Online hotel marketing strategy maximizes 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.

Alternatively, online marketing allows you to target potential guests who are actively looking for hotels like yours. Online marketing encompasses varying activities ensuring you target potential guests based on their needs and requirements matched to your hotel offerings. Instead of casting your net wide you are pin-pointing your audience guaranteeing a return on investment that is better and measurable.

Online marketing includes a range of activities that should be considered for your hotel’s marketing strategy. Every hotel is different and needs to be treated accordingly; therefore a blend of website development, search engine optimisation, social media and pay-per-click advertising should be used where appropriate.

Hotel Website Development:

Your hotel’s website is the digital image of your hotel. 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. 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. 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. 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. In this “digital era” this is tantamount to internet suicide. Choose your website developer carefully, hotel websites should be designed by people who understand hotels and have experience working for or with hotels. 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. In a HeBS case study a redesigned hotel website paid for itself within 3 months in online sales.

Search Engine Optimisation:

Having a search engine friendly website is the first step towards search engine visibility. Ensuring you have a search engine friendly website means the search engines are able to index every page. It is the indexing process that determines the sites value and relevance for search terms. Therefore, you must go further than simply making your site index-able. You must proactively encourage the search engines to return to the site by updating your website with fresh and exciting content regularly. 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. 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. 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.

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. 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.  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. 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. The Layana Resort in Thailand uses a Facebook page to keep its “fans” updated. The page attracts past and potential guests alike and allows them to share experiences and pictures. It is also the perfect arena for the hotel’s manager to advertise special offers and promotions. 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. Best of all you can control where your adverts are positioned on the page with your bid price per keyword. Making your adverts attractive and relevant to the search is imperative to attract the visitor. 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. For hotels with a global client base cultural search behaviours and buying patterns must be incorporated into both your website and marketing strategy. Pay-Per-Click requires budget investment. It is certainly worth establishing how much you need to be spending to get relevant traffic to your website. Google actually provides you with an online estimator where you can choose your keywords and see how much it costs. 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.