Website development for studio apartments
The owners of apartment studios approached us with the task: to create a modern website that will become a full-fledged direct sales channel and reduce dependence on booking aggregators (Ostrovok, Yandex.It was important not just to "make a beautiful showcase", but to assemble a working tool to attract traffic from search and convert visitors into bookings.
Tasks and requirements of the project
User-friendly, fast and intuitive interface on all devices.
Good indexability and visibility in search engines.
The ability to edit texts and images without the involvement of developers.
The module for booking apartment studios and accepting applications.
A feedback form for questions and inquiries.
A separate page with a map of the sights of Karelia and Petrozavodsk, with a convenient route.
Decision
We have developed a website with a professional design and laid the technical foundation for further automation. The project is implemented on a modern PHP/Laravel/HTML/JavaScript/MySQL stack. This approach ensured manageability, extensibility and stable performance under load, and also allowed for the painless addition of new scenarios (integrations, analytics, CRM bundles, automation of communications).
Infrastructure and reliability
The website is hosted on a cloud VPS server. Basic reliability practices are configured: fault tolerance, availability control, and automatic backups to reduce the risks of downtime and data loss.
Booking and the economics of direct sales
To launch online booking, we offered integration with the module of a major Russian sales channel manager. This gave a quick start without developing a "heavy" own booking system from scratch and allowed us to keep the cost of implementation at a reasonable level. Additionally, it is more profitable in terms of commissions.: Sales channel managers tend to have lower commissions than large OTA platforms, which directly affects the marginality of direct bookings.
SEO readiness
A separate block of work was devoted to search engine optimization: correct page structure, technical optimization, preparation of the site for indexing and increased visibility for key queries. The goal is to get stable organic traffic and reduce the cost of attracting bookings compared to paid channels.
Result
After the launch of the website, the share of direct sales increased by 70% (without the use of aggregators), which increased the return on sales by 5%. Further growth of indicators is possible due to scaling SEO, content development and the inclusion of new automation scenarios (personal offers, email/messenger communications, funnel analytics, A/B tests).
