Create an Online Marketing Strategy for your Hotel to Maximize your web Exposure
Create an Online Marketing Strategy For Your Hotel to Maximize Your Web Exposure
Whilst traditional marketing in the forms of radio, TV, print advertising and public relations can be effective for brand promotion and brand reinforcement, the direct impact on generating hotel bookings is limited and the bookings it does generate cannot be measured accurately. Online marketing encompasses varying activities ensuring you target potential guests based on their needs and requirements matched to your hotel offerings. Alternatively, online marketing allows you to target potential guests who are actively looking for hotels like yours. Instead of casting your net wide you are pin-pointing your audience guaranteeing a return on investment that is better and measurable.
Your hotel’s website is the digital image of your hotel. From a user-friendly perspective it must be easy to navigate around, from a technical perspective it must be search engine friendly and quick to load. In this “digital era” this is tantamount to internet suicide. With most travelers turning to the internet to find suitable accommodation, your website is the first impression a potential guest will get of your hotel. In a HeBS case study a redesigned hotel website paid for itself within 3 months in online sales. Choose your website developer carefully, hotel websites should be designed by people who understand hotels and have experience working for or with hotels. I see hotel websites every day that are completely aesthetically unappealing – ranging from bad colour schemes, invisible page titles, poor quality images to overly flashy with no substance. Website development can vary in cost depending on your agency choice. The return on investment anticipated for a good website redesign means that if it is required, you should invest that money. Therefore its importance to drive online sales must not be underestimated – hoteliers must cast a critical eye over the website, its design & format, content, page titles, and images.
Search Engine Optimisation:
Having a search engine friendly website is the first step towards search engine visibility. Hotel SEO can be managed and delivered in-house if you have the resources, but for most hoteliers handing over these activities to professionals means time is better spent elsewhere. You must also create inbound links to your website from other relevant sites – if no other sites are linked to yours the search engines will register that no other sites find your website valuable or important. Therefore, you must go further than simply making your site index-able. Ensuring you have a search engine friendly website means the search engines are able to index every page. Distributing PR about your hotel to destination related websites and a selection of social media and travel blogs is a quick, easy and effective way to start. You must proactively encourage the search engines to return to the site by updating your website with fresh and exciting content regularly. It is the indexing process that determines the sites value and relevance for search terms.
Social Media
Online conversations regarding your hotel continually reinforce its online presence to your target audience. Therefore the importance of tactical social media activities cannot be ignored. The Layana Resort in Thailand uses a Facebook page to keep its “fans” updated. By utilising this 21st century means of reaching a target audience hoteliers can build deeper relationships that last longer and customer loyalty is reinforced rather than a thing of the past. Hotels are finding out the hard way that conversations about them are happening online and online communities can be breeding grounds for speculation and rumours. It is also the perfect arena for the hotel‘s manager to advertise special offers and promotions. The page attracts past and potential guests alike and allows them to share experiences and pictures. Using social media to manage this risk and to deliver positives to counteract any negatives can be more than just effective in terms of negating any bad press, but also to build your positive “brand noise” and create “brand buzz” around your hotel‘s website. Social media is personal and it’s interactive. This online community is growing daily and is the digital alternative to “word of mouth” the power of which is endless.
Pay-Per-Click Advertising:
Developing a paid search campaign gives your hotel an instant presence in the search engine page results. Making your adverts attractive and relevant to the search is imperative to attract the visitor. Pay-Per-Click requires budget investment. Best of all you can control where your adverts are positioned on the page with your bid price per keyword. Using a professional hotel pay per click agency to plan, develop, optimise and manage your campaigns means you can let the professionals do the work and be kept updated with detailed reports and statistics. You must also ensure the landing page of the advert is the most relevant page of your website, and if you have adverts in different languages, the landing page should be the webpage in the corresponding language. Google actually provides you with an online estimator where you can choose your keywords and see how much it costs. It is certainly worth establishing how much you need to be spending to get relevant traffic to your website. For hotels with a global client base cultural search behaviours and buying patterns must be incorporated into both your website and marketing strategy.
GlobRes provides the best hotel central reservation systems and hotel Internet marketing services for hotels around the world. Connecting hotels with their guests through increased exposure via all channels including GDS, IDS, Digital Marketing and the hotel’s own website. GlobRes is also offering hotel website design for free when purchased with the web booking engine. GlobRes operates a fully serviced support centre, offering assistance to hotels in English, Italian, German, Spanish and French.
