In times of Booking.com, Agoda and Airbnb, it is predominantly small hotels that do not score with their own hotel websites. But even some medium and large hotels still underestimate the value of having their own online presence in the digital age. In doing so, they are the most important part of your direct booking channel.
Even though booking platforms can help to attract new guests, filtering by price often plays a major role for searchers in this case. To sell oneself below value, only to be displayed high up, however, is not an optimal solution, especially in the long run. If you really want to have long-term success with your hotel, you should therefore also have a digital presence. In addition to the web design and professional photos on the hotel website, this also includes the findability via search engines. This may sound very elaborate and costly at first, but in the end it doesn’t necessarily have to be. We have therefore compiled the best tips for successful hotel websites for you and tell you how you can generate more bookings via your website in the future.
The goal of a hotel website
The most important thing in advance: While the term “website” describes the entire Internet presence, i.e. all pages, “web pages” refers to the individual pages, such as the homepage or a booking page.
Websites should always have the intention to motivate visitors to take an action. This can be, among other things, signing up for your newsletter, following you on social media, contacting you or making a direct booking.
The hotel websites as an optimal sales tool
Your hotel websites take on several roles at once when it comes to attracting new guests:
- Online business card and flagship of your business – Prospective guests can get an overview and an initial feel for your hotel here.
- Digital brochure and information channel – who are you, what makes your hotel and what values do you live by? All this information can be embedded as good content in your web pages. Of course, including all important information about prices, excursion destinations in the region and interesting facts about your business.
- Support – Through a FAQ website you can answer the most frequently asked questions about your hotel, the surrounding area as well as your services once and make them available to potential guests.
- Round-the-clock sales center – booking software makes it easy for website visitors to book a room at any time.
Three more reasons why a hotel website is so important:
1. It helps you gain more visibility thanks to local search engine queries.
2. Direct bookings mean you don’t have to pay commission to third party suppliers.
3. With a professional website you strengthen your hotel branding.
How to create an appealing web presence?
It only takes a few seconds to decide whether visitors stay on your website or quickly click on to another page. The basics are crucial: a clear structure – from the photos to the texts to the menu bar – as well as the right web design for your hotel. The following website structure has proven successful:
- A clear home page: this is where your prospects will land first. It is therefore important to convey the feeling that your guests are not just being offered a place to sleep, but an experience, right from the hotel homepage, using imagery, design elements and crisp texts. From here, you can then link to the other subpages as well.
- Detailed info pages: You can then go into more detail on the websites themselves. Which rooms do you offer? What makes your restaurant special? What is your philosophy? How to contact you?
9 tips for a booking-strong hotel website
To encourage potential guests to book, there is of course no universal solution. However, there are some basics and tricks we would like to share with you:
- Get to know your target group. Only then can you begin to design your hotel websites specifically for your desired guests. Are they in need of rest in the first place? Then your design and language style should address this very concern.
- If good texts are gold, photos, picture carousels and videos are platinum! So choose high-quality and, most importantly, authentic visual elements to give your potential guests a taste of their stay (e.g. B. through photos of the rooms, breakfast buffet, surrounding attractions and spa area) to give.
Extra tip: Also use photos of guests who are part of your main target audience. This way you directly address the desired customer segment.
- Put your unique selling proposition in the foreground. Because by highlighting extras that set you apart from your competitors, you’ll be able to impress even when local competition is high. Your hotel is located near the airport, you offer only natural products as an eco-hotel or you welcome your guests with a welcome drink of their choice? Then this information definitely belongs on your website.
- Integrate the possibility of direct booking. A hotel booking system that makes availability and prices visible at a glance is best suited for this purpose. This can then in turn be integrated through a button in the menu bar, as a pop-up and/or under the respective room descriptions.
Extra tip: You can also add a short booking or contact form at the end of selected web pages to give interested parties the opportunity to ask any questions they may still have.
- Integrate guest reviews and other social proof elements, such as hotel stars. These are optimally placed right on the hotel homepage to build trust directly on the first visit.
- Optimize your hotel websites for search engines. This includes, among other things, a keyword research, the installation of internal and external links, the use of alt texts for images as well as the adjustment of loading times to be as high as possible on Google and Co. to rank.
- Provide travelers with additional, relevant information. For example, how about a section where you share articles about current events or testimonials from activities in the region?
- Often forgotten and yet so important: rely on a multilingual website to be able to address international guests as well.
- Smartphones and tablets are increasingly being used not only for research, but also for subsequent hotel bookings. To ensure that your hotel websites are displayed correctly on all devices, you should use a responsive design.
Analysis and updating – maintenance for your Internet presence
Once the hotel websites have been created and can be viewed online, the next step should be to set a regular frequency in order to analyze the most important key figures such as calls by search engines and the keywords responsible for them, as well as clicks on certain pages. With the knowledge gained from this, you can optimize your website accordingly.
But updates are also important, in case your images are outdated or something else has changed, so that travelers always get the latest information. Sometimes it is also worth redesigning the website.
Conclusion:
Attract more guests with successful hotel websites! Once you have implemented the above tips, you will see how much potential has been lying dormant in your hotel websites so far. And even though it may seem overwhelming and sometimes quite complex at first, optimizing your website is definitely worthwhile. Above all, to position themselves more independently of third-party providers.
If you don’t want to venture on your own, you can of course get support, for example at:
- a web designer for the visual design and implementation,
- a copywriter for your content,
- a photographer for professional pictures
- TourSol as experts for the hotel and tourism industry. We will be happy to help you develop the marketing strategy that perfectly fits your hotel.
But we are also available to you as a service provider and take over the complete revenue management of your hotel. This way you don’t have to worry about anything and you have the freedom to concentrate on other important areas of your business, thus keeping your turnover and costs under control.