On a travel site, people shop by price or date,” said a member of the audience.

The panel agreed. At least put the pricing information above the fold, they said.

A business-to-business site, ABC Leads.com, also buried important information at the bottom of its landing page.

The site, which provides mailing lists, leads, for insurance marketers, sells lists exclusively to one buyer. And, the site features discounted leads. This information, as well as the pricing material was at the bottom of this site too.

“Exclusive” and “Discounted” should be in big letters at the top of the page, said the panel.

Add a telephone number at the top, too, said Mills. “Even if people don’t use the phone number, they like to know it’s available.”