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HOW TO MONETIZE YOUR HOTEL WEBSITE

How to make your hotel website more competitive, rank higher, and convert more visitors into clients?

This is not precise science. However...

ALL GOOD HOTEL WEBSITES HAVE SOMETHING IN COMMON

In the course of 10 years I have been involved with the organization of literally hundreds of hotel websites and online hotel guides.

If I look back on the analytics of all these websites, it is clear that the very best performing hotel websites all have something in common.

If it is your plan to make your website perform better, you should have a look at all the issues.

If it is your plan to become the best hotel website in the world, and safeguard your position ahead of others for years, then you should consider each element and take it up to a very high level.

THE 10 THINGS THAT MAKE A HOTEL WEBSITE FLY

1. Intuitive navigation.

Visitors like websites in which the information is provided quickly and clearly, in an easy visual format. Forget "Skip Intro", busy flash elements or too many choices. Don't confuse visitors, because it seems they freeze and click off.

2. An eye for influence.

With a profile photo looking directly at the camera. Eye contact makes persuasion more effective. Visitors respond more positively if they believe they are talking to you.

3. Correct grammar and translations

Spell check your website right now! Spelling errors costs you dearly, both in the Search Engines and in the confidence of your website visitor. This certainly applies to your translated pages. Make them correct and show you take the foreign visitor seriously.

4. Personality

So you have been found via a Search Engine. Now it is a matter to be unforgettable. The average searcher visits 22 hotel websites before making ONE reservation. If you wish to be that one, your website must be remembered, be saved in the favourites, be sent to others.

In other words: DO NOT COPY OTHERS, BE YOU.

If you copy other websites, you will be just one of the many who are not remembered.

5. Be flawless for the corporate market

A corporate look means you do not TELL about your high end technology, but that you SHOW it and instantly transmit the right psychological message.

Remember that your website dictates your customers.

Or: you get the customers you target in feel and look.

6. Quality photography

Save on everything, if you wish. But not on photography! The most instant impact is the visual one. Better a white page with a brilliant, high quality photo then a stunning website with lousy photography.

7. Quality in everything

Does having a FaceBook page help you? Not a bit. A GOOD FaceBook page helps. Just as a bad video on YouTube diminishes your online reputation. This is the new decade... the expectations of online users forever increase.

So do not do anything at all, if you are not going to do it well.

8. Food, sex or danger.

Each is a powerful emotional trigger in our brains. In persuasion, any of these 3 factors can move us to press the button on the page. You can fulfill at least one of these triggers. For a hotel... a photo of a tasty dish.

9. Social validation / endorsements / testimonials.

Whatever you call it it boils down to this. We humans are hardwired to stick together. The psychologists call it social proof, people listen to their peers, more than they listen to you.

So whether you have a testimonial page or have an endorsement on every page, keep gathering and keep displaying your recommendations.

10. Scarcity

‘Only 4 days left to book', ‘only 1 room left'... Our brains are sensitive to messages about losing. The less there is of something, the more we want it.

Does your hotel website include all of the above?

All in a very high level, blended into one beautiful whole?

Of course not.

Because then you would not have a good website, but a FANTASTIC one. Probably even one of the best performing hotel websites on earth.

"QUALITY" is a word to remember.

Write it on a Post-It and stick it to your computer, so you will forever remember this:

The search engines are obsessed with quality, and that evolution will only go faster and faster. The Online searcher will forever become more mature too.

And that means, whatever you do, be it SEO, Branding, FaceBook'ing, Conversion techniques... always make the distinct decision to do it WELL.

A lousy or quickly made FaceBook page doesn't help you at all... quite the contrary... while a fabulous one lifts you up over all others.

And if that doesn't convince you, this will:

Who do you think spent less - the hotel that one single time invested in quality... or the hotels that forever, without end, year after year, into something half hearted?

Who do you think had and always has the highest ROI?

Thank you for reading.

Ben Geurts
Málaga and Brussels
info@guaronomics.com