Working in the hospitality industry, especially as a Hotelier, to change or build a new website for your hotel from scratch may seem like a daunting task. With us working by your side, you won’t need to worry with today’s constantly changing online travel market.
This guide is designed to aid hoteliers and hotel owners navigate their way through these challenges that begin from the initial design and content development to optimizing your website’s SEO, marketing tactics, and monitoring your reputation.
Working closely with hotels and the hospitality industry, Juicebox Management is excited to share with you Part 1 of a 5-step guide to give you an overview of everything you need to know about setting up a new website for your hotel :
1. User Experience
Understanding the principles of user experience is crucial to provide customers an enjoyable online shopping experience. Here are the following areas you need to be aware of when planning your website:
- Choosing the right platform: WordPress is a popular choice for many and can be easily integrated with online reservations and booking systems.
- A responsive design: A responsive web design allows customers to view your hotel’s website through any device seamlessly. This makes your content easy to digest and ‘portable’ being accessible through any device.
- E-commerce necessities: OTA’s have mastered the art of e-commerce, the websites are built around the principles of conversion optimization. With only little investment, hotels can replicate these winning strategies: making personalized recommendations, simplifying booking process, providing a simple and clean navigation.
2. Great Website Design for Hotel
The visual aspect of a website play a significant role on a customer’s first impression, which in turn can influence their booking decision.
- Branding: Your website’s overall design should automatically set the tone of your brand and what it stands for. Does your hotel embody ultimate luxury? Or a cozy property with a “Home away from home” vibe? A few factors to mention that effect your brand design is the colors and typography.
- High quality images: Images on your website help tell a story of your property’s location and facility highlights.
- Copywriting: The secret to an effective hotel copy involves being in the shoes of a customer and focus on the unique selling points of the hotel. This will also produce copy with a touch of personality.
3. SEO
With every new website, there should be an accompanying SEO strategy to ensure that your hotel’s website is getting maximum visibility online.
Whether you’re revamping an old one or starting from scratch, you’ll want to make sure that the technical and content elements are calibrated.
-
Optimize URL’s and Meta descriptions:
After your domain name, your URL is the most significant building block of your website’s overall structure. Here’s what makes a URL’s best practice: keep URL’s concise and simple, stay clear of using long unnecessary words, and avoid multiple redirects.
-
Launching a new website without endangering your SEO:
Making changes to your website can sometimes damage your current ranking on a search engine if you’re not careful. Be aware of the checks you need to perform before, during, and after your website is created. Google Analytics can also help you uncover which pages in your website needs improving, and the potential impacts it can play.
Reputation management
When your website goes live, it’s important to maximize its presence on the internet.
To begin this, secure an account name with big social media platforms to prevent other businesses to claim your brand name, then commit to an effective and consistent social media strategy.
It is also advised to encourage customers and guests to review your property for quality control and to address negative reviews professionally.
We have some tips on how to maximize your social media efforts, go and check it out!
Appealing content
Building a website for your hotel doesn’t revolve around the visual appeal. To make most of the investment, you need to create your website with engaging content to encourage and inspire potential guests to stay at your property.
Here are a few ideas on what content you can populate your website with:
- Video content: It is recorded by Google’s Traveler’s Road to Decision report that 66% of people watch travel related content when planning their next trip. So hosting a video about your property and its location highlights can be a great way to capture the interest of potential customers.
- Blogs: Most hotels create blogs mainly for SEO purposes, which is a mistake. Publishing copy paste content does not peek the interest of customers and neither does it interest the search engine. Create blogs that come with an insightful purpose. This will instill brand loyalty from people genuinely interested in what you have to say.
For your reference, here’s a list of related blog posts for a boost of inspiration for you :
- Improve your digital marketing strategy for your Hotel.
- Being in Hospitality Industry? Why don’t you check this tips for business in hospitality industry.
- Website or Social Media? How about having both of them?
- Calculating ROI from your SEO efforts.
- You should have digital marketing in your budget planning!
Over the years, as the fastest growing SEO Agency in Bali, Juicebox Management is at your service. We already work with many clients to help them in Website Design, Search Engine Optimization, managing Google Ads Campaign and leveraging their Social Media through Social Media Management or Social Media Ads.
