Think beyond SEO for successful online marketing

Apr 29, 09 | 1:54 am

What are some of the mistakes that hotels make when creating their company's website.

Contrary to the belief of some site designers, a hotel website is not just an online brochure with pretty pictures, interactive images and fancy videos; it should be a tool to generate sales and increase revenues, an impossibility without some marketing expertise. Rob Käll, President of Bookt, a company that develops websites for the hotel and vacation rental industry, has compiled a list of the marketing principles that hotels need to consider when developing or revamping a hotel website. Think of it as online marketing without any of that pesky tech speak!

First, an attractive website doesn't necessarily translate into a successful one.  An attractive website may be a marketing failure because it doesn't have the tools that consumers need to get the information that they want when checking out a hotel site - a search function and a reservations/booking function.  But hotels can't get rid of all of the graphics because they create that all important emotional connection (‘I want to go there!') which makes consumers chose one hotel over another. 

Second, flash is trash (I couldn't resist the rhyme!).  Consumers just skip over fancy intros so why are hotels spending the money on them?

Thirdly, (and I know that this may seem to go against what I said above, but I promise it makes sense!) text is the most important marketing feature on a hotel website.  Why?  Two reasons - one, text is the only element that search engines can find, so no text means so visitors; and two, sex, I mean, text sells.  And if the text is the most important feature, then the most important page is the home page - where hotels should be providing location info (and distances to key attractions nearby) and the most important distinguishing features of the property.  Also, keep in mind that most visitors won't read the whole site so keep it short and have the most important info on top.    

There you have it.  Many hoteliers think that websites are all meta tags, HTML coding and SEO but it's important to remember that although those are key features of a successful website, the marketing elements can't be ignored.  Any good website developer worth his weight in bytes (a little website humor for you!) will tell you the same thing. Bookt has created an online site test for hoteliers to figure out how their site stacks up and what they can do to improve their bookings and revenues.