If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

A Response to Hotel Web Sites; The Missing Link(s) by Keith Paulin

In his July 24, 2006 article, Keith Paulin paints a fairly accurate portrait of how to successfully promote a hotel website. Hotel Web Site; The Missing Link(s) states that to rank well in Google, Yahoo, and MSN, certain elements should be present, including “a search-engine-friendly technical site structure, rich original content, appealing design, conversion techniques focused on converting lookers to bookers, and actively building inbound links.” I agree with Paulin on these very important elements, but some points need elaboration other new elements should be added.

It is tempting to poke fun at Paulin for starting with the “Missing Link(s)” and then changing to the fifth element with a surprise sixth element thrown in at the end. (I would recommend “Hotel Web Sites: the Hexagon of Revenue”). But, elaboration beckons: I started with 9 tips (which I could have called “innings of online success”, but then I went to 10 “steps”, skipped 11, went to the “dirty dozen” and, and ended with a “Baker’s Dozen of Online Marketing Tips.”

Design when succesful, creates a conversion. A great design is usually emotionally appealing and has a dramatically higher conversion rate than an poor or mediocre website. The average guest looks at multiple sites and returns to make the reservation. A poor site just bounces visitors. and the best one wins. Study your conversion and bounce rates to improve design.

Booking Engine: We remain continually surprised by the number of hotels that setup their booking engine and forget it. Try to build online revenues by “optimizing” your booking engine instead of losing that potential customer at their purchasing moment.

Analytics that Work: We look at our client’s analytic software all the time and use it to make decisions. What is working? What needs improvement? What resources create conversions and revenues?? Good ROI software is key. Whether you have it, whether you set it up to work properly, and whether you use it regularly is a good indicator of how successful you will be in the long term! We use Blizzard Tracker which integrates with most major booking engines.

Content will affect your overall success. A strategy for increasing the quantity, quality, regularity and distribution of your content is important

The quantity of content is important. More pages on your site lets you develop a “long-tail” which develops more search engine traffic. Quality content keeps potential guests on your site longer. Measure the length of your tail at Marketleap Site Saturation and compare it to your competitors.

The quality of content is important; original content that is appealing to your client base is the benchmark. Good content attracts visitors and brings them back for repeat visits.

Regularity is important: it is better to create one page of content a week, than 52 pages at once, once per year. Updating and adding to your site pleases search engines (and webmasters).

Distribution: Fortunately, most search engines are good at finding the content on your website, but, distributing content turbocharges your content. Press Releases, blogs, RSS feeds email , marketing, social bookmarking, ezines, photo-sharing, travelogues.

On-site Seo is often called “search-engine-friendly technical site structure”

Linking structure: how your pages are linked together, making sure search engines prioritize the right pages, and find all the important pages. Typical items: sitemaps, anchor text, relevant vs absolute URLs, No follows,

Hosting issues like 301 and 404 redirects, IP addresses.

On-page SEO begins with keyword research, and is often called “optimization” and refers to the plethora of items (titles, meta-descriptions, meta-keywords, keyword density, html validation, gutter text, H tags, alt tags, anchor text) that may be used, on a page-by-page basis, to focus each page at a certain keywords phrase.

Inbound Links: To put it simply, focus on getting links that your perspective guests are at. Quality links Sending qualified traffic is the number one factor in deciding whether it is worth the time or money… although backlinks help in search engines too. Qualified traffic doesn’t bounce

Additional link factors to consider: The Page Rank of the page linking to your speaks to its importance, the anchor text it uses will affect your link reputation, and deep linking helps promote interior pages.

Good Reviews in review Sites like tripadvisor.

Customer Responsiveness: answering your email and phone calls in a timely and professional manner has a big impact – lodging websites typically generate 3 to 8 times as many phone calls as online bookings. Don’t forget email inquiries. We can help our clients track each of the phone calls their website generates – including a recording if appropriate. Check out Narrowcast for a more sophisticated call-tracking solution.

Local and Mobile Search is rapidly growing and is already delivering excellent results. had been meeting with Increased success and is playing into one of the next big trends: mobile search

Photography is an important element of a website and recommends a considerable benefit. Virtual tours, video, and webcams are powerful, but should only be considered after excellent flat photography is in place.

Market to Past Guests: making revenue from guests instead of catching and releasing. While certainly offering the kind of experience that makes your guests want to come back helps… you can lead that horse to water using specials and packages, email marketing and traditional marketing.

Patience and PPC: Getting results in free search engines takes patience and some delay is expected and can be mitigated. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) provides an instant bang, excellent ROI, and a good cure for impatience.

Keith Paulin’s article is very well written and informative, but it lacks specific details that are equally (if not more) important to build online revenue to your website. In clarifying his ideas, I hope to provide a more solid direction in which to take your hospitality website.

Kate Olsen - Blizzard Internet Marketing, Inc.

 Email This Post |  Print This Post

Categories: SEM, SEO.
Comments RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a comment, or trackback.