Should I use a template for my RV park website?
Your reservation software will build you a template site for around eighty dollars a month, sometimes for nothing. Whether that is enough depends on how many parks you compete with and who will keep the site current.
SHORT ANSWER
A template is enough when guests already find the park by name, the park has little competition in its town, and you will keep the rates and dates current yourself. It costs you bookings when the park is one of several in the same search, because a template site looks like every other park on the platform and its pages say nothing Google can tell apart. A site built for the park costs about the same per month. Ours is $85 with no build fee, and it starts from a layout for your kind of park, written to the searches guests type, with your map and your photos on it.
What a template gives you
A reservation platform's template costs around eighty dollars a month or comes free with the subscription. A template shop charges a few hundred dollars to set up and a monthly fee after that. A builder subscription you run yourself is $16 to $50 a month plus the domain at roughly $20 a year, and the first build takes an owner 20 to 40 hours. In each case you get a working site quickly, with the booking button already wired and the pages named the way the platform names them.
What it leaves out
The platform site looks like every other park on that platform, it exists to keep you on the subscription, and it changes when the platform changes direction. Its page headings are the platform's words, so a cabins page gets titled Accommodations and never appears for "cabins near" your town, because nobody searches "accommodations campground." The park map is the one thing no template can give you, since no template knows your park. And the site is yours to keep current, which is the job that stops getting done by month four.
When a template is enough
One park in a small town, guests who book by name, an owner who will update the rates every season, and a booking platform that does the rest. If that is your park, the template is fine, and we will say so on the call. Whether you need a website at all when you are on Campspot is its own question.
What we do instead
We build from one of four layouts, for gateway parks near a national park, destination resorts, roadside parks off the interstate, and long-term or seasonal parks, and fit the layout to your park with your photos, your sites, and your words. Every page is written to a search guests actually type, with the town and the need in the title and the first sentence. Your park map goes on the sites page. The site connects to the booking system you already run. RV park website design at $85 a month, no build fee, is the same money as the platform template.
Related questions.
Is the website from Campspot or Newbook a template?
Yes. The reservation platforms build template sites from the same layout for every park, with your logo and photos dropped in. They work, and they look like every other park on the platform.
Can I move from a template to a custom site and keep my booking system?
Yes. The booking system stays where it is and the new site sends guests into it from every page. Nothing about how you take reservations has to change.
Does Google rank template sites lower?
No. Google ranks what the page says. A template page that never says the town or the kind of site ranks for nothing, and a custom page with the same problem ranks for nothing too. The difference is who writes the page for your park.
How long does each take?
A builder template takes an owner 20 to 40 hours over the first few weeks. Our sites are live within a few weeks of the setup call, and the pace depends on how quickly we get your photos, site list, rates, and rules.
Want this handled for your park?
We build and run websites for RV parks and campgrounds, and nothing else. Websites from $85 a month, SEO from $250.