We recently completed a project to create a web site that would list information and location details for a range of Bed & Breakfast accommodation outlets in the Dovey Valley.

Dovey Valley Holidays is a project that was set up by a small group of enterprising B&B owners to promote their offerings after their local council closed Tourist Information Centres in the area.

Incorporating maps onto the web site was going to be important – these B&Bs were in a very rural area and so some of them could prove to be difficult for customers to find.

When building the site, we decided to incorporate Google Maps which has emerged as the de-facto service for online mapping and route planning. It allows web site owners to embed easy-to-use maps containing marker points and information, while allowing end users to use that map to plan their route and make print-outs.

In order to plot each location onto the maps, we needed to find the exact geographical location of each venue. But this proved to be a problem – we searched many tourism web sites for similar maps and discovered that almost every map we found plotted each B&B venue in the wrong location. In fact, Google themselves plot businesses onto their own maps and very often get the location wrong.

Sat in front of our screens in our Newtown office, we found this to be quite frustrating. But imagine how frustrating it would have been if we were a holiday maker out on the road and following that map? The chances are we'd have found ourselves lost on the back-roads of a very vast rural area.

Below is an image of a Google map showing the location of Mathafarn Farm Bed & Breakfast. The red marker is where Google thinks it's located, the green marker is where it's really located – about one mile away.

But why were so many of these maps wrong? In a word: postcodes.

Most tourism web sites in the UK (and many other types of web site for that matter) that display maps make use of postcodes in order to plot locations onto their maps. Behind the scenes the web site sends the postcode to the mapping service which then checks the location of the postcode and plots it onto the map which is presented to the visitor.

The problem with this system is that postcodes can cover many addresses. Whilst this may not be a problem for maps of high-density urban areas, a rural postcode can cover a vast area of many miles - and therefore that point on the map may not be where you'd expect it to be.

Creating a map with Google Maps is extremely straightforward – in fact it's ridiculously easy to search for a business on a map using Google's automatic business listings, and then embed that map onto your web site. Google will often include a 'balloon' containing information such as your address, business type and even a link to your web site. Google allows you to provide this information but for many business listings it's supplied by third parties.

But is the data accurate? The location is often machine generated and based on your postcode, so there's no guarantee.

For the Dovey Valley Holidays web site we chose to create a more bespoke solution. We plotted each location onto a map using latitude and longitude grid references. We then created a custom designed balloon for each marker that linked to either that location's page on the web site, or to an enhanced map on Google's site.

These maps give a precise location, ensuring that anyone following directions from the maps would navigate to precisely the right place. This solution required custom coding and the kind of expertise that not all web site owners have access to - so the services of a company such as Three To One would be required. However, the maps we create are not machine-generated and inaccurate. They are precise, and will drive customers to the right place - not 'round the bend'!

The rise of services such as Google Maps and Multimap, both online and on mobile devices, can make route-planning a simple experience. Embedding a map onto your web site can be an easy way of driving additional footfall to your business, or helping your existing customers find you more efficiently. But if you plan on embedding an online map onto your web site, don't rely on postcodes to help customers find their way – call the experts! Three To One can create and embed custom maps onto your web site that will drive customers to you – not to your competitors.