Check your website before promoting it

A post about family cruises should link to a useful family cruise page. An advert for a particular itinerary should lead to that itinerary. Use the homepage when introducing the business generally; use a more relevant page when the customer already has a specific interest.

Check that the page answers the questions your team hears most often. Depending on what you sell, that might mean room arrangements, departure airports, what is included, who the holiday suits, or how a tailor-made enquiry works. Explain the next step in straightforward language, such as Search cruises or Ask us to plan your trip.

For a priced offer, record the departure date or travel period, airport where relevant, duration, accommodation, room and board basis, occupancy, inclusions and important restrictions. Make the price basis obvious. Include applicable compulsory charges and explain material conditions prominently. Keep evidence for the advertised price and availability; amend or withdraw offers that are no longer available. A general availability disclaimer does not repair an inaccurate headline price.

Only use claims about financial protection, membership, awards or specialist expertise that are true for your business and the relevant booking. Avoid blanket promises that every product has the same protection. Use photographs you have permission to publish and identify illustrative imagery where it could otherwise mislead.

Further guidance: CAP travel pricing and CAP travel marketing.

• Open the page from the actual email, social post or advert preview.
• Check that the page is readable on a phone and that menus, buttons and booking tools work.
• Complete a test enquiry using your own details and clearly mark it as a test.
• Confirm that the enquiry reaches the right person and that any acknowledgement is accurate.
• Check the enquiry with optional cookies declined as well as accepted. A visitor should still be able to use the core service.
• Where a safe test booking process exists, ask your website team to check the full route through to confirmation. Avoid creating a live chargeable booking just to test tracking.

Check that text is readable against its background and still works when enlarged. Give links descriptive names, such as View family cruise options, instead of repeated Click here labels. Add useful alternative text to informative images; keep essential offer details in ordinary page text too.

Give form fields clear labels, mark required fields and explain errors in words. Caption spoken video. Try the page using the keyboard: you should be able to see which link or control is selected and reach the main actions without getting stuck.

Send any barriers to your website team with the page address and what happened. These are practical first checks; see W3C accessibility checks for more help.

Assign an owner and a realistic response standard for your opening hours. Put an honest expectation beside the form. An automatic acknowledgement confirms receipt; it does not replace a useful reply.

Suggested acknowledgement to adapt to your real process:

Thank you for contacting [business]. We have received your enquiry about [holiday]. [Team/name] will reply within [realistic time during opening hours]. If you would like to add anything to your plans, reply to this message or contact [details].

Complete this guide when: one priority page is clear, its offer is current, the enquiry route works and somebody owns the follow-up.

For broader background, read What makes a good travel website.