Everyone loves to see a great photo. On the web, some of the best photos to check out are from live web cams. Web cams are especially useful because they reflect real-time. If the beach where you want to surfing has a live web cam, you can check out the waves before loading up your gear.  Imagine seeing the day the surf come in and out throughout the day, and people enjoying the sunshine. Now image you have a wonderful view from your lodging property and you want to show it off to potential guests. A webcam is a must! Past and future guests will flock to your site to check the weather or just to see what is new from the view. In the past couple of years we have helped six clients get web cams installed and running and the results have been fantastic.  Below are three examples of how adding a web cam to your site can generate lots of repeat traffic for your site. Purple Haze Lavender – http://www.purplehazelavender.com This is one of the best web cam shots I have ever seen. The view is from their drying shed down towards one of their u-pick fields.  This image has helped Purple Haze triple the amount of visitors to their site and we can see from the site stats that most visitors are locals.  With the farm open for u-pick lavender this is the right clientele to be using the camera. River Haus in the Pines – http://www.riverhausinthepines.com This is the first client we helped get a web cam up and running.  Mike was very excited when his camera went live and it has been up and working now for close to three years.  This live web cam image is now posted on the local chamber of commerce and King 5 Televisions web site.  The webcam page of River Haus in the pines site gets more then 500 visitors day. You may notice that most web cams have an impression on the image with the B&B’s contact information.  So even if the web cam images are linked on the chamber of commerce site or a television web site, it will always have the phone number and web site address of B&B or property where the webcam is located. Solglimt on the Water – http://www.solglimt.com

Live Image from Solglimt B&B (Click to view larger)

This is our newest client with a live web cam.  Mary and Brian are thrilled with the results so far.  I was told that guests who call to make a reservation are looking right at the camera when they call and that the live image really sold them. Having the web cam on their site has also created a dozen links to their site, which has helped their search engine ranks greatly. As you can see adding a web cam to your site is one of the best things you can do for getting more business.  Here are a few tips when buying a camera. 1. Find one that can be branded with your contact information.  We recommend the NetCamMP from StarDot Technologies. 2. Once you have your image online try and get it linked on your local chamber of commerce site or Visitors Bureau and any other major local web site.  The more traffic to your own site the better. 3. Save great looking images you see while checking out your web cam through out the day.  Use these for posting to your blog or build a “Best of” page to show those unique times you have a great shot. 4. Lastly, Google is now linking to WebCams from maps.google.com. This is big.  To get your listed takes about 30 days and you can start by going here: http://www.webcams.travel If you get a web cam all set up send us a link so we can check it out!