We have been working very hard on a complete renovation and upgrade of our VisitAruba.com website for several months, and finally it is here!
Main changes
- Completely new, modern site design which we feel is more representative of our Caribbean island, colorful, fun and vibrant
- New VisitAruba.com logo designed to reflect a colorful Caribbean flavor. The multicolored shapes reflect the shape of our island painted in multiple colors ranging from blue sky and turquoise water to vibrant purple flowers to bright sunshine and glowing sunsets.
- New navigation for easier access to all information
- Implementation of improved search for quicker access to more specific information
- Updated photography and larger header images
- Ratings and reviews for hotels, restaurants, car rentals, beaches, with several more in the pipeline!
- Brand new Events database, searchable by day, by date range, or by name
- Upgraded "Aruba Deals & Specials" categorized and searchable
- Interactive Google Maps for hotels, restaurants, beaches, and diving locations, with several more in the pipeline!
- Expanding sidebar with quick access to What's New, Specials, Events, My VisitAruba, Reviews, Recommended sites
- More organized and modern advertising adhering to Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) standards
- Improved Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) database
- Improved Aruba Business Directory with up to date information on over 1800 organizations in 30 categories, new look and powerful tag-search.
Of special interest to our clients
- Your listing on VisitAruba.com has been upgraded to a full separate promotional page. On our old site listings would be shown on one page, underneath each other. The move to a full, separate page has several advantages including better search-engine visibility for your company. If you would like to have a custom picture in the top header image on your page - no problem! Send it to us and we will make sure its there! Please note that images are subject to approval and remember that the picture should lend itself to a horizontal orientation.
- The full page has the potential for expanded information, links to more pictures, embedded video. Send these to us and we will include them on your pages at no additional cost!! If you have existing videos on Youtube that you would like to embed in your VisitAruba.com webpage, please let us know!
- We have implemented a specials database which allows us to promote your special deals to all visitors. On our old site these were shown on our home page only but now they are shown on practically all pages! Specials automatically expire and no longer appear once no longer valid - no need to worry about a special being shown when it is no longer available!
- Specials are now available as an RSS feed, so any time we add a special, subscribers know about them right away!
- Recommended sites: by default this tab in the sidebar is always expanded, and recommended sites links are shown not only on our home page, as was the case on our old site, but now shown on practically all pages of VisitAruba.com!
- Restaurant, Hotel and Car Rental clients have the feature of visitor reviews being shown on their pages. We will add this for more business types in the near future. The TruRatings system we implemented on ArubaRestaurants.com some months back is also being used for the Ratings and Reviews on the new VisitAruba.com
- We have automated the permission-based mailing list database collection to be available to us quicker for contacting visitors with Aruba information, including information you send to us.
Finding your way around
For those of you who are frequent visitors to our website, here are some navigation tips for finding your way around:
- The Aruba Forums: in the right-side menu bar click on 'My VisitAruba' and then on 'Aruba Forums'
- VisitAruba Plus: in the right-side menu bar click on 'My VisitAruba' and then on 'VisitAruba Plus discount card'
- Weather: click on the 'Weather' link immediately to the right of the VisitAruba.com logo at the top of each page
- FAQs: Click on 'faq' in the top small menu next to the Search box
Drop-down navigation at top
The top dropdown navigation has links to the first and second level menu items in our website. Clicking on 'About Aruba', 'Traveling to Aruba', 'Accommodations', 'Experience Aruba', 'Restaurants', or 'Getting Around' take you to the main pages for those sections. For example, click on 'Accommodations' to go to the main Accommodations page that is a doorway to all things related to Accommodations. You can also click on any of the sub menu items on those drop down menus to go to more specific pages. For example, you can click on "general facts' in the "About Aruba" drop-down menu to take you directly to that page.
Left side navigation
You will also notice that on certain pages on the left hand side there is an additional navigation menu which repeats the menu items in the drop down menu, but also can contain a third level. For example 'Weather and Climate' is a page within the 'About Aruba' section, under General Facts.
Right hand sidebar (accordion style)
On the right hand side of most pages on VisitAruba.com there is the sidebar menu that expands and contracts like an accordion. This contains:
What's New
This section contains new additions to the website and important advisories. If we add a client to the website, they will be shown here for a certain period.
Special Deals
this section lists the latest five specials that have been added. They can be specials offered by hotels, restaurants, car rentals, or practically any offer that comes to our attention. You can also click on 'More special deals' at the bottom of this section to go to a complete list of current specials. Specials that have an expiry date specified are automatically removed on that date. They are also available as an RSS feed, also in specific categories so for example if a person is only interested in Hotel Specials, or Restaurant Specials, they can subscribe to those feeds only.
Events
This is a clever section that updates in real time as events are added, with the latest five upcoming events showing. You can also click on 'More events' at the bottom of this section to go to the events search page where you can search for events by specific date, by range of dates or by name. Events are also available as an RSS feed.
My VisitAruba
This section contains links to our social networking pages such as Facebook and Twitter, to the VisitAruba.com store where you can get Aruba souvenirs, to the VisitAruba Plus discount card website, to the Aruba Forums (bulletin / message boards), to our Aruba News website and also to the Aruba e-cards website.
Reviews
This section contains links to reviews of Aruba hotels, Car Rentals, Restaurants and Beaches. Reviews are available to anyone to see, registration is required to post a review.
Recommended Sites
These are paid links by our clients. Recommended sites links are shown not only on our home page, as was the case on our old site, but now shown on practically all pages of VisitAruba.com!
We hope that you enjoy the website and like the new presentation. If you have any comments or feedback or notice any information that needs updating please let us know!
