8 Ways to Boost Hotel Website Traffic
October 22, 2008
Developing a hotel website involves a lot more than just providing information and assuming that it will automatically bring guests to your site. You may have already created a website for your hotel; however, you should also learn the ways to drive traffic to your website. It is just like giving birth to a child and then nurturing it. You need to take constant care at every step from start to finish. Any kind of neglect can cause major setbacks in the long run. Just launching a website is not enough; promoting it to the fullest is also an important factor to drive qualified traffic to your website. Don’t get lost in the crowd and make an identity of your own!
Here are 8 ways to drive traffic to your hotel website:-
Make your website look attractive: In this case looks are definitely not deceptive! What you see is what you get! Your homepage is the doorway to your business hence it’s important to keep it uncluttered and tidy. Just one look is enough for a person to decide whether he would want to visit your hotel or not. Make sure the pictures you put up of your hotel property are clear and appealing for a customer to make a booking. Use mild and pleasing colors with a standard font, avoiding distractions of any kind. Strengthen your company culture by projecting an overall image of professionalism and convert casual web surfers into customers.
Choose the right words to switch interest into desire: In order to grab the attention of a guest to your website you have to know your market as well as interests of your guests. This way you can target your prospective guests and arouse their interest by providing engaging content on your site. The only way your site can be successful is if the visitors find your information useful. A customer may just read the first few lines on your website and make a judgement on where your hotel stands. Make your copy accurate, clear, stimulating and most importantly, avoid jargons. Content is at the core of everything you do to achieve your most wanted response. It has been proven that appealing content definitely makes a difference to your online success and drives traffic to your website. Therefore, the more visibility your content has the more business you make.
Easy Navigation: A simple and effortless navigational system helps customers quickly find what they are looking for which in turn increases your overall business. If people cannot figure out the layout of the site itself, they will lose interest and look for some other hotel. You website navigation should be designed in a simple, clear, consistent, informative and functional manner. Keep hypertext colors blue for unclicked, purple for clicked and also place the main navigation for your website on the far left of the page. This way your visitors can find their way around the site while moving at a higher speed.
The “Key” to success: Keywords are the building blocks when it comes to website traffic. Search engines search the web for keywords which are then indexed in order to bring up the proper search results. The use of Effective Keywords will help you optimize your website to a great extent. Make a list of relevant & popular keywords that your web site visitors will use to make a search. Also keep a watch on your competitors to find out what keywords they're using to attract web site traffic and make your decisions accordingly. Remember more keywords means more traffic to your site. If you know what keywords your potential customers will be searching for then you can make sure that your website appears high on the list of search engine results.
Exchange Links: Exchanging links with other sites is also another way to gain traffic to your hotel site. Many sites will willingly put your link on their site if you are willing to do the same for them. However, the links that are placed on these should not be the ones directly competing with your business. Before exchanging links with these sites see if they have a good ranking in the search engines as this will raise your rank as well. All you need to do is to find websites that are related to what you offer on your website and exchange links with these sites. You can exchange your hotel links with travel and airline websites.
Blog your way to drive traffic: Blogging has now become a new age phenomenon and is considered a very effective way of building traffic to any website. But a lot of us don’t know what it really is and how it works. A Blog is basically a website usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. It encourages activity & discussions and by having a Blog of your own, you can answer any questions your customers and prospects may have. Blogging regularly will have fresh content that will get your website ranking high on search engines. This in turn will increase traffic to your website.
Email marketing: We all know that email marketing is still the most effective means of direct communications for hoteliers. Staying in touch with your guests as well as future prospects is a very valuable tool and an integral part of any marketing strategy. You can start by publishing your own newsletter and offering your guests content & articles on a regular basis. Having a newsletter for your site is a great way to offer important tips and information about your hotels products and services. This will keep your customers updated on your progress and latest events, therefore encouraging them to keep coming back to your website. Links to your website will encourage people reading your newsletter to also visit your website. Therefore, email marketing can be one of the most effective ways to drive traffic to your hotel website.
Customer Feedback: Regardless of the type of business you are in, getting any kind of feedback from your customer is critical to your success. Customer feedback is a wonderful way to constantly improve your service. By responding to your customers comments and queries and making the necessary changes you will definitely win some brownie points. It’s better to know what your customers would prefer rather than losing them to another hotel who is giving what your hotel should be giving. You can involve people in your site by having a customer feedback section on your website. People will comment on what they think of your services and whether they are satisfied or not. Also website testimonials will work wonders for your business. Ask your customers to write a simple testimonial about your services, and add them to your home page. Testimonials add importance and reinforce your site's reputation by letting other site visitors and potential customers see what others have to say about your services.
October 22, 2008
Developing a hotel website involves a lot more than just providing information and assuming that it will automatically bring guests to your site. You may have already created a website for your hotel; however, you should also learn the ways to drive traffic to your website. It is just like giving birth to a child and then nurturing it. You need to take constant care at every step from start to finish. Any kind of neglect can cause major setbacks in the long run. Just launching a website is not enough; promoting it to the fullest is also an important factor to drive qualified traffic to your website. Don’t get lost in the crowd and make an identity of your own!
Here are 8 ways to drive traffic to your hotel website:-
Make your website look attractive: In this case looks are definitely not deceptive! What you see is what you get! Your homepage is the doorway to your business hence it’s important to keep it uncluttered and tidy. Just one look is enough for a person to decide whether he would want to visit your hotel or not. Make sure the pictures you put up of your hotel property are clear and appealing for a customer to make a booking. Use mild and pleasing colors with a standard font, avoiding distractions of any kind. Strengthen your company culture by projecting an overall image of professionalism and convert casual web surfers into customers.
Choose the right words to switch interest into desire: In order to grab the attention of a guest to your website you have to know your market as well as interests of your guests. This way you can target your prospective guests and arouse their interest by providing engaging content on your site. The only way your site can be successful is if the visitors find your information useful. A customer may just read the first few lines on your website and make a judgement on where your hotel stands. Make your copy accurate, clear, stimulating and most importantly, avoid jargons. Content is at the core of everything you do to achieve your most wanted response. It has been proven that appealing content definitely makes a difference to your online success and drives traffic to your website. Therefore, the more visibility your content has the more business you make.
Easy Navigation: A simple and effortless navigational system helps customers quickly find what they are looking for which in turn increases your overall business. If people cannot figure out the layout of the site itself, they will lose interest and look for some other hotel. You website navigation should be designed in a simple, clear, consistent, informative and functional manner. Keep hypertext colors blue for unclicked, purple for clicked and also place the main navigation for your website on the far left of the page. This way your visitors can find their way around the site while moving at a higher speed.
The “Key” to success: Keywords are the building blocks when it comes to website traffic. Search engines search the web for keywords which are then indexed in order to bring up the proper search results. The use of Effective Keywords will help you optimize your website to a great extent. Make a list of relevant & popular keywords that your web site visitors will use to make a search. Also keep a watch on your competitors to find out what keywords they're using to attract web site traffic and make your decisions accordingly. Remember more keywords means more traffic to your site. If you know what keywords your potential customers will be searching for then you can make sure that your website appears high on the list of search engine results.
Exchange Links: Exchanging links with other sites is also another way to gain traffic to your hotel site. Many sites will willingly put your link on their site if you are willing to do the same for them. However, the links that are placed on these should not be the ones directly competing with your business. Before exchanging links with these sites see if they have a good ranking in the search engines as this will raise your rank as well. All you need to do is to find websites that are related to what you offer on your website and exchange links with these sites. You can exchange your hotel links with travel and airline websites.
Blog your way to drive traffic: Blogging has now become a new age phenomenon and is considered a very effective way of building traffic to any website. But a lot of us don’t know what it really is and how it works. A Blog is basically a website usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. It encourages activity & discussions and by having a Blog of your own, you can answer any questions your customers and prospects may have. Blogging regularly will have fresh content that will get your website ranking high on search engines. This in turn will increase traffic to your website.
Email marketing: We all know that email marketing is still the most effective means of direct communications for hoteliers. Staying in touch with your guests as well as future prospects is a very valuable tool and an integral part of any marketing strategy. You can start by publishing your own newsletter and offering your guests content & articles on a regular basis. Having a newsletter for your site is a great way to offer important tips and information about your hotels products and services. This will keep your customers updated on your progress and latest events, therefore encouraging them to keep coming back to your website. Links to your website will encourage people reading your newsletter to also visit your website. Therefore, email marketing can be one of the most effective ways to drive traffic to your hotel website.
Customer Feedback: Regardless of the type of business you are in, getting any kind of feedback from your customer is critical to your success. Customer feedback is a wonderful way to constantly improve your service. By responding to your customers comments and queries and making the necessary changes you will definitely win some brownie points. It’s better to know what your customers would prefer rather than losing them to another hotel who is giving what your hotel should be giving. You can involve people in your site by having a customer feedback section on your website. People will comment on what they think of your services and whether they are satisfied or not. Also website testimonials will work wonders for your business. Ask your customers to write a simple testimonial about your services, and add them to your home page. Testimonials add importance and reinforce your site's reputation by letting other site visitors and potential customers see what others have to say about your services.
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