Venues4Africa

As a Venues4Africa partner, you have access to an Owners’ Dashboard where you can update your lodge information and images at any time.  We’re always here to help if you get stuck or need us to add additional location or category options to our various menus. 

Below are some guidelines for maximising your listing.

Location Text Fields

Country:

The entry in this field determines whether your property displays in search results by country.

Area:

This field should only be completed if your venue is in an established well-known tourism area, e.g. “West Coast” or “City Bowl” (Cape Town).  If there is no sensible or relevant Area to link to your venue, please leave this blank/select the N/A option.

Suburb:

This field should only be completed if you are in an urban area, and search results for the whole city will be filtered by suburb. If you are a rural area, leave this field blank/select the N/A option.

Province:

This field should only be completed if your country location is broken down into distinct Provinces. If not, leave this field blank/select the N/A option.

City/Town:

The entry in this field determines whether your property displays in search results by city. If you select a city that is too far away from your location, our content editors will correct this for you to ensure that our map search functions optimally.

Route:

This field should only be selected if your venue is located on an established tourism route.  Please leave this field blank if not.

Latitude and Longitude coordinates: 

-        these determine the pin position on your google map location, as well as the position of your pin on the overview map for each destination, so it’s very important that you enter these correctly. 

-        Coordinates must be entered in decimal format (e.g. -33.98904), NOT degrees, minutes and seconds. If you don’t know the decimal format for your coordinates, you can get them from Google Maps. Open a new browser window, go to google maps and search for your property in the top right search field in the google maps. When the pin for your property shows, right click it and click on “What’s here?” Click on the box which opens and your decimal coordinates will display in the top left-hand google maps search box. Simply copy and paste them into the Longitude and Latitude fields in your Venues dashboard page. 

-        Alternatively, you can convert your GPS coordinates to the correct format online by using a GPS coordinates converter.

Images

General

-        your images are the most powerful selling tool on your listing. We recommend you use high-resolution (min 72 dpi), large format (min 1400x1050 pixels) images.

-        Image file names also help with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), so we recommend that before you upload your images, you rename the files to represent the content of your image e.g. Agulhas-hotel-bedroom.jpg; or agulhas-hotel-lobby.jpg.

-        Avoid using special characters and punctuation in your file names.

-        The caption for your image also helps with SEO so please enter a brief caption describing the content of your image, e.g. Agulhas Hotel – Luxury Suite; Agulhas Hotel - Lobby

Listing image:

-        your listing image displays in the square tile for your property in the search results page for your destination.

-        Your listing image is the most important image for driving traffic to your page:  this image must persuade browsers to click on your tile in the search results page, instead of a competitor’s tile. So choose this image carefully.  We recommend that your listing image is either your best shot of the exterior of your venue, giving a good impression of the nature of your establishment, or your strongest bedroom image. 

-        This image must be min 800 pixels (w) x 600 (h).

Cover image:

-        your cover image is the strongest selling point for your property once browsers get to your listing page. It displays at the top of your listing page, so creates the first strong visual impression of your product.

-        This image must be min 1400 pixels (w) x 500 (h).

-        We recommend that your cover image is either your best shot of the exterior of your venue, giving a good impression of the nature of your establishment, or your strongest bedroom image (whichever you didn’t use for your listing image).

-        Although you can use the same image for your listing image and your cover image, we recommend that you use different images to maximise the power of these two positions on the site and your page.

Gallery image:

-        We require at least 5 images but we recommend a minimum of 8. 

-        These images display at the bottom of your listing, under the google map.  If clicked on they open in full gallery view, so should be hi-resolution and large enough format to view properly in gallery view (min 800 x 600 pixels)

-        The gallery image thumbnails display in rows of 4, so for the neatest display, we recommend 8 or 12 images.

Listing Text

Introduction:

The content in this field is a “teaser” for the browser. It displays in the “About” box of your listing on the top right-hand side, below your cover image. It should include a brief summary of your property or a piece of text that explains what makes your property special. It should be about 50 words long and focus on why a guest should choose to stay at your venue.  

Description:

All the necessary information you wish to share with potential guests should be filled in here. This includes a brief description of the property, what you have on offer, what they can expect and anything extra that is unique to your property.

Ideally, a description of room types and any other facilities should be included here.

A maximum of 400 words and no less than 100 words should be used. Too much text may steer the browser away, and too little text will leave them uninformed.

Location Information:

Some information about the location in which your property is situated should be included here. This gives the browser a better idea of what is on offer in your location as a whole. What type of excursions and attractions are in close proximity? How far from major tourist attractions is your venue? What is special about where you are located?

A maximum of 250 and a minimum of 50 words should be used here.

Directions:

Regardless of having your location pinned on a google map, written directions are always helpful. Directions from major cities and/or airports to your property should be included here. Email addresses and links to your website for directions are not permitted on the site.  These will be removed immediately.

Amenities:

Select from the list of amenities below the “About” section. Each selection made here will add a logo for that amenity to the Amenities section on your listing.

*If any of your amenities don’t display in the amenities selection options, please email us with a request to have the item added.