How to increase traffic to your hotel website
Dwindling traffic figures can be a common problem for online businesses. So in a highly competitive environment how can you drive more traffic to your hotel website?
We’ve outlined 6 simple, time worthy practices worth investing in to get increase traffic to your hotel website.
Google AdWords
With Google being the most popular search engine today, marketers are keen to achieve a high ranking in their search results, leading to a subsequent increase in website traffic. Google AdWords is a great tool for driving quality traffic to your website. Simply set a budget, choose relevant keywords (such as ‘hotel Dublin’), target the location you want, and watch the traffic to your website grow.
Google Hotel Ads
A step on from AdWords, are Google’s Hotel Ads. These allow people who are searching for a hotel in a particular location to immediately see prices, ratings and reviews. They can compare prices across all vendors and then book directly on their website. Budget and bidding strategies are similar to AdWords, however setup and integration does require a significant amount of technical knowledge. A Google authorized third-party integration partner is highly recommended.
Google Hotel Ads Example
Blogging
Blogging is an extremely useful tool in driving traffic to your hotel website. Aside from its role in attracting visitors to your site, you are also educating them with useful content. When considering blog topics, think about the type of questions your target market may be searching for. E.g. ‘The top 10 places to visit in Dublin’.
SEO best practices
The hotel industry is more competitive than ever and everyone wants to appear as close to the top of Google as possible; a great cost-effective way to get there is through SEO. Although a complex task, there are some basic best practices that even a website novice can handle:
- One aspect of optimization that is often overlooked are website images. By ensuring each image contains an ALT text description you are helping search engines better understand what the photos are, increasing your website's google image search ranking.
- Create internal links to new content.
- Don’t forget about page titles and meta descriptions.
- Keywords are king. Long-tail keywords now make up the majority of searches online, so if you’re not targeting them, you’re missing out.
Learn more about SEO for hotels on our hotel search engine optimisation post.
Social media
The power of social media should never be undervalued in its contribution to website traffic. It’s evolvement from an engagement medium has led it to become a major traffic channel. The following simple strategies can help generate quality traffic to your hotel website from social channels:
- Invest in advertising- ads can be targeted to specific user demographics and locations and they can link back to a web page of your choosing.
- Include call-to-actions on images you post, linking to your website.
- Include your website link in all of your bios- An obvious one, but often overlooked.
- Tempt your followers with exclusive offers that link back to your site e.g. reduced rates, spa bundle offer, etc.
Facebook Ad Example
Online Advertising
Don’t panic- we’re not suggesting pop-ups. Banner ads on the other hand can be very effective when displayed on the right website to the right audience.
For example, if you are a hotel in Dublin, banner advertising on relevant sites such as Discover Ireland or Visit Dublin will drive more valuable, targeted traffic to your hotel website. You want to target tourists who are planning on visiting Ireland and need accommodation. Advertising on unrelated websites will succeed in one thing; driving irrelevant or no traffic at all.
Driving targeted traffic to your wedding venue website provides the opportunity for greater conversion and essentially increased bookings. Have you discovered other effective ways to drive more traffic to your hotel website? Feel free to drop us a comment below, we’d love to hear from you!
