Successful hotel websites - tips & tricks
The 9 best tips for successful hotel websites
In times of Booking.com, Agoda and Airbnb, it is predominantly small hotels that do not score with their own hotel websites. But even some medium-sized and large hotels still underestimate the value of their own online presence in the digital age. Yet they are the most important part of your direct booking channel.
Because even if booking platforms can help to attract new guests, filtering by price often plays a major role for searchers in this case. However, selling yourself short just to be displayed high up is not an optimal solution, especially in the long term. If you really want to have long-term success with your hotel, you should therefore also be digitally present. In addition to the web design and professional photos on the hotel website, this also includes the findability via search engines. This may sound very complex and expensive at first, but in the end it doesn't have to be. We have therefore compiled the best tips for successful hotel websites for you and tell you how you can generate more bookings via your website in the future.
The goal of a hotel website
First things first: While the term "website" describes the entire Internet presence, i.e. all pages, "web pages" refers to the individual pages, such as the homepage or a booking page.
Websites should always pursue the intention of motivating visitors to take an action. This can include signing up for your newsletter, following you on social media, contacting you, or making a direct booking.
The hotel websites as an optimal sales tool
Your hotel websites take on several roles at once when it comes to attracting new guests:
- Online business card and figurehead of your business - prospective customers can get an overview here and get a first feeling for your hotel.
- Digital brochure and information channel - Who are you, what makes your hotel and what values do you live? All this information can be embedded as good content in your web pages. Of course, including all important information about prices, excursion destinations in the region and interesting facts about your business.
- Support - Through a FAQ website you can answer the most frequently asked questions about your hotel, the surrounding area as well as your services once and make them available to potential guests.
- Sales center open around the clock - Using booking software, website visitors can easily book a room at any time.
Three more reasons why a hotel website is so important:
1. it helps you gain more visibility thanks to local search engine queries.
2. you don't have to pay commission to third-party providers for direct bookings.
3. with a professional website, you strengthen your hotel branding.
How do you create an appealing web presence?
It takes just a few seconds to decide whether visitors stay on your website or quickly click on to another page. The basics are crucial: a clear structure - from the photos to the texts to the menu bar - and the right web design for your hotel. The following website structure has proven itself:
- A clear homepage: This is where your prospects land first. It is therefore important to convey the feeling that your guests will not only be offered a place to sleep, but also an experience on your hotel homepage through visual language, design elements and crisp texts. From here, you can then also link to the other subpages.
- Detailed info pages: You can then go into more detail on the websites themselves. What rooms do you offer? What makes your restaurant special? What is your philosophy? How can people contact you?
9 tips for a strong booking hotel website
To encourage potential guests to book, there is of course no universal solution. However, there are some basics and tricks that we would like to present to you:
- Get to know your target group. Because only then can you start to design your hotel websites specifically for your desired guests. Are they primarily people in need of rest? Then your design and language style should address this very concern.
- If good texts are gold, photos, image carousels and videos are platinum! So choose high-quality and, above all, authentic visual elements to give your potential guests a taste of their stay (e.g. through photos of the rooms, breakfast buffet, surrounding attractions and spa area).
Extra tip: Also use photos of guests who are part of your main target group. This way, you directly address the desired customer segment.
- Put your unique selling proposition in the foreground. Because by highlighting extras that set you apart from your competitors, you can convince even with high local competition. Your hotel is located near the airport, you offer only natural products as an eco-hotel or welcome your guests with a welcome drink of their choice? Then this information definitely belongs on your website.
- Integrate the possibility of direct booking. The best way to do this is to use a hotel booking system that shows availability and prices at a glance. This can then be integrated by a button in the menu bar, as a pop-up and/or under the respective room descriptions.
Extra tip: You can also add a short booking or contact form at the end of selected web pages to give interested parties the opportunity to ask any questions they may still have.
- Integrate guest reviews and other social proof elements, such as hotel stars. These are optimally placed right on the hotel homepage to build trust directly during the first visit.
- Optimize your hotel websites for search engines. This includes, among other things, a keyword research, the installation of internal and external links, the use of alt texts for images and the adjustment of loading times to rank as high as possible in Google and Co.
- Provide travelers with additional, relevant information. For example, how about an area where you share articles about current events or testimonials from activities in the region?
- Often forgotten and yet so important: Go for a multilingual website to be able to address international guests as well.
- Smartphones and tablets are increasingly being used not only for research, but also for subsequent hotel bookings. However, to ensure that your hotel websites are displayed correctly on all devices, you should use a responsive design.
Analysis and updating - maintenance for your Internet presence
Once the hotel websites have been created and can be viewed online, the next step should be to set a regular frequency in order to analyze the most important key figures such as calls by search engines and the keywords responsible for them, as well as clicks on certain pages. With the knowledge gained from this, you can optimize your website based on this.
But updates are also important, in case your images are outdated or something else has changed, so that travelers always get the latest information. Sometimes it's also worth redesigning the website.
TourSol recommendation:
With successful hotel websites to more guests! As soon as you have implemented the above tips, you will see how much potential has been lying dormant in your hotel websites. And even though it may seem overwhelming and sometimes quite complex at first, optimizing your website is definitely worthwhile. Especially also to position yourself more independently from third-party providers.
Of course, if you don't want to venture on your own, you can get support, for example, from:
- a web designer for the visual design and implementation,
- a copywriter for your content,
- a photographer for professional pictures
- TourSol as experts for hotel industry and tourism. We will be happy to help you develop the marketing strategy that perfectly suits your hotel.
However, we are also available to you as a service provider and take over the complete revenue management of your hotel. This way you don't have to worry about anything anymore and have the freedom to concentrate on other important areas of your business and thus keep your turnover and costs fully under control.
