Advertising on the Walking Britain Website
Walking Britain has been well received in the press. The first major coverage was in the Daily Mail when the site was named as "Website of Week". Coverage in the Times, Sunday Times, Guardian, Independent and many other papers and magazines has since followed with favourable comments about the site, its content and ease of navigation. The site has gained the Webuser Gold Award for walking sites and it is worth emphasising that all of this coverage has been received without any form of self- promotion so can therefore be assumed to be gained on merit.
Current statistics (July 2022) show annual traffic peaking at the rate of 9 million page views per annum. During the period from mid-November through to end-February site visitors are dependent on weather and can vary considerably from day to day. During the remainder of the year visitor numbers are less weather-dependent.
Many advertisers have commented on the quality of response. Alison Howell from the small walking holiday tour operator "Foot Trails" commented .... "Just wanted to say well done on your gold award. We are thrilled with the response we are getting from Walking Britain, you are our top referrer."
Product Promotion
Promote your products across this website. Full page features are available for all products - accommodation, destinations, gear and equipment, holidays and any other products that you feel area relevant to Walking Britain's visitors. Features include back links to specific pages on your website. For more details email Walking Britain with your requirements.
The Directories
One directory is available for the display of banners and text. These cover
- Self Catering Accommodation
- Walking Holidays, Tours & Treks
Cost £60 per annum - Includes :-
- A full colour banner (either gif, jpeg or png)
- Free design and construction of banner (if required)
- Descriptive text under banner providing a brief outline of what you offer
- Links to your own web site
Business Partner Lists
The reconstruction of the site, in mid-2006, allowed many new ideas to be used in the page design. The dynamic nature of the pages means that information relevant to the walk and area can be selected allowing local businesses to accurately target potential customers. Categories include accommodation, outdoor shops, attractions, pubs etc.
Cost £15 per annum - Includes :-
- A single line entry in the relevant accommodation and suppliers list
- Dynamic inclusion in the most relevant walk descriptions to your location
- Links to your own web site
Full Page Features
Full page features have veen a popular method of marketing since this site began in 1997. In addition your business also benefits from full Business Partner status with your entry linked to all relevant walks displayed on the site. You also derive some benefit from Walking Britain's status with the major search engines.
Cost £50 per annum - Includes :-
- A full page feature including images and text
- Design and construction of the feature page
- A single line entry in the relevant accommodation and suppliers list
- Single line entry highlighted with approval tick
- Unique web address in the style of "www.walkingbritain.co.uk/your_name"
- Dynamic inclusion in the most relevant walk descriptions to your location
- Links to your own web site
Sponsorship
Careful consideration would be given to any sponsorship for specific areas of the site. For example a series of walks in a certain locality supported by a local accommodation provider.
Walking Britain has a Facebook Page (inaugurated March 2014) which has gone from strength to strength. This page can be used to assist advertisers to promote their products provided some paid advertising has been agreed. Currently the page has 22+k "likes" and achieves good responses from new content added to the page.
Image specifications
The aim of this site is to provide information to its visitors as quickly as possible. Therefore we do impose limits on image file sizes and we do prefer not to use distracting animations.
Page and image design and construction
Walking Britain will build content free of charge if required. Normally we ask you to provide text for under banner positions as you know your product better then we do! Where possible we use images and text available on your web site for construction of feature pages and graphics.
Contacting Walking Britain
Please click here to email Walking Britain.
Walking Britain Timeline
June 1997 - the idea of Walking Britain began.
August 1997 - first web site published with 40 pages containing 25 walks from the Peak District and Lake District National Parks.
June 1998 - site reached its first milestone with 100 pages of walks and information available to visitors.
March 2000 - first major redesign of the pages to cater for the increased screen sizes and developments in desktop computers.
June 2002 - faster growth saw over 1,000 active pages with geographic coverage expanding rapidly. At this stage walks from all the UK National Parks were available.
September 2005 - expanding coverage of the UK with content from the most scenic Counties and AONBs added almost on a daily basis.
February 2006 - 5,000 pages now available. To keep pace with demand and to ease the management of the site, databases were first used to deliver content. The opportunity was also taken for a further makeover of the site format and design.
March 2010 - 10,000 page milestone reached
May 2014 - redesign of pages completed.
April 2015 - responsive website to cater for growing use of mobiles and tablets implemented.
May 2017 - implementation of further changes to design and presentation of content.
January 2021 - 25,000 pages of content exceeded.
June 2022 - redesign of pages to improve loading speed.