Name of your website?The Poochini Hills Hotel & Doggy Daycare Centre
Your name?
Lian
Your Location (city, etc)
Adelaide
Please give us a short summary of your website?
Our new website is being constructed so we currently have a temporary website with information on our dog walking services. We are a new business in the process of setting up a doggy daycare facility for people to bring their dogs for socialisation and care during the weekdays and weekends. Until our doggy daycare centre is established we still offer dog walking visits and playtime at your own home while you are at work, shopping or on holidays. We also offer a permanent service for those who may be unable to exercise their dogs for whatever reason.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
I have been working behind the scenes on getting approval for my new business idea which was taking a really long time with council applications, purchasing land and the like. I had already created my brand and written a book about it and created a retail line for production and needed a medium to sell on and I also wanted to get a basic, temporary website up and running so that by the time our facilities constructed our pages will have moved up the google search ranks and we will be more accessible by people looking for our types of services.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
We haven't yet launched our official website. Our web design team are in the process of constructing our permanent site for us which will have e-commerce facilities, and booking facilities with a members area. I constructed our current website in a few hours just to create a presence on the web but I'm not an expert at web design so it looks nowhere near as creative as our professional website is going to look. I can't wait for our new website to be finished, and I hope that other people will log on and have a look at it when it is complete as I know it is going to look absolutely awesome!
How did you decide on a name for your website?
I wanted a name that sounded fun but also a little posh. A place where dog owners would be preoud to say they take their dog for doggy daycare and dog spa's. I call my dog Poochini as a nickname and after a recent stay at The Beverly Hills Hotel in LA I thought why not The Poochini Hills Hotel, it was ultimately a combination of my dogs name, my last name, and a touch of Beverly Hills elegance.
What makes your website different from other, similar offerings?
Our aim is to offer a service that is unequalled here in South Australia. We will provide 5-star care for dogs, eventually a dog spa, doggy webcam so you can log on and check on your pets when you are away for peace of mind, and a retail outlet where you can spoil you favourite little pooch with treats or clothes.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
I am creating this business to keep for the long term. I am passionate about providing actual 5-star care for dogs who might be bored at home during the day, lack exercise as there owners are too busy, or are left outside in the heat during summer succeptable to heat stroke, death or snake bites. Having seen many kennels and dog boarding facilities I would never leave my dog in one of them. I want to change the view of dog boarding in SA and provide a tranquil, silver service setting for everyone to bring their beautiful animals where I know that they will be looked after like one of my own.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
It is quite an expensive task to build what I am trying to build. However, far outweighing any cost is the difficulty of getting planning approval. Unfortunately the councils I have been in contact with have been rather unhelpful and discouraging throughout the process. This is why it is necessary to commence the website early and develop our dog walking business first so that by the time we finally finish construction we can hit the ground running. The money and time spent will all be worth it by then.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
I would have paid extra to get my site completed before any one elses so I never had to put up a temporary site to begin with. I also would have had a larger retail store front online and perhaps added more pages and flash imagery.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
As we only offer dog walking and dog minding services currently the wouldn't be a problem in our business as I have a team of dog handlers ready at short notice to step in and cover other areas provided there is enough interest directed toward our website.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
Not too many thus far apart from council issues and land purchasing. Trying to find someone to maufacture exactly what products I needed was difficult as there were not many compnies offering what I needed here in Australi
What has been your biggest challenge?
finding land large enough in suburbia and affordable too. Also, I stress planning and development approval has been one big nightmare and forget trying to find any helpful resources as everyone I was in contact with during the past 6months or more has really not been very helpful.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
As our current site is only temporary I havent pushed any advertising as I want to wait until our real site is live before we direct too much traffic there.
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
I have only had the website up for approximately 1 week as at the present time we don't have a whole lot of vacancies, I will keeop the website up indefinitely though until we are established so that the search engines begin to find crawl us. When the web design team finish constructing our final website I will have them work on search engine optimisation for our site.
What is your website address?
The Poochini Hills Hotel & Doggy Daycare Centre
