NB: This is an article from eMarketing Associates
Once you’ve launched your hotel website, it’s important to track and measure its success along the way. The best way to determine the success of your website is to ask yourself if your online visitors are actually converting into bookers. Are people engaged on your site and finding what they need to decide whether to book with your hotel or the hotel across the street?
To get an in-depth look into how visitors are interacting on your website, it’s critical that you track the behavioral activity of your website on Google Analytics. Not only does Google Analytics enable you to see referral traffic, which are the websites users have visited to get to your site, but it also identifies how long a user has been on your site and which pages they frequently engage with.
By focusing on your site’s metrics, the better you can identify what is causing your website to lack direct bookings. Many hoteliers face the challenge of converting lookers into bookers because they have not taken the time to analyze the information readily available to them on Google Analytics.
In order to improve your site’s performance and boost direct bookings, you must first identify the shortcomings of your website. Hoteliers must get out of the mindset that generating the most traffic is and should be the goal. Rather, the goal should be generating more “Qualified” traffic that converts.
Here are 3 of the most telling signs your website isn’t converting and actionable ways to fix them:
1. Lack of ‘Niche’ Landing Pages
If your website currently does not have specific landing pages dedicated for a specific targeted audience, then you are essentially losing out on ranking as well as potential conversions. Lack of niche landing pages can be a missed opportunity for converting highly-qualified visitors. These pages are designed to be useful for online visitors searching under long-tailed keywords. These types of visitors know what they want and search narrowly and very specific.
Think about what happens when a user lands on your homepage and is still not convinced to stay at your hotel. This calls for creating a niche landing page. For example, say your hotel caters to many business travelers and your hotel is located near a major convention center. In order to grab their attention, why not designate a specific page that caters solely to convention center attendees? In this page, mention amenities that business travelers care about like free WiFi, business center, dry cleaning services, shuttle services, etc. This page will help build their trust with your hotel and give them more confidence to book with you.
2. High Bounce Rate
A high bounce rate is another warning sign that your website is ineffective in converting visitors. A high bounce rate indicates that visitors are disengaged on your site and immediately exit because they don’t like what they see or/and they can’t easily find what they need. Your site’s bounce rate is a good indicator of how relevant your content is to what the potential guest is searching for.
If you notice that your site is experiencing a high bounce rate, it may mean that your site needs a redesign or/and better content. To keep visitors on your website, make sure that your site can easily be navigated and includes good quality photos that highlight what your hotel offers.
Also, keep your content genuine and give users a true expectation of how their stay will be at your hotel. Never give users a false expectation. If you are a budget-friendly hotel, then don’t describe your hotel as luxurious. Giving users false expectations will only lead to bad reviews.
3. Poor Call-To-Action
As intuitive as it sounds, many hotel marketers are still guilty of not providing a clear call-to-action button on their website. In this day and age, there is no excuse to not having a book now button on all pages of your website. How you position your book now button on your website is extremely important. If users don’t know where to book on your website, then don’t expect any direct bookings to result.
Don’t over complicate where you position your book now button. Instead, simplicity is key. So position your call to action signals in a consistent position on all pages of your site. Also, don’t forget to add click to call button on your mobile site as this is how your conversions will be measured on a mobile device.
Now that we’ve identified the 3 possible signs of why your hotel website isn’t converting, it is now time for you to take action and make these improvements. Managing your website and SEO strategy is an ongoing process, so consistently check metrics on Google Analytics and see what could be preventing your site from performing to the best of its ability.
