The Five Things You Need For An Amazing Hotel Website
It goes without saying, or it should, that if you run a hotel or a bed and breakfast, you need a website.
In addition, you need a website that is responsive to screen size and mobile-friendly so that it is user friendly to all of your website visitors whether they’re using a desktop, laptop, tablet or smartphone.
Your website is the pivotal piece of your hotel marketing. Everything should revolve around it.
For example, your print marketing pieces send people to your website. Your pay-per-click ads send web visitors to landing pages on your website.
Because your website is integral to your overall marketing strategy, it’s not enough to have a basic website. Your potential customers have a lot of choices when it comes to where they stay.
Make sure their view of your hotel is professional, user-friendly, inviting and filled with call to actions – right on your website. After all, your website is a direct reflection of your hotel.
In this article, we look at the five things you need for an amazing hotel website.
#1: Concentrate on Converting Website Visitors
A great website design is much more than pretty visuals. It’s a website that converts visitors into people who make a reservation with your hotel or bed and breakfast.
Let’s look at some things you can include in your website design for better conversions.
First, you want to make sure you have book now buttons or embedded reservation forms that are obvious and easy to use.
The primary goal of your hotel website is to encourage reservations, so it’s vital that you have well-placed “book now” buttons.
You also want to consider allowing visitors to book right on your landing pages using a form that connects to your online reservation form.
Second, you might consider chat bots. This allows people to contact you without picking up the phone.
Who might this benefit? It helps the worker who is secretly making reservations during their work day and lets them talk to you without making noise. It also helps those making reservations during the evening hours when your customer services reps may not be available.
One internet marketer says live chat can increase conversion rates by 45%.
So, live chat is another option to increase bookings on your hotel website. Do your research and read reviews before picking a live chat service.
Third, you can a “stick” mobile click to call icon. This makes it super easy for mobile visitors to just click your phone number and call to make a reservation.
The sticky icon stays at the top of their phone screen no matter how deeply users are scrolling through your website.
#2: Create a Speedy Website
How fast your page loads is an integral part to your website’s user experience.
Sometimes, people build a website concentrating only on its aesthetics and completely neglecting website speed.
This isn’t the best route for you to go. While you may have beautiful photos and videos and the latest in fun plugins and other functions, if your website doesn’t load quickly, you won’t have website visitors.
Why? All the bells and whistles can’t replace a fast-loading website.
For most people, two-three seconds waiting for a page to load is all they have patience for.
These are best practices for a fast-loading site:
- Loads in two-three seconds.
- Images are all optimized.
- Videos are hosted elsewhere such as YouTube or Vimeo.
- Caching is enabled.
- You also want to limit your redirects and the number of plugins.
Finally, not only do slow loading sites annoy users, but Google will also penalize you in search engine results pages if your site doesn’t load quickly.
For people who search for your website on their smartphone, you want to ensure it loads quickly. If it doesn’t, Google isn’t going to list your site anywhere near the top of results pages.
This ranking tweak affects pages that deliver the slowest experience, so make sure yours isn’t.
#3: Show Them the Proof
You know that the best bookings come from word of mouth.
With the digital age, word of mouth is on the screen of every person who considers booking with your hotel.
One of the most important things to your potential customers is what others think about your property. To help them, add reviews and testimonials to your own website. (tweet this)
If your customers can hear from others about your website, it will help them solidify their decision to stay with you.
Highlight your reviews right on your website landing pages. Don’t make it hard to find them.
Don’t worry too much if you have a couple of negative reviews as long as you have an abundance of positive reviews.
Three stars and up is definitely a good thing. If you start getting multiple one and two-star reviews, you want to rethink your business practices.
It’s also good to remember that it’s up to you to reply to your reviews as well. Whether the review is on Facebook or Google, assign someone you trust with the responsibility of responding to reviews, both negative and positive.
Any negative reviews should be responded to with kindness and empathy.
#4: Add Easy to Access Directions
With your customer in mind, you want to ensure that your hotel website includes directions that are easily visible.
You can always use the Google Map or driving directions map.This widget makes it easy for people to plug in their location and find directions to your hotel.
#5: Highlight Reasons to Stay with You
The last thing you need to do for an amazing hotel website is to include all the reasons someone should stay with you.
Include specials. Everyone is looking for a deal. While you don’t have to offer discounted rooms, you might consider putting together special packages that might entice customers.
You can also showcase your area. Include special activities in and around your community by the month. Include a description, dates and links.
It also pays to really highlight your amenities. Do this on each page.
Finally, consider writing a blog. Do this at least weekly and write about things that interest your customer, establish you as an expert and make your potential guests run to your “book now” button.
Final Thoughts
If you impress your website visitors with your website, you’ll be one step closer to earning the reservation.
Make sure your website is professional, filled with beautiful photography, includes reviews, has easy to access online reservations, is mobile friendly and speedy, and you’ll find you increase your conversion rate.
At Hotel Propeller, we build functional, beautiful websites that utilize your star ratings to help you stand out in the crowd. You’ll find everything you need to attract guests to your website and compel visitors to make a reservation. Take a look at our showcase and contact us today.
Images: bady qb and Hal Gatewood on Unsplash
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