CrazyLeaf Editorial A seamless booking process is crucial to increasing direct bookings through your hotel website. That’s why you need a site that is not only search engine-friendly, but also user-friendly and aesthetically appealing. This article discusses 10 simple tricks to make your hotel website easy to use and turn more users into leads.
1. Invest in social media marketing
Prospects are more likely to spend time looking at pictures and videos of your service on social media than on your website. By giving your hotel a social media presence, you increase its visibility and drive high-quality leads to your website. It’s, however, crucial that you learn the basic tips for social media marketing for hotels before getting on with your campaign.
2. Optimize the page load speeds
Slow-loading speeds will lower your SERP ranking and drive potential customers away. The early exits will increase your bounce rate and lead to further penalization by Google. To increase your page load speeds, follow these tips:
- Optimize your visuals
- Leverage a caching plugin
- Upgrade to dedicated or managed web hosting services
- Use a content delivery network (CDN)
- Configure your server settings
- Enable Gzip compression
- Minimize HTTP requests
- Avoid URL redirects
You will also need a real-time testing tool to ensure you are always up to date with any changes in your pages’ loading speeds.
3. Add room slideshows
Hotel owners that show pictures of their units online are more likely to fuel conversions than those who rely on textual marketing material. Take advantage of self-playing slideshows to showcase your rooms and get your prospects to commit sooner. For greater impact, ensure your photos are professionally taken and display the most decision-influencing parts of your units. However, you will want to limit the number of slideshows per page as too many of them can lower your load speeds.
4. Insert CTAs
It doesn’t matter how much effort you put into setting up your marketing funnel; most of your prospects will commit without much convincing. You can reduce the work for this type of user by placing calls-to-action (CTAs) in various stages of the funnel, so they can jump to the booking page at any time. Your CTAs should be short, actionable, and easily visible within blocks of text and visual elements.
5. Install a strong search plugin
Many people don’t search for hotels until the very last minute. This means your visitors won’t always have the time to peruse your website systematically and follow where the CTAs guide them. Installing a good search extension that recognizes keywords and presents results clearly and orderly can help retain such users on your website.
6. Adopt multiple filtration levels
Users who know exactly what they want regarding room size, cost, and amenities will appreciate a hotel website that lets them manually narrow down their options. Your site should have filters for key elements such as price, star rating, amenities, number of occupants, furnishings, and room design, among others.
7. Optimize your content for SEO
A quality website with valuable content is useless unless you optimize it for SEO. Search engine optimization enables your website to rank high on SERPs, making it easy for potential customers to find you. This improves website traffic and increases quality leads, boosting conversions. To get quick results with SEO, conduct keyword research to determine what potential customers search for on the internet. Create value-packed content to keep users engaged and increase search engine authority.
Providing unique, quality content consistently allows you to gain a trusted information source reputation, attracting quality leads and increasing conversion chances. Link your content to reliable, authoritative publications and websites for improved credibility and high search engine rankings.
8. Establish your unique selling points
In the crowded hospitality industry, your hotel’s unique selling point differentiates it from the competition and enables you to attract specific clients interested in your offering. Your hotel’s ideal unique selling point should give you a competitive edge over your rivals. Research your competitors to see what they’re doing right and the mistakes they’re committing, and capitalize on your findings to create an exceptional customer experience.
Know what your ideal guest looks like and strive to meet their specific needs. Take advantage of your hotel’s location and the attractions it has to offer. Focus on comfort and provide your visitors with value for money. Highlighting what makes you unique on your website entices prospects to book with you, increasing conversion rates.
9. Know your target customer
Knowing your ideal customer helps you create more targeted marketing campaigns, personalize your messaging and ensure your marketing efforts and resources aren’t wasted. To create a guest persona that increases conversion rates, know their geographic location, age, income, sex, interests, education, profession, where they spend their money, how they consume content, and marital status.
Identifying the ideal customer for your hotel business lets you know where they spend most of their time online to engage with them by posting promotional content, answering questions, and educating them about your business. This allows you to tailor your content and marketing efforts in a way that meets their specific needs. It also helps customize your messaging, making your potential customers feel special and appreciated.
10. Leverage local SEO
Local SEO for hotels allows you to take advantage of the potential customers within your business’s proximity. It’s an excellent strategy to attract new customers consistently. Some factors that may affect your hotel’s local SEO include business name, reviews, links to your website, and website content. To improve local hotel SEO and rank high for local search, use a keyword planning tool to generate relevant keywords, optimize your Google My Business listing and your site’s on-page SEO.
Creating internal links will help Google identify your site’s crucial pages and prioritize them. If you create high-quality backlinks to your website , Google sees you as a credible information source for specific local keywords. Collect reviews from satisfied local clients and create local content. You can also add your city’s name, address, and phone number to make it easy for potential customers to contact you or visit your hotel.
Endnote
An accessible, attractive, and navigable hotel website will put you head and shoulders above competitors. Use the above tips to refurbish your website and see your conversion rates soar.
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