How to improve your hotel website: 7 useful tips
Hotel websites in 2020
In 2020, simply having a website for your hotel just isn’t enough. Partially, this is due to the high standard of many of today’s websites; lots of them enhanced with eye-catching design, decorated with high-quality photography and consistent branding.
On top of this, consumers have become impatient. In our digital and highly visual world, if we don’t see exactly what we want, what we like, or what we need in a hotel from the moment we land on a homepage, it’s likely we’re not going to hang around. This can be damaging not only for reputation, but Google picks up on this too.
In addition, your hotel website is not being used to its full potential without regular updates, and a focus on SEO (search engine optimisation). However, with the right strategy, your website can be an organic marketing tool in itself, and a highly valuable asset to your business.
In this article, we’ll show you 7 simple steps you can take in order to improve your hotel website.
1. Make photographs a key feature
Listing your facilities in words and using a handful of low quality photographs is no longer enough to attract guests to your hotel. Consumers have become spoiled for choice when it comes to online visuals and resultantly they grow more and more impatient surfing the web. To increase hotel success, potential customers should be immediately impressed. They should be told a story through imagery. A reel of photographs which portrays not only the facilities you offer but the intricacies and character of your establishment will resonate with potential customers. Investing in photography can be expensive, however it is also one of the most simple ways to improve your hotel website.
2. Display your hotel contact details
Whilst it might sound obvious, ensuring that you have contact details available and clearly displayed on your website is key. If you don’t already, ensure that you have a contact page with an email address and a phone number. If you like to dedicate certain emails to certain departments, make that clear by offering guests a variety of email addresses to guide them with their queries.
Also very convenient for guests is the presence of goggle maps location on your website. By showing your potential guests where exactly you are located, you avoid having them leave your website and heading to google where they can easily search for other hotels in your region.
3. Check that you have responsive design
Does your website not only fit to the screen of a computer, but also a mobile device? Increasingly so, mobile devices are being used to explore regions and book hotels. As a result, if your website isn’t optimised for a mobile device, you will be blocking a number of people from booking with ease at your hotel. Use your own device to check your website. If you aren’t able to go through the stages of booking with ease, it’s time to speak to your web designer who should be able to easily fix this for you. You might also be interested to know, that a website that isn’t optimised for a mobile device also results in a lower Google ranking, in turn bringing you less organic traffic to your website.
4. Use SEO on your website and consider a hotel blog
Each page of your website should be SEO optimised. Whilst SEO can seem a little overwhelming – and often requires some more in-depth knowledge to put into practice – some tools are available to help you understand and implement the basic concept. If you created your website using WordPress, using the SEO plug-in Yoast will help you to carry out the basics.
In order to really make the most of SEO on your website, implementing an engaging and SEO friendly blog can help you to rank higher on google for certain keywords, whilst it can also quite simply be a useful section of your website for guests. To gain some inspiration for your hotel blog, head over to AUS Weekend Escapes.
5. Use captivating website copy
Your website is the very face of your hotel. Your photography might look spectacular and your brand on point, but words should never be an afterthought. Try to make sure that your brand really speaks to the audience that you hope to attract. After all, your hotel is totally unique and whether its a five star paradise or a boutique spot in a friendly village, you need the words to match. Use creativity and don’t rush the process of filling out the content on your website. Customers dream for days about the experience that awaits them on holiday. Tap into their imagination by using compelling and descriptive language that helps them relate to your brand and hotel. Often, hiring a professional to write your copy can elevate the quality and help to improve your hotel website overall.
6. Make direct hotel bookings easy
Put simply, your hotel website should be easy to navigate, and it should be easy for website visitors to not only look at your rooms but actually book them. The main purpose of your website after all, is to generate direct bookings. Integrating a secure booking engine into your site which syncs up with your property management system is vital. On top of this, a ‘Book Now’ button should also be visible to guests, regardless of what page of your site they land on. You might even want to give this button a funky colour and make it stand out amongst the other text on your website.
7. Use consistent hotel branding
Another important exercise when reflecting on your hotel website, is to consider its branding. Does your logo need updating? Is the colour scheme out of date or does it clash with your photographs? One of the best ways to consider whether your branding needs a fresh lick of digital paint, is to explore the websites of your competition. Consider your target audience whilst you carry out this exercise. What is good about the websites of other hotels? Is it less crowded than yours? What is it that makes their website appear more sleek or appealing compared to yours? Gather some ideas. It could be time for some digital redecorating.
Improve your hotel website with 1834 Hotels
1834 Hotels focuses on a digital strategy that addresses three key experiences of your online travel consumers – dream, discover and decide. 1834 Hotels has have a multi tiered approach to delivering your hotel in every stage of that cycle – including but not limited to producing destination specific content for people to discover, placing your hotel front of mind, ensuring well managed customer reviews and all finished with real-time rate information & availability when they decide. On top of this, 1834 Hotels has an additional brand – Aus Weekend Escapes – used as a platform for promoting hotels and the regions within which they are located.
If you’re not sure where to start and need help using your website to its fullest potential, reach out to us. We can help you to improve your hotel website and are proud to manage a network of hotels, motels, resorts and apartments across Australia.
