Shropshire Tourist Information and Visitor Guide

http://www.virtual-shropshire.co.uk/register/index.shtml

Customer Services

This section is for existing customers only. If you would like to advertise on Virtual Shropshire please visit our information section here

New Website Design

17 March 2008

We are pleased to announce the launch of our new design for Virtual Shropshire, which took place at around 3.am on 17th March 2008

As this was a major upgrade, there are a few little teething problems still to sort out so if you spot any problems please do let us know.

If you are an accommodation provider, there have been some major changes to the way your listings are presented. Please read the "important changes" section below.

Renewing your subscription online

To pay your renewal online by Pay Pal  please click here

To update your entry

Please click on the links to the right.

Found Problems?

Most things you can fix yourself by logging in, but of course if confused, or you have forgotten your password, just submit a support request here and we will sort it out!

Important changes to the accommodation listings

In response to feedback from both customers and visitors we have made a few changes to the way the accommodation listings operate. In doing this we have tried to address the following issues:

The main changes are as follows:

Location & Sequence Changes

Each Accommodation Search page now has two sections:

All references to distance below

Distances are rounded UP to the nearest mile.

Towns are the ones listed at the end of this page.

Deciding your location

Every customer will now appear on two listings. Which pages you appear on is now determined by the foillowing:

Nearest Town

Nearest Town determines which page your listing shows under the immediate vicinity block.

This must always be your nearest town centre, regardless of your postal address. Eg it may be that your postal address is Craven Arms, but you are located 5 miles from Ludlow and 6 miles from Craven Arms. In this case you can have your Nearest Town as Ludlow. If you are exactly half way between towns, then you can choose which one is nearest. 

There are two exceptions: if you are in the Broseley area, your nearest town should be Ironbridge. If you are the Wellington area, your nearest town should be Telford.

The Nearest Town sequence is shuffled on a random basis at least once a week.

Associated Town

Associated Town determines which page your listing shows under the More Accommodation block.

You can select any town you wish to be associated with! But there is a trade off – the further away you are from an associated town, the further down the list you will appear. For example, if you are located in Ludlow and you have Ironbridge as your associated town, then you may appear right of the bottom of the Ironbridge listing.

Tip! If you choose a "honeypot" as your associated town you may well be competing with many others. For example many providers want to be on the Ironbridge Gorge page. It could be that you would fare better by chossing a less popular town.

Sequencing is now:

In more detail:

Priority Links

We now have the facility for “Priority Links” which always appear at the top of the page. You will see the Old Rectory has been set up as an example on the Ironbridge Gorge page. Several other "test" priority links are also scattered around the site while we test the system. The listings are highlighted using a different colour from the other listings. We will be releasing details of how you can buy a priority link early May.

Immediate vicinity

Beneath the priority links all “immediate vicinity” providers will be displayed in random sequence (shuffled at least once a week). 

More Accommodation

This will display in distance from the associated town, with the nearest providers first.

So in summary then we have a solution which gives you the opportunity to pay for a priority list (soon) and choose the town you wanted to be associated with. It also gives the visitors a much clearer “at a glance” indication of your location.

How to change your entry

For security we have disabled the towns / distance boxes on the self-update system, so change requests must be emailed or preferably sent via our support request form .

If you email changes please ensure you clearly state your establishment name and type on the email ! Please do not phone in changes or it may got lost in our paper work!

Towns List

These are the towns you can include as either your nearest, or associated town:

Bishops Castle
Bridgnorth
Church Stretton
Cleobury Mortimer
Clun
Craven Arms
Ellesmere
Ironbridge
Llangollen
Ludlow
Market Drayton
Much Wenlock
Newport
Oswestry
Shifnal
Shrewsbury
Telford
Tenbury Wells
Welshpool
Wem
Whitchurch