When deciding which hotel to book while traveling, most people start with an internet search. They will typically search for a city or general location in which they want to stay and will get a list of results for hotels that could accommodate them.
The number of results can be intimidating when you run one of the hotels. It’s difficult to stand out when there are so many unique options. Even if you do get a customer to click on your website, how do you get them to stay? How do you get them to come back if they go to another competing hotel or resort site?
There are a few different things that you can do to drive web traffic to your hotels and motels. Some of them are changes that need to be made directly to your website and some are strategies that you can implement to your marketing campaigns on other platforms. Whether on-site or off-site, they can all make a significant difference in the amount of web traffic that you get.
If you’re struggling to drive web traffic to your hotel website, here are five strategies that you can try out to get things moving:
1. Email Marketing
Email marketing?! Who reads emails any more! A ton of people, actually. Emails may seem like an outdated or overused way to contact your audience, but it’s still one of the best ways to create engagement. Email marketing is 40 times more effective than marketing on Facebook and Twitter combined. 91% of US consumers still check their email every day. If you’re like me, you delete dozens of emails every day without ever reading them. But, every once in a while, a sale catches your eye, you follow a link, and you complete a purchase you weren’t planning on just 10 minutes earlier.
Don’t toss out email marketing as an engagement strategy just yet. It can still be very effective if done right. One way to get the most out your email campaigns is by creating unique landing pages for the links in the email.
For instance, if the email talks about discounted rooms for a specific weekend, link to the booking page. If it leads to the home page and the user has to click around to find it, they may change their mind and decide not to make a purchase. But, unique landing pages can result in a 25% higher conversion rate.
2. Influencers
Influencers are great for drawing in a new audience. Recent data shows about 83% of consumers say they trust a peer recommendation over other advertisements. If you think of celebrity endorsements when you think about influencers, it’s time to broaden your horizons.
Influencers can be anyone with a trustworthy opinion. Your employees can be influencers or big names in your industry can be influencers. Even people who have only local influence can be incredibly valuable. Some businesses have started using teachers to sell to parents, students, and other members of the community.
Not only do influencers already have the trust of your audience, but they have a great return on investment. On average, businesses see a return of $6.50 for every $1 spent and some even see a return of $20 or more. That high ROI is right up there or surpassing email marketing and SEO. Think about the audience that you are trying to reach and start hiring some influencers that will attract them.
SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the best ways to get more traffic on your site. Many SEO tips are difficult to apply to hotel websites. For instance, popular suggestions include blogging about topics that your audience cares about or creating infographics that other websites will share.
As many hotel websites to do not host blogs, these tips do not apply. However, there are still things that you can do to boost the searchability of your site.
You will mainly want to create partnerships with bloggers or journalists so that they can link to your website in their posts and articles. Curious readers will click the link and go to your website. Search engines will also notice your website being referenced often and will take that as a good sign. This will help your website rank higher when people search for hotels in your area.
4. Mobile Sites
The majority of online traffic is now done on cell phones. If your website is not formatted to view easily on a mobile phone, you are going to miss out on a lot of business. Users don’t want to have to zoom in and out several times, clicking on buttons that are too small, to try and navigate your website.
When it comes to mobile sites, the simpler the better. Take a look at your existing web traffic and see what people are most likely to click on. If they’re navigating to the “Contact Us” page quickly, put your contact info right on the home page for the mobile version. Also, make phone numbers and emails clickable so that a phone call or email can be initiated right from the page.
5. Remarketing
Remarketing is the practice of sending ads or reminders to people who visited your site but did not book a visit. According to Digital Authority Partners, this is one of the greatest ways to get people back on your website after they’ve left.
You already know that the customer is probably planning a trip to your area and in need of a hotel. Targeting ads specifically to them is a great way to bring them back and close the deal.
Drawing traffic to your hotel website can be easy if you follow the right steps. It’s important to take advantage of multiple different kinds of content like social media posts, blogs, or email campaigns to boost your brand recognition. The more quality content you put out into the world, the larger your audience reach will be.
The typical audience interested in booking a hotel is very diverse. People of all ages and backgrounds stay in hotels. Your content creation strategy needs to be just as diverse if you want to boost your web traffic.
