Four Basic Hotel Electronic Marketing Tools to Use in 2011

Dec. 18, 2010 - PRLog -- Electronic channels have changed hotel sales and marketing forever. Internet website marketing, social media, the Global Distribution System, and third-party aggregators have all presented new marketing opportunities to hotels around the world. In effect, the Internet has created the first affordable global marketplace for large and small hotels everywhere.

For a while, it appeared that the Internet would be a simple answer to everyone's occupancy problems; an inexpensive and effective way to sell rooms. All one needed was a website. However, as Internet marketing matured and search engine technology evolved, design requirements for websites have also matured; even simple websites must follow search engine rules. After all, a website needs traffic to be effective.

A dedicated proprietary website will produce incremental room business with an incredible return on a modest investment, but not without some effort. Tags, links, and properly written text are the key components of a producing website, yet many web masters cannot produce these on their own. Knowledge of hotel marketing techniques is a big plus. A website is not an online brochure; it should be an interactive online sales tool. Knowledge of how and why consumers select accommodations is essential to the site's design.

In the past couple of years, many hoteliers worldwide have contacted me citing their disappointment with their professionally designed website. Many of these sites lack basic hotel marketing expertise, while others are dysfunctional because of zealous designers who are more interested in creating a masterpiece than creating a site, which markets their hotel. Content is king; yet much of their site's text lack a focused search and hotel sales theme.

Many hotel websites, unfortunately, are the result of "committee" input, which usually result in over-complicated, difficult to navigate, confusing, and ineffective websites. Knowledge of how search engines find and rank web sites is essential. There is much more to website design than that which one sees online. This internal construction has much to do with the eventual popularity of the site. Increased popularity relates to increased reservations.

Social Media Participation

Social media has played an important role in hotel electronic marketing, but it is important to prioritize your efforts. FaceBook and Twitter, used properly and consistently, can help boost traffic to your website through keywords and links, but the most under-utilized, yet most important social medium is TripAdvisor.

Data shows that at least 70% or more travelers will check your standing on TripAdvisor either before or after making a hotel reservation. Yet, we see a distinct lack of use of the TripAdvisor widget on hotel websites.

There are two ways to accomplish this; the right way and the wrong way. We have seen many hotel sites which have inserted the widget on their sites, but that is all they have done. The right way to get results and experience the full impact of the widget is to create a separate landing page with a good variety of guest comments, which resides directly on your site. This way, travelers can read your guest comments without leaving your website. The actual link to your TripAdvisor page resides on this page.

http://www.aim-internet.com

Article sourced from:
http://www.hospitalitynet.org/news/154000320/4049483.sear...

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Website Design, whether interactive, e-commerce based or just compelling is our speciality. Based in Birmingham, West Midlands we at Aim Internet are experts in our field.