Improve Your Hotel Website: The Key To More Bookings

In today’s digital age, having a strong online presence is crucial for any business, and hotels are no exception. A user-friendly, responsive, and SEO-optimized hotel website can make a significant difference in attracting and retaining customers, and ultimately, in increasing direct bookings. 

With the proliferation of online travel agencies and the rise of third-party booking platforms, it is more important than ever for hotels to ensure that their own websites are up to par. By investing in a website that is easy to use, fast, and optimized for search engines, hotels can not only drive more direct bookings, but also improve the overall customer experience and establish a strong brand identity.

In short: 

Improve Your Hotel Website = Increase Your Direct Bookings.

But how can you improve your hotel website, and what are the unique benefits of each individual change?

Let’s run through a comprehensive list for hoteliers and hotel managers across the entire hospitality industry.

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Why Should You Improve Your Hotel Website?

Guests. Or atleast the potential ones.

Your hotel website is potentially the first point of contact on the guest journey where you have the chance to wow your potential guests. Perhaps they’ve come from your Instagram profile, or maybe followed a direct link from elsewhere.

But once they are on your hotel website you have one chance to intrigue their interest. It’s one chance for these website visitors to envisage their holiday at your location. You need to convert these visitors into confirmed guests if you want to fill up your rooms.

On the other hand, an unoptimised website fails to compete with your biggest competitor.

No, we’re not talking about others in your compset, we are talking about OTAs. They are invaluable sales channels and can help fill up your rooms, especially in the quiet season, but if you rely on them for all your bookings, the commissions are going to damage your bottom line.

The more direct bookings are made, the better your profit margins. With an improved hotel website that attracts web traffic and converts visitors, you can combat brandjacking, and enhance your hotel’s performance.

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Your Hotel Website Checklist

• User Experience
• SEO
• Responsive
• Booking Engine
• USP Highlights
• Photo Quality + Optimisation
• Reviews
• Social Media Integration
• Blog
  

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User Experience

Have you ever been in a store and felt uncomfortable? Maybe Apple’s overbearing employees were too bothersome, or another cluttered store was full of grumpy staff making you feel unwelcome.

Hotel websites are no different.

Too much bright clutter and CTAs will put anyone off your website, and it’s the same if your website is boring. Too much either way will result in your hotel website receiving high bounce rates from visitors.

You’ll probably never see those visitors again after that. The more bridges you burn, the smaller your future potential guest pool is!

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SEO

Hotel SEO could go for pages, so we’ll cover the basics here.

SEO (search engine optimisation) is a measure of how well your hotel website appears in SERPS (search engine result pages). In short, the better your hotel SEO, the higher up you’ll appear in a Google search!

But why is this important?

When was the last time you scrolled beyond the first page of Google search results? Really think about it for a moment…

Exactly.

If your hotel website isn’t created with SEO in mind, you may not even appear on the first page of search results, even if guests search for the exact name of your hotel! This problem is only compounded when you consider that OTAs actively engage in brandjacking of properties.

OTAs such as booking will actively engage in keyword bidding and SEO optimisation of your hotel on their websites.

They attempt to divert guests searching for your hotel onto their own websites to keep on charging commission for every guest staying with you. Luckily for you, even some basic Hotel SEO and keyword planning can help you avoid these situations!

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Responsive

How quick should web page load speed be? According to studies, it should be up until 4 seconds at the absolute most. How long are visitors willing to wait for your hotel website to load?

Guess what happens if those visitors get bored, become distracted or otherwise decide to investigate other hotels?

They won’t be sticking around for your slow, poor-performing website to load, that’s for sure. Your slow web page responsiveness can be due to a number of factors including:

• Bad hosting
• Large image sizes
• Missing file errors
• Conflicting web elements
• Too many plugins

The only person who can answer why your hotel website isn’t responsive is you. You can either look around yourself for Youtube guides or request a free hotel marketing audit.

This free examination is available to all hotels regardless of size, and we’ll arrange a one on one meeting with you to discuss our findings. After the short call, we’ll email you the full report for you to examine at your leisure. 

So request a hotel marketing evaluation today!

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Booking Engine

Having a user-friendly booking engine on a hotel website is essential for converting website visitors into paying guests. A booking engine should be immediately identifiable and act as a strong call-to-action (CTA) for potential guests. 

A well-designed and easily accessible booking engine can make the process of reserving a room quick and seamless for the user, leading to a higher likelihood of conversion. Additionally, a user-friendly booking engine can improve the overall user experience on the website and make it more likely that the guest will return in the future.

In today’s competitive hotel industry, it is important for hotels to stand out and offer a superior booking experience. A user-friendly booking engine can differentiate a hotel’s website from its competitors and give guests confidence in their decision to book directly with the hotel. By offering a user-friendly booking engine, hotels can increase direct bookings and ultimately, improve their bottom line.

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USP Highlights

It is important for hotel websites to focus on their unique selling points (USPs) in order to encourage website visitors to become hotel guests. 

USPs are the factors that differentiate a hotel from its competitors and make it appealing to potential guests. By highlighting the hotel’s USPs, the website can effectively communicate the value and benefits of staying at the hotel, which can ultimately lead to increased bookings.

Some examples of USPs that a hotel may want to highlight on its website include:

• Location
• Amenities
• Customer service
• Unique features
• Experiences

For example, if a hotel is located in a prime tourist destination, this can be a major selling point for potential guests. Similarly, if the hotel offers luxurious amenities such as a spa or fitness centre, this can be a major draw for guests who value relaxation and wellness. By focusing on their USPs, hotels can effectively communicate the value and benefits of staying at their property and encourage website visitors to book a room.

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Photo Quality + Optimisation

High-quality, evocative photographs are essential for hotel websites as they provide potential guests with a visual representation of the property and help to create a strong impression. 

By showcasing beautiful and well-lit photographs of the hotel’s rooms, facilities, and location, hotels can effectively convey the atmosphere and style of their property and entice potential guests to book a stay – just make sure you read up on our guide to hotel photography!

However, it is also important for hotels to ensure that they optimise their photographs in order to avoid reducing website performance. Large file sizes can significantly slow down the loading time of a website, which can be frustrating for users and may even lead them to leave the site. By optimising their photographs, hotels can ensure that their website loads quickly and efficiently, which can improve the overall user experience and increase the likelihood of conversion.

To optimise photographs for a hotel website, hotels can consider using tools such as image compression software or a content delivery network (CDN). These tools can help to reduce the file size of the photographs without sacrificing quality, ensuring that the website loads quickly and efficiently for users. 

By providing high-quality, evocative photographs and optimising them for website performance, hotels can effectively showcase their property and encourage website visitors to become hotel guests.

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Reviews

Including guest reviews on a hotel website can be a powerful tool for persuading website visitors to come and stay at the property. Reviews provide valuable insight into the experience of past guests and can help potential guests make informed decisions about where to stay. By featuring reviews on their website, hotels can showcase the positive experiences of previous guests and provide social proof of the quality of their property.

Guest reviews can also help hotels to identify areas for improvement and address any issues that may have been raised by past guests. By actively managing and responding to reviews, hotels can demonstrate their commitment to customer satisfaction and show that they value the feedback of their guests.

In addition to helping to persuade website visitors to book a stay, guest reviews can also help hotels to improve their search engine optimization (SEO) and increase their visibility online. Positive reviews can boost the overall rating of a hotel, which can make it more likely to appear at the top of search results and attract more bookings.

Overall, featuring guest reviews on a hotel website can be an effective way to persuade website visitors to come and stay at the property and improve the overall online presence of the hotel.

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Social Media Integration

Integrating social media with a hotel website can provide extra marketing and sales channels for the property. By linking to the hotel’s social media accounts from the website, hotels can expose their brand to a wider audience and drive traffic back to the website. 

Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter can be powerful tools for reaching potential guests and promoting the hotel’s offerings.

Integrating social media with the website can also help hotels to showcase the personality and culture of their property. By sharing content such as photos, videos, and blog posts on social media, hotels can give website visitors a better sense of what to expect during their stay. This can be especially effective for boutique or independent hotels that want to differentiate themselves from larger chain hotels.

In addition to providing extra marketing and sales channels, integrating social media with the hotel website can also help to improve the overall customer experience. 

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Hotel Website Blogs

Blogging is a great way for hotel websites to increase their keyword reach and improve their search engine optimization (SEO). Here are a few reasons why:

Keyword expansion

By publishing regular blog posts, your hotel website can target a wider range of keywords related to your business, such as location-specific keywords, travel tips, and local attractions. This can help the website rank higher in search results for a variety of relevant terms, attracting more potential guests to your hotel website.

Fresh content

Search engines prioritise websites that regularly publish new and relevant content. By maintaining a regular blog, any hotel website can demonstrate to search engines that it is an active and authoritative source of information, which can improve its ranking in search results.

Engagement

Blog posts provide an opportunity for hotels to engage with their audience and build a community around their brand. By sharing helpful and interesting content, hotels can encourage website visitors to return to the site, share the content on social media, and engage with the hotel through comments and other forms of interaction.

Long-tail keywords: Long-tail keywords, which are specific and often longer phrases, are often less competitive and can drive targeted traffic to a website. Blog posts provide an opportunity to incorporate long-tail keywords into the content, which can help the website rank for these specific phrases and attract more qualified traffic.

Regular blog posts can help hotel websites increase their keyword reach, improve their SEO, and engage with their audience. By investing in a consistent blog strategy, hotels can attract more potential guests to their website and ultimately drive more bookings.

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Revamp Your Hotel Website

Are you interested in improving the SEO and overall performance of your hotel website? Request a free hotel marketing audit from our team of experts and find out how we can help your hotel reach its online marketing goals. Click here to learn more and request your audit today.