Whether you’re trying to attract local guests or those from further afield, one of the biggest weapons in your marketing armoury is definitely your website. Getting this right should be a priority and including a few essential elements can make all the difference to your performance.
Great Content
Customers don’t necessarily want to be blinded by science. They want things kept simple and they don’t want it to be over salesy. Above all they want something they can relate to easily and which builds a connection.
- When it comes to any website, less is always more. Avoid creating content that is overly wordy and keep your prose as focused and as simple as possible.
- Great content doesn’t mean you have to be a budding Charles Dickens. It does mean you have to engage and hit those trigger points that make a difference to your customer.
- Focus on your goal. You want to stand out from your competitors and make a statement. For hotels and guest houses, that often means being more visual and cutting out the marketing hyperbole.
- Adding something extra like your own blog can not only help keep your content regularly updated (which search engines like Google love) but will keep customers engaged and coming back for more.
Be Visual, Be Bold
It’s simple to say that an image paints a thousand words but it does. Particularly in the case of hotels. Customers want to see what they are getting and they don’t necessarily want to hear about how great you are.
How about including videos rather than still images? Or allowing visitors to see 360° images of your rooms? There’s a lot you can include from professionally produced images of your restaurant to customer snaps and video that will add sparkle to your site.
Make it Easy to Book
While they’re looking to create great content, many hotel owners forget one very important thing – getting visitors to book. Ideally, you want visitors to get to your booking page with one click. You want this to be easy to fill in whether your customer is on a desktop or has a smartphone. The easier you can make it the more engagement you’ll find.
What Makes You Different?
Taking a step back and thinking about what makes your hotel or guest house different from the competition is something you should do on a regular basis. It may be the quality of the service or the fact that you’re close to certain amenities. Doing some market research can help you nail these USPs better. Then all you need to do is introduce these into your site.
Great Testimonials
Most of us nowadays tend to check reviews when it comes to any service or product and that includes booking a hotel. Including testimonials on your website and encouraging guests to leave their feedback is incredibly important. While it takes a little careful management, it can mean the difference between a visitor to your site booking with you or going elsewhere and trying out your nearest competitor.
Speed and Mobile Readiness
Finally, you want a site that downloads fast – surfers of all ages nowadays are quick to click that back button if they don’t get what they’re looking for almost immediately. Optimising your site for speed as well as content is important. Another factor that you can’t afford to ignore is how your site looks on a smartphone. According to the stats, this is how many of us are accessing information today and you need to ensure your site is what developers call mobile ready.