August 8, 2012 - The PERRY South Beach selected Evision Worldwide to spearhead its online rebranding campaign in early 2012. Thanks to Evision’s efforts, even with a brand new name and URL, the property increased its year-over-year earnings within the same month.

Now, Evision continues its ambitious online marketing plans for the PERRY. Evision has successfully migrated the website to the open-source WordPress platform and simultaneously launched a new blog and destination guide hosted by the PERRY South Beach website, supercharging its SEO efforts.

The PERRY website shines a spotlight on the standout property, including its rooftop infinity-edge pool overlooking the incomparable Miami skyline, the 42,000-square-foot David Barton Gym + Spa, dining at three signature restaurants, and breathtaking ocean views from the hotel’s 340 guest rooms. Thus, the website is a critical component of the PERRY’s marketing strategy to showcase its many stunning features to travelers and increase bookings.

One of Evision’s first steps was to move the site to the flexible and extensible WordPress platform, while keeping the front-end design fully intact.

Hotels, unaware of the perils, are often persuaded by marketing agencies to build their website on the agency’s proprietary content management system (CMS). However, custom systems general have limited functionality, and hotels must rely on their vendor for any enhancements, which can be very costly – or simply impossible.

"A custom CMS can create a huge mess of extra programming and errors any time the hotel wants to change their site," says Ronnie Soud, Chief Marketing Officer of Evision Worldwide. "Even worse, if the hotel ever leaves the agency, it may have to rebuild the entire site from scratch."

Evision addresses this perennial problem in greater detail in its popular article, “Six Reasons Not to Use a Custom CMS for Hotel and Travel Websites ,” available at EvisionWorldwide.com.

WordPress, by contrast, is continually improved and expanded upon by a global community of developers. In addition, the simplified back-end controls and vast library of plug-ins make it easy to add new functionality to a website, quickly and often at no expense.

Evision CEO Vikram Singh has expounded on the benefits of WordPress in his well-received commentary, “Hotels Must Embrace WordPress and Join the Open-Source Revolution .”

New PERRY South Beach Blog

Evision Worldwide has also created a new blog on the main site, populated by high quality content produced by a professional travel writer.

The blog yields rich SEO benefits for the South Beach hotel by providing relevant, dynamic content that ranks highly with search engines. This content captures a wider audience thanks to keyword diversification; and it hooks prospective guests earlier in the sales cycle, when they’re just starting to research a destination, before they even start consciously looking for hotels.

The blog is also exceptionally guest-friendly: Guests planning their trip to the high-end beachfront resort appreciate timely updates on new attractions, recommended shops and eateries, and special events coming to Miami.

“The blog generates a lot of goodwill among readers, because we are providing them great ideas and information about things to see and do, including highlighting some otherwise hidden features of South Beach and the region,” says Roy Crane, Hotel Manager of the PERRY South Beach. “That goodwill ultimately translates into bookings, because we put the visitors’ needs first.”

Evision has previously published a comprehensive series on blogging for hotels, starting with the article, “Why your hotel needs a blog…NOW! ”