This is one question that we get from clients every day, and rightfully so – as that is what we do – improve your website. Sometimes, the simplest changes to copy or adding images and videos to your website could dramatically improve your search engine rank and user experience throughout your site.
Here are a few things that you can do today to improve your website for better search engine performance, digital marketing efforts and user experience. Each of which will help to drive more conversions, direct bookings and return on your website investment.
Start with Strategy
Your website, and every action that a visitor could potentially take on it should be tied to your marketing goals, and ultimately the strategic, organizational goals set forth by leadership at your hotel. Define 3 primary website goals and measure them relentlessly.
Use your PMS data to inform your strategy, site design and decision making process.
Site content and design elements such as layout, messaging, calls-to-action, architecture (page structure) and navigation can be designed with data driving the decision process.
When analyzing your guest data in your marketing strategy and website build, keep the following in mind:
Identify your best guest: What does your most valuable guest look like (demographic and geographic)?
- What messages are important to this guest?
- How does your brand appeal to this guest?
- Define engagement points throughout the guest journey: hotel research, hotel selection, booking, pre-stay, post-stay, win-back – these are all essential guest engagement stages that your website needs to deliver on.
- Where can we engage these guests and more like them? Understand the channels that are important to your best guest and have a plan to reach them.
Deploying better, more intelligent marketing efforts
- Define your media plan for 12 months including at least 2 seasonal campaigns that change every quarter.
- Use email, social media and other media outlets to push out those campaigns across all guest engagement points.
- Your 12 month plan should take into account seasonality and maximizing conversion during peak periods.
