Hi,
Another year has come and gone, and we at Internet Moguls are blessed to have
made another year successful for our clients. A lot of people ask me the reason
behind this success. But the path to success is simple – you hustle every
morning and put in the extra effort. Along with this, you’ve to stay ahead of
the times. It’s the era of social media guys! Following the same beaten down
tricks is just so…2017!
So here’s my 2018’s New Year resolution for you – I want you to focus on your
hotel website for the next year. In this blog, I’ll tell you the necessary
ingredients that will help you get more bookings, and you’ve to make it a point
to incorporate that.
Here we go!
1. Your hotel website is lifeless without a BLOG
It’s no secret that search engines place a premium on dynamic and fresh content. They find websites which continuously add new and relevant content on the website. And it’s so easy to do that with a hotel website! There’s so much to talk about – your F&B, your pool, your locality, the events near your hotel and what not.
It’s as easy as writing an email. Honestly. In short, just try to become an online concierge for your hotel. It will also give you original content to share on social media websites. I look forward to seeing some interesting blogs on your website soon!
2. Track your best sources – integrate Google Analytics
I’m sure you’re curious where your bookings exactly come from. It could be Facebook, metasearch or any other website for that matter. And it is really important to track your sources, because that is how you’ll know where to focus on and how to distribute the inventory effectively. In my experience, Google Analytics integration is the best method. Integrate it with your hotel website and booking engine, and monitor visitor rates effortlessly. You can also compare them with the system generated visitor stats.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Use it to analyse the booking behaviour, the visitors, their interests, demographics, etc. This will help you create a more effective strategy which revolves around your best selling points.
3. AMP up your site with Accelerated Mobile Pages
AMP, or Accelerated Mobile Pages will be crucial in 2018 to drive mobile visitors. It is an open source initiative that provides mobile optimized content, which can load easily on all devices. Slow loading websites are really frustrating. In fact, you’ll lose more than half your bookings if your pages take more than 3 seconds to load!
Although AMP is still pretty new and is being tried and tested by developers, it is already being used by leading news publishers like BBC, CBS, CNN, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal among others. I highly recommend you to at least start getting acquainted with it. If you have an active blog page, experiment with that first.
4. Want instant revenue hike? Recapture abandoned bookings
Hoteliers spend millions of dollars every year to attract visitors to their website, yet more than 80% of them leave without completing their bookings. Studies show that about 30% of website visitors start the booking process, but only 2% are converted. With this abysmally low conversion rate, you shouldn’t let go of interested visitors. But don’t abandon hope, I’ll tell you how to target these potential guests.
- Once the visitor searches for dates and selects the room type, request the email ID as the first field in booking process.
- If the visitor abandons the booking, send out personalised mails thanking them and giving them a gentle reminder to book. Make sure there’s a link that redirects them to where they left off. You can also offer them a time-limited promotion to entice them.
5. Social media tags for rich sharing experience
Lastly, I want you to incorporate this simple but often ignored step. Social media tags are lines of code in a website’s <head> section which tell the SM platforms how to display the page when shared on such platforms. It will make sure that when anyone shares your hotel webpage on their profile, the site URL is included with a customised line of text or description, along with an image.
With social media playing such an important role in a traveller’s booking journey, you want to put your best virtual face forward!
Follow these 5 simple tactics, and your website’s health will improve in the coming year. If you liked reading this blog, I’ve another NY resolution for you – follow the #AskAviArya show!
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