Hotel Internet Marketing Tips To Increase Your Conversion Rate:

Hotel Internet Marketing Tips To Increase Your Conversion Rate:

Work smarter, not harder – follow these internet marketing tips to drive pre-qualified traffic to your hotel and increase your conversion rate.

in the competitive and cut-throat hotel industry, clever hotel teams need all the internet marketing tips they can get to stay ahead of their competitors. Not only are you competing with other hotels, you are also competing with travel agencies, affiliates and other travel companies who are selling your rooms. Here are seven ways that savvy hotel teams can boost their conversion rate all-season round.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

As more people book hotel accommodation online, SEO is critical to the success of your internet hotel marketing campaign. Hotel bookers rarely search beyond the first three pages of a web search. A hotel website needs to have high Search Engine visibility for the key terms it is targeting. Design every web page as a landing page optimized with for a different keyword with a strong call to action to encourage people to book at your hotel.

Internet marketing tips: Optimize your website for long tail keywords – people making long-tail searches are often further along in the buying cycle and more willing to book hotels than people making generic searches, leading to a higher conversion rate.

Google Places Pages Optimization

Optimizing your Google Places page is another important hotel internet marketing strategy to further increase your conversion rate. Place Search was introduced in late 2010 whereby Google Places Pages started to blend with organic listings in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). Typically when someone searches for a product or service and a location such as ‘hotels: cairns’, Google Places listings will appear (as per below).

SEO copywriting

Booking a hotel is often an emotional purchase. Well written hotel SEO copywriting drives traffic to your website but also tells a story and evokes a positive feeling about the property. Your website is a virtual extension of your physical hotel and the copywriting needs to reflect the quality of your establishment as well as be optimized for search engines. Creative ways to update your hotel copy include:

writing a hotel blog

updating the website with new creative package ideas (see below)

adding pages about local attractions or events

uploading media releases

creating a news and events page

Internet Marketing Tips: Put a note in your calendar to review written material on your website to ensure that it is up to date and there are no expired offers or pages about events that have already taken place.

Creative package ideas

It does depend on the location and popularity of your hotel but most properties have seasonal periods where the occupancy rate is high and alternatively periods where the vacancy rate is lower. Your role as part of the hotel internet marketing team is to try to sustain hotel occupancy rates all-year round. One way to do this is to offer creative packages to entice travelers to book your hotel instead of your competitors:

Developing packages for special occasions such as Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day or Father’s Day

Tying in packages with special events that are local to your hotel such as sporting matches, festivals or a movie premiere.

Offering packages targeting certain types of travellers such as families and with children, business travellers and so on.

Combining several services together such as an accommodation and restaurant deal or accommodation and spa package.

Creating indulgence packages such as romantic getaways, weekend escapes or mid-week getaways.

Internet Marketing Tips: Create a separate landing page for each package so you can optimize the headings, descriptions and keywords and include a strong call to action to encourage booking.

Trustworthy hotel website design

Search Engine Optimisation may have done its job to drive traffic to your website but if you cannot see these numbers reflected in your conversion rate, one of the issues you may need to address is the hotel website design. Quality hotel design inspires confidence in people making bookings directly on your website. There are certain principles that can make your hotel website look more secure and trustworthy:

Integrated online booking engines (see below).

Clear, high quality images or videos of your hotel spaces including the hotel suites and bathrooms, foyer, front of hotel, amenities such as the pool, views from hotel rooms and so on.

Quality SEO copywriting that is updated regularly (see above).

Awards won by the hotel.

Third party accreditation such as being part of a professional hotel association

Contact details such as a phone number and/or physical address.

Terms and conditions, returns policy and privacy statements.

About us pages with pictures of key employees.

Making sure there are no broken links or error pages on your website

Integrated online booking engines

Seamlessly integrating an online booking engine (OBE) your website can inspire confidence in the consumer and increase hotel bookings. People feel more confident booking hotels directly through the hotel website itself rather than being directed to a third-party supplier. An OBE allows the hotel to manage rate parity, reduce commission costs to hotel booking agencies and exert more control over the booking process.

Internet Marketing Tips: Integrating an online booking engine (OBE) on your home page and on every page of your site has been shown to significantly increase a hotel’s conversion rate.

Social media marketing

Another way for hotels to drive pre-qualified traffic to your website is through social media marketing. With more travelers researching hotels online, it is crucial that these become part of the social media sphere to stay relevant. Popular consumer-oriented social media sites to create brand awareness for hotels include YouTube as well as Facebook and Twitter where you can offer exclusive social media deals and promotions.

With over 25 years collective experience in the hospitality industry and online marketing, Dr.Hossam Darwish E- Marketing can help you learn how to drive potential customers to your website using these internet marketing tips and techniques and then convert customers to actual bookings through clever hotel website design and SEO copywriting. Contact Dr.Hossam Darwish to find out how we can help you with your online hotel marketing campaigns.