5 Tips on How To Increase Hotel Website Traffic
Every hotelier wants to drive more and more traffic to its hotel website, but how easy is that?
There could be a number of reasons for not being able to get many eyes on your website. Maybe you are a brand-new hotel that no one knows about yet or even if you aren’t new, but yet you are finding your traffic and bookings lagging way behind.
You need to first know the actual strategies you can use to get more traffic to your hotel website. More website traffic can get you more client bookings directly. Such bookings are more profitable, as the OTAs will not receive commissions from these bookings.
But remember MORE traffic alone does NOT always mean more bookings.
There are numerous ways to reach potential guests. Let us know the free ones in this blog.
Search engine
- Have you ever thought about why is SEO important for your website? We help you get the answer.
- The first thing most travelers do while booking a hotel outside their city is check on a search engine, say Google.
- Do a search query for it to see what OTAs and hotels there are in the search result for your city. Do your best to meet a search term, and you shall find your hotel website rise at Google hits.
- Search engine optimization helps to get your website first on the list when any user writes your hotel name and the city inside the search box. You can then optimize location, services, or tourist attractions.
- All hoteliers should understand that optimizing for search engines actually means optimizing for searchERs —the guest booking a room, meeting, spa service, dining at your restaurant, etc.
- Unlike ads, which interrupt users when they aren’t looking for something, SEO meets the user where they are and WHEN they’re looking to book or find any information.
2. Business listing
- Why ‘Google My Business’ is important? Google tools like Google My Business helps the locals and the tourists to find transport and services needed. By creating a Business Profile at it, hotel owners can connect with customers more easily.
- You must first create an account for the business listing. Add more information there so that it is more convenient for any customer to find it. Update your open hours, contact numbers, address, email address, and hotel website URL. Reach out to more guests by describing your location, the nearest sights, and available facilities.
- You must also promote your hotel on local business listings to get ample Google hits when someone’s searching. Free hosting on local listings can increase your traffic massively.
3. Social media
- Most hoteliers today know that social proof in the form of online reviews or testimonials can be very powerful in increasing hotel website traffic.
- In 2020, some statistics showed that social media users had crossed the 3.8 billion mark which is ideally 49% of the world’s population.
- Hoteliers thus can use social media immensely to attract new customers, advertise any offers, and maintain interaction with the users.
- 2.7 billion monthly active users in 2020
- 33% of the audience is aged 35-64; while 31% is aged between 25-34
- 75% of online Facebook users have an income of more than $75K.
- 1.1 billion monthly active users
- Highest 33% of users are aged 25-34 and 30% are aged 18-24
- 80% of the user’s purchasing decision depends on seeing it on Instagram.
Youtube
- 2 billion users every month
- As high as 81% of US users are aged 18-25 making YouTube perfect for reaching the younger audience
- 90% of users like to discover new brands and products first on YouTube.
Plan a method of building and growing your hotel’s social media followers on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter because social media can be a good way to drive traffic by sharing interesting, engaging content that links back to your hotel website.
4. Cross-promotion
What are The Benefits of Cross Promotions? Know here.
Cross-promotion is basically a marketing technique to promote a different non- competitive brand so that both the brands involved can benefit. Example: Uber users paid for Premium accounts on Spotify while Spotify users booked Uber cars for availing offers.
Similarly, Hotels can partner with travel agencies, taxicab companies, tourist attractions (cafes, bars, clubs, museums, etc.), souvenir malls, and event planners. This works best when both services target the same audience, and when they are complementary services to offer.
4 types of cross-promotion ideas:
- Share information for your partner online or offline through social media, website, posters, leaflets, hoardings, etc.
- Sell partner’s products complementarity.
- Make your discounts reciprocal by offering special discounts to ones buying both services mainly when both brands have similar audiences.
- Offer discounts at your partner’s website, café, cool cab services, etc.
5. Email marketing
- The key to hotel email marketing is consistency. We will help you know how to use Email Marketing to grow your business.
- Plan a method of building and growing your hotel’s email list as these emails which are collected after the guests check out can help in drawing a lot of return customers.
- Use Email marketing to remind guests of your hotel and to share latest updates about a recent renovation or special offers. This can increase customer loyalty and encourage re-booking.
- Through email, you can ask the guests to review your hotel on social media while also linking it to your business profile.
Final Thoughts
Though Traffic is very important metric, remember: clicks don’t equal to bookings.
Opt for a well-rounded marketing plan that focuses on all traffic-driving methods because -at the end of the day, what worked wonders for one hotel may not certainly work for yours, too.
If you made the most of these free ways, but you still want more traffic, then consider allocating a budget for online digital marketing.
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Frequently Asked Questions
- Google Adwords – It is the best paid traffic source that offers huge results but the cost per click is generally very high.
- Facebook Ads.
- Instagram Ads
- Outbrain Amplify For Advertisers.
- LinkedIn Ads.
- Twitter Ads.
For direct search traffic, you have to improve your offline marketing strategies like promoting your website through print advertising, outdoor advertising i.e. hoardings on highways, airpost, railway stations, coupons, business cards, brochures, or TVcommercials.