Sunday 15 January 2012

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Saturday 24 December 2011

Facebook – Hotel Marketing Tips


Previously we wrote about Social Media being one of the new locations of hotel marketing and now we’re going to expand on that article. Facebook, the social media giant is even competing with Google in terms of being a valuable Search Engine when searching for a hotel. In order for hotels to stay relevant, it is important to have a presence on Facebook. Here are 5 ways to increase engagement on your Facebook page.

post an event

As well as updating the Facebook page with post-event images and videos, the social media network is a good platform to promote events being held at the hotel. You can track results from Facebook campaigns by providing a code that people can quote when they RSVP for an event or enter when they purchase tickets. It will give you a better idea of what hotel marketing tools are more successful than others.

upload videos and images

A good way to keep your Facebook page fresh and interesting is to post videos and images. These images can be of your products and services, new hotel spaces and photos taken at hotel events. Your hotel marketing team can also encourage user generated content such as images and videos uploaded by people who have stayed at your hotel. It’s also a good way to put not only a face but a personality to your brand.

run a competition

Competitions are another fantastic way to encourage interaction on Facebook. They can be used in dual ways; you can create a competition on your Facebook page to encourage new people to ‘like’ your account and you can also run competitions for existing users to reward them for being fans of your page. A great incentive to encourage people to interact on your Facebook page is to create exclusive Facebook only special offers.

provide special offers and promotions

A large part of hotel marketing is providing special packages and seasonal offers to increase hotel occupancy rates. You can increase exposure for these offers by posting them on your Facebook page. As aforementioned, a great incentive to encourage people to ‘like’ your page is to create exclusive special offers that are only available to fans of your page and an ideal way to track the success of Facebook only campaigns.

post polls

Facebook is also great for marketing research and real-time participation. A good way to garner feedback from Facebook fans is to post polls or ask for feedback. You can create a poll asking for feedback on new services the hotel is providing, evaluate the success of an event held at the hotel or ask for opinions about the level of customer service, new services or events that should be held at the hotel.

How You Can Help Not Hinder Your Hotel Web Designer


When a hotel web designer and a client work in harmony, show each other mutual respect and are singing from the same hymn book, it can result in a stunning hotel website design. But the opposite is also true and it can be a very frustrating process that may or may not result in the outcome you wanted. But is it always the designer’s fault? Here are five ways that you can sabotage your own design project.

No shooting in the dark

Clients always seem to be able to articulate clearly what they want after the mock-up design has been done. You may want to get the project underway as soon as possible but the more time you spend thinking about what you actually want and writing a detailed and clear brief, the less time you will spend stopping and starting as you keep on changing your brief, exasperating your designer in the process.

Not taking your designer’s advice

It stands to reason that if you were a website designer you could create your own beautiful hotel web design but you’re not and that’s why you’re paying for their expertise. At least consider a developer’s advice and take heed of their suggestions before going off on your own design tangent. In the same way that changing a light bulb doesn’t make you an electrician, being a web surfer doesn’t make you a designer.

Keep the lines of communication open

Avert any design disasters before they happen by having regular meetings with your hotel web designer. It is important to respond to any requests for further information, material requests or feedback in a prompt manner so the design process doesn’t falter. If you are taking annual leave, let your designer know so they can adjust their schedule accordingly. The crystal ball style of management does not apply well to web design.

Resist micromanaging your designer

Giving constructive feedback to your designer is encouraged but dictating their every move is frowned upon. Some clients take the relationship one step further and call their hotel web designer outside of business hours and make unreasonable demands. You need to give the designer time to creatively think about developing your website without constant phone calls and emails taking them away from the design process.

Stop making changes

Your contract should outline the number of revisions and change requests you are allowed to make. Final approval means exactly that. There is no such thing as making one small change. What may seem minor to you such as a font modification may result in a series of changes throughout the site. There needs to be a point where your hotel web designer has to say stop if not to save their own sanity.

10 Link building Strategies for Hotel Search Engine Optimisation


1. Quality content

The best link building strategy by far is to write quality hotel content on your site that other relevant and industry sites will be happy to link back to and reference online. Hotel websites generally have less content than other traditional customer-facing websites but this is a hotelier’s chance to think beyond the square and head off their competitors at the Search Engine rankings post. Opportunities for hotel online content include:
  • writing a company blog
  • uploading media releases
  • adding latest news section
  • updating a local attractions and events page
  • uploading hotel videos (see below)

2. Directory listings

Focus your hotel Search Engine Optimisation efforts on general directory listings such as theYellow Pages, White Pages and TrueLocal, global travel websites such as the Directory of Hotels and Mr and Mrs Smith, local community and local travel directories. There are many opportunities to list your property in directories for hotel link building – you just need to hone in on ones that are relevant to your website.

3. Guest blog posts

Another hotel Search Engine Optimisation tactic for savvy hoteliers is to position themselves as an industry expert and write guest blogs on relevant websites in return for a link back to their site with appropriate anchor text. You can also do link building by placing links to your site within the blog’s text, if suitable. Potential websites can include industry and business associations, influential hotel bloggers’ sites and community sites.

4. Article marketing

Article marketing is where a business expert from your hotel writes quality articles that are available for syndication to different websites. All article syndication websites work differently and you can negotiate with the webmaster of each site. Some allow you to target keywords within the text and others just allow you to link back to your site. This is a link building strategy that will drive long-term traffic back to your site.

5. Google Place Pages listing

In 2010 Google introduced Places Search which saw the merging of Google Place pages with organic search results. Thus, claiming your Place page and adding your business details including a link back to your website is vital to improving your local search results. Like websites, Google has a preference for Places Pages that are continually updated with fresh content such as videos, images, seasonal offers and so on.

Hotel Web Design Tips by buuteeq Co-Founder

First published at hotelmarketing.com by Forest Key, CEO and founder, buuteeq

The use of online travel agencies (OTAs) has risen 45% since 2008*. Given that it’s 10-15 times cheaper for hoteliers to secure reservations directly through their own websites, and the reality that guests use the same internet to find hotel websites as they do to find OTAs, why the upward trend toward OTAs?

The answer has less to do with guests and everything to do with hoteliers – or more accurately, hotel web design. Google your favorite inn or bed & breakfast and see if you can find their website. After sifting through pages of OTAs you may find it. Once there, can you see the actual rooms? Find promos and deals? Book directly? If you’re on your mobile phone (like 56% of business travelers booking rooms*) does the site ‘work’ on your device?

The answer to most of those questions is probably no. A 2011 study by eDigital Research found that hotels were the poorest performing sector in a localized study of e-travel, with websites often lacking basic elements.

1. Retire your Flash-based site.
Flash was a popular early multimedia platform because it enabled interactivity on websites when there were no alternatives. But Google sees flash-based websites as black boxes that its crawlers can’t examine. Organic search discovery drops, and hotel SEO / search engine ranking with it. Also, flash-based hotel websites are incompatible with most mobile devices. If neither Google nor mobile devices can see you, guests will never know you’re there.

2. Design for visual learners.
People fall into three main categories in terms of learning styles: visual, auditory and kinesthetic (tactile). 60% of people are visual learners. While text is important for helping your search engine rankings, building a website with lots of images will appeal to the majority of guests. Augment your site with big, high-resolution landscape-oriented photos of your rooms, property and local attractions, so visual learners get the information they need in a form that works best.

3. Make IA work for your property.
Information architecture (IA) is ‘what visitors expect to find and where they expect to find it.’ When guests hit a hotel homepage they want to see rooms, photos and locations. Make maps prominent and interactive. Display rooms with images, descriptions and detail and make it easy for guests to compare rooms with the click of a button. Check out the The Hamilton House to see what an IA overhaul can do for a website.

4. Highlight promotions.
Create a Promotions page where you list a clear, concise summary of each promo, with right-hand navigation and individual landing pages covering each promo in greater detail – complete with vivid images to give visual learners (and all guests) a compelling reason to stay. If your web infrastructure supports it, integrate promotions and packages with the hotel booking engine so that discounts are applied automatically.

5. Maximize your maps.
If your locale is a big part of your draw, take advantage of maps and use them as a focal touch-point for first time and repeat guests alike. Pinpoint local sights, restaurants, shops, natural attractions and other places to see. Include walking and driving directions between your property and every location listed, to give guests yet another convenience. Check out South African luxury inn Le Quartier Francais to see a great example of map maximization.

6. Be SEO friendly.
Hotel SEO (search engine optimization) is not a black art. It just means taking simple steps to ensure that your site performs and ranks optimally on search engines. One of the most powerful hotel SEO tools is translation – having your site in other languages does wonders for your SEO position in international markets. Weave keywords into your copy – think about what your guest would type into Google to get to your page and try to work those words into your site copy naturally. Organize your site logically – avoid having pages buried deep in directories or ‘orphaned.’ Create unique, accurate page titles, with name of your hotel, where it is, and what it offers. Above all, offer quality content and organize logically. Make it easy for guests to use your page and for Google to crawl it.

7. Optimize for mobile.
While most websites can be viewed by mobile devices, most are not constructed to look particularly good on them. To hit the growing numbers of guests booking via mobile, you’ll want to create a mobile hotel website — a version of your site optimized for mobile marketing. That means no Flash, stacking navigation links vertically vs. horizontally to make them easier to ‘tap’ vs. click, and cutting out the frills of heavy content to enable your page to load faster on mobile devices. Again, you don’t need to hire multiple designers or agencies to help you do this. Tools exist that build this capability right in. Leverage those and you’ll reap the benefits with minimal cost and time drain. Which leads me to my last tip:

8. Don’t be afraid.
Because hoteliers are focused on running hotels, not on designing hotel websites, many hesitate to undertake a website re-vamp. Will they have the time to devote to making sure the new site performs better than the current one? What if they lose content from the old site in the transition? Who will help them if they can’t call the developers they’ve been calling for years? Many of the concerns behind those fears are actually products of an outdated model.