Hotel Web Sites The Ultimate Sales Tool
Contributed by Samantha Hasler -- Hotels, 6/23/2009 7:24:00 AM
Your hotel Web site is vitally important in acquiring reservations as it is the first and more often the last experience a potential guest may have of your hotel. Hoteliers must, therefore, cast a critical eye over the Web site and address the fundamental question: Is your hotel doing its job properly?
To reveal the true performance of your Web site you must identify the number of reservations you generate through your Web site. The easiest way to measure your site’s production is to look at your Web booking engine’s analytics. This will tell you in detail how many reservations you have received over a particular time period. I would recommend that you use Web analytics for the Web site as a whole to identify how many visitors you have received to your site and where they have come from. Most Web site analytic software will also tell you at the very least how long your visitors remained on the site, the pages looked at longest, and it will even tell you what pages received the highest bounce rate.
You can pay for many Web analytics software and systems, but you can also use Google analytics for free. For use in its simplest form, Google analytics will allow you to see the number of visitors to the site and where the visitor came from. When used comparatively against your reservations statistics, the analytics tool will give you a conversion rate. This rate is vital in determining the performance of your Web site.
Of course, we must not ignore other factors that can have an impact on reservation rates. Among others, room rates, room availability, value and convenience will all play a part. These are also important considerations and must be viewed as such when analyzing the data from your analytics.
As a 21st century hotelier, weathering the recession means you must realize the importance of the Internet to sell your hotel rooms. To be unaware of the ratio of visitors to reservations is akin to burying your head in the sand. Your Web site should be treated as a sales tool and measured as such.
Web Site Design
Unfortunately, during the last 10 years there has been a changing fashion in Web site design. This can arguably be held responsible for the all too “flashy” hotel Web site that is difficult to navigate, contains little general information about the area and has a distinct lack of presence in the search engines. Hotel Web sites should be designed by people who understand hotels and have experience working for or with hotels. A hotel Web site should look great, but to the detriment of its content, usability and search visibility? Certainly not.
Research indicates that travelers choose a destination, attraction or activity first and foremost. Specific hotel choices are a secondary consideration; the chosen hotel will usually fit criteria in line with the destination. Therefore, it is common sense that a hotel Web site should include information about the destination. Travelers are also looking for value – not just best rates, but value in terms of convenience.
Search visibility is also of the utmost importance for a hotel Web site. What is the point in having a great Webs ite if no one can find it? The importance of visibility on leading search engines should not be underestimated. Best practice search engine optimisation must be incorporated in your Web site, and that is just to get you started.
Remember updating your content regularly will encourage the search engines to keep coming back and re-indexing your page. Send out press releases and articles about your hotel to other Web sites to form in-bound links to your site. Remember relevant links are key and serve to increase your site’s position over time. They will also enable you to receive traffic to your site from news sources. Using social media to promote your hotel will also increase your inbound links and is great for creating communities engaged with your hotel brand.
The clear message to take from this is that your Web site is your most important sales tool and should be evaluated, amended and re-designed if necessary. Your hotel’s Web site should be your potential guest’s first of many experiences of your hotel, not the last and the only experience.
Editors Note: Samantha Hasler leads the Digital Marketing Team at GlobRes www.globres.com pleased direct all press queries to marketing@globres.com.
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