Best practices to gain bookings on your hotel website
In today’s digital age, a user-centered hotel website plays a crucial role in attracting and converting potential guests into bookings. With travelers increasingly relying on the internet to research and book accommodations, having a website that prioritizes user experience and meets their needs is of utmost importance.
A user-centered approach ensures that your website is intuitive, visually appealing, and provides the information and functionality that potential customers are seeking. By focusing on creating a seamless and engaging online experience, you can significantly increase your chances of gaining bookings and achieving success in the competitive hospitality industry.
What are the marketing stakes of having an efficient hotel website?
Having an efficient hotel website brings several selling and marketing benefits. Here are the key stakes associated with an efficient hotel website:
Improve your profitability and cost-effectiveness
First of all, a fast and efficient hotel website allows guests to book directly with your property, eliminating the need for intermediaries. This helps you avoid paying high commission fees to online travel agencies (OTAs) and increases your revenue per booking. So, direct bookings through your website typically yield higher profit margins compared to bookings through OTAs. By reducing reliance on third-party platforms, you can maximize your revenue and profitability.
Furthermore, an effective hotel website serves as a cost-effective marketing channel. Indeed, by investing in website optimization, digital advertising, and more broadly digital marketing, you can reach a larger audience, engage potential guests, and generate bookings at a lower cost compared to third parties.
As a result, in a competitive marketplace, having a website made to drive bookings gives you a competitive edge. By providing a user-friendly and engaging online experience, you can outperform competitors who may have outdated or poorly optimized websites.
Keep your (future) guests happy
Driving direct booking strategies through your website enables you to establish a direct connection with your guests from the initial booking stage. This opens up opportunities for personalized communication, guest loyalty programs, and post-stay engagement, fostering stronger relationships with guests and repeat bookings.
You can also create exclusive offers, loyalty programs, and packages available only on your hotel website, for guests who book directly through your website. This can include discounted rates, complimentary services, access to additional amenities, or bundled packages that provide added value to direct bookings.
To keep up with travelers’ research behaviors and the millennial generation, with the increasing use of mobile devices for travel bookings, having a mobile-responsive website is crucial. An efficient hotel website optimized for mobile ensures a seamless user experience, leading to higher conversion rates and bookings from mobile users.
Your hotel website acts as a platform to showcase guest reviews, testimonials, and awards. By managing your online reputation effectively, you can build trust and credibility among potential guests, influencing their booking decisions.
Optimize your branding and visibility
A well-designed hotel website gives you full control over your brand identity and messaging. It allows you to showcase your unique features, amenities, and experiences, thereby differentiating yourself from competitors and attracting the right target audience.
Also, a well-optimized hotel website increases your visibility on search engines, allowing potential guests to find your property more easily. By implementing effective search engine optimization (SEO) strategies, and technical parameters, you can improve your organic rankings and attract organic traffic to your website.
Finally, your website provides access to valuable data and analytics: take advantage of it! By leveraging tools such as Google Analytics 4, you can gain insights into visitor behavior, booking patterns, and demographic information. This data helps you make informed marketing decisions and optimize your website for better performance.
Overall, an efficient hotel website plays a vital role in driving direct bookings, maximizing profitability, establishing brand identity, and nurturing guest relationships. It serves as a powerful marketing tool to attract, engage, and convert potential guests, contributing to the long-term success of your hotel business.
What are the best practices to gain bookings on my hotel website?
To gain bookings on your hotel website, it’s important to optimize your website and employ effective marketing strategies. Here are some best practices to help you increase bookings:
Get a website designed to generate bookings
Of course, first, you need to implement a reliable and user-friendly online booking engine on your website. Then, ensure your website has a clean, fast, intuitive, and mobile-responsive design. Make navigating, searching for availability, and booking rooms easy for visitors. Optimize the booking process by minimizing the number of steps required.
Don’t forget to place clear, prominent, and visually appealing calls-to-action (CTAs) throughout your website. Use phrases like “Book Now” or “Check Availability” to encourage visitors to take immediate action and enter a seamless reservation path. Ensure to display it strategically on multiple pages, making it easy for visitors to initiate the booking process.
We detail this part later on in the article.
Showcase compelling content
Use professional photos and videos to showcase your hotel’s rooms, amenities, and common areas. High-quality visuals create a positive impression and entice potential guests to book.
Aligned with visuals, write well-written, short paragraphs that make for compelling storytelling. Craft engaging and persuasive content to describe your hotel’s unique features, benefits, and experiences.
Highlight the benefits of booking directly on your hotel website such as any special offers, packages, amenities, flexibility, better cancellation policies, or personalized services that set your hotel apart from competitors. Similarly, you should put forward any best price guarantees: assure potential guests that booking directly through your website offers the best rates and benefits, thus incentivizing them to bypass third-party platforms.
Don’t hesitate to leverage your website’s collected data on your visitors and clients to develop an email marketing strategy. Indeed, you can reach out to potential guests and nurture relationships with previous customers. Send personalized offers, newsletters, and exclusive promotions to encourage direct bookings.
Advertise your hotel and rates on all channels
Utilize online advertising platforms, such as Google Ads, Metasearch Ads, or social media ads, to target potential guests who have shown interest in your destination or hotel.
Search engine advertising (SEA), such as Google Ads, allows your hotel to appear at the top of the search results pages and helps you drive targeted traffic to your hotel website and increase bookings.
Define your advertising goals: brand protection and/or generic campaign. It will guide your keyword strategy, to identify relevant keywords and phrases that potential guests are likely to use when searching for accommodations. Focus on both broad and brand/specific keywords related to your hotel’s location, amenities, and unique selling points.
Promote your hotel on metasearch platforms to increase your direct bookings and visibility. Metasearch engines like Google Hotel Ads, Tripadvisor, and trivago allow travelers to compare prices and availability across multiple OTAs and hotel websites in one place. Utilize metasearch advertising to appear prominently in search results, and optimize your listing with accurate and up-to-date information, high-quality visuals, and competitive rates. By capitalizing on the reach and convenience of metasearch, you attract more potential guests to book directly on your website.
Establish an active presence on social media platforms relevant to your target audience through ads and organic content. Share engaging content, promote special offers, and interact with users to build brand awareness and loyalty.
Lastly, you can also implement remarketing campaigns to remind previous website visitors about your property and encourage them to book directly.
Analyze and optimize your performance
You need to optimize your website for search engines to improve its visibility and organic rankings. Identify relevant keywords and incorporate them naturally into your website’s content, titles, meta tags, and URLs.
Continuously monitor website analytics, conversion rates, and booking trends as well. Analyze the data to identify areas for improvement, such as optimizing website performance, adjusting marketing campaigns, or refining your booking process. Use data to make informed decisions about website optimization, marketing strategies, and pricing to maximize direct bookings.
Remember, gaining bookings on your hotel website is an ongoing process. By implementing these best practices and adapting to market trends, you can increase your website’s conversion rate and drive more direct bookings.
Your performance results may vary depending on your pricing strategy. We recommend you regularly review and optimize your room rates and packages based on market demand, seasonality, and competitor analysis. Consider offering exclusive deals or packages for direct bookings to incentivize guests.
Focus: Having a user-centered website
Increasing Conversion Rates
The ultimate goal of a user-centered hotel website is to drive conversions and generate bookings. By understanding your target audience’s needs, pain points, and desires, you can optimize your website to provide solutions and incentives that motivate visitors to make a booking. Streamlined booking processes, clear calls-to-action, and persuasive content all contribute to improving your conversion rates and maximizing the return on your website investment.
Enhancing User Experience
A user-centered hotel website prioritizes the needs and preferences of potential guests, making their journey from initial search to booking as smooth as possible.
By providing intuitive navigation, clear information, and an easy-to-use booking process, you can eliminate friction points and create a positive experience for visitors. A well-designed and user-friendly website increases the likelihood of visitors staying on your site, exploring different room options, and ultimately making a booking.
Streamline and simplify your website’s booking process: minimize the number of steps required, reduce form fields to essential information, and make it easy for guests to review their booking details before finalizing the reservation.
Moreover, mobile devices have become the primary means of searching for a hotel for many travelers. A user-centered hotel website is mobile-responsive, meaning it adapts seamlessly to different screen sizes and maintains optimal functionality and aesthetics on smartphones and tablets. By catering to mobile users, you tap into a large and growing segment of potential guests, providing them with a frictionless booking experience on their preferred device.
Building Trust and Credibility
A user-centered website instills trust and credibility in potential guests. It demonstrates your commitment to providing a high-quality guest experience, even before they step foot in your hotel. By offering comprehensive information about your rooms, amenities, services, and policies, along with professional visuals and guest testimonials, you build confidence and reassure visitors that they are making the right choice. When guests trust your website, they are more likely to proceed with a booking rather than seeking alternatives.
Conclusion
By implementing these strategies and continuously refining your website and marketing efforts, you can increase the number of direct hotel bookings, reduce reliance on third-party platforms, and boost revenue for your hotel.
In an era where travelers increasingly rely on online platforms to make their travel arrangements, having a user-centered hotel website is paramount. By prioritizing user experience, building trust, catering to mobile users, personalizing the experience, and optimizing for conversions, you can significantly increase your chances of gaining bookings.
A website that puts potential guests at the center of its design and functionality is a powerful tool for attracting, engaging, and converting visitors into loyal guests, ultimately driving the success of your hotel business.
About Cendyn
Cendyn is a global hospitality cloud-based technology company that enables hotels to Find, Book, Grow - driving revenue, maximizing profitability, and creating deeper connections with guests through its integrated solutions. Serving hoteliers for nearly 30 years, Cendyn has over 32,000 customers in more than 150 countries including brands Outrigger Hospitality, Hyatt, IHG, Aman Resorts & Hotels, Relais & Châteaux, Banyan Tree Hotels & Resorts, Coraltree Hospitality, and Onyx Hospitality Group - generating more than $20 billion in annual hotel revenue. The company supports its growing customer base with offices across the globe. To find out more, visit cendyn.com.
