Do you know that the conversion rate of an ad on Facebook is averagely 9.1%? While the conversion rate of a hotel website is at 2% averagely.
This data differs from industry to industry. Creating a hotel website with better conversion rates can be difficult to achieve due to high competition. An average online travel customer visits an average of 18 websites through lots of devices before booking a hotel online on Google. Daily, hotels compete with OTAs and Airbnb; so more things have to be put in place to engage and convert visitors while they visit your site.
What if you don’t want to spend thousands of dollars creating Facebook adverts? If you want to boost the conversion rate of your hotel website, it is very possible to do so, and we will show you how.
Create video tours of your hotel
Videos speak louder than words. Videos enable potential customers to get engaged through a dynamic format. With video tours, guests and even potential customers can get to see what your hotel looks like, and are more likely to book your services. Furthermore, your video tours will enable your potential customers to engage with the content on your website.
According to a survey by HotelMarketing.com, landing pages with video tours get five times more engagement and response rates than those without them. This is because nobody wants surprises when they come to your hotel; a sneak peek will help them get a better idea of what to expect.
Adding tour videos to your website can also boost SEO. As we have already discussed, videos boost engagement and this is a factor Google considers while ranking websites on their search result pages (SERPS). Also, including short video segments strategically in the booking process can boost conversion rates. For instance, you could include videos of your hotel rooms, gym, restaurants and also customer testimonials on the sales page – and this could impact visitor conversions.
Optimize your website copy
Optimizing your website copy plays a major role in determining conversions. For this, you need to primarily focus on your homepage, the booking page, and the blog.
Your homepage serves as the primary lead capture page. Visitors landing on your homepage are further channeled into your booking page in order to convert. It is worth pointing here that not all customers like to make a booking online. A lot of travelers are still old-school and prefer calling your hotel desk to book a room.
Make sure that you include details of your hotel location and phone number prominently on the homepage. Also, place a high priority on user experience and navigation so that the visitor does not have to fumble looking for the booking page.
Your blog is a good way to increase the publicity of your hotel. Creating thoughtful content about your hotel or the destination, in general, is a good way to nurture prospective visitors and build a brand. Make sure you include a prominent call-to-action (CTA) in your blog content for readers to take action.
Use the right advertising channels
Facebook’s dynamic ads is a great tool to generate bookings for your hotel business. You can make use of the user’s browsing and booking activity to promote your travel destination and also promote bookings for your hotel. Broad Audience Targeting allows hotel businesses to target users based on their activity and the likelihood of making a booking. You can also make use of social context. For example, sharing information about destinations that a friend has traveled to increases trust and relevance since it pushes these Facebook users to plan their own trips.
Build an email list
Building an email list is a good way to increase the conversion rate of your hotel website. If done the right way, you can have lots of visitors subscribing through their email and getting to book for your hotel services.
When building an email list ensure that you give strong reasons why your visitors need to subscribe to your website through their email. Offering your email subscribers good discounts and other exciting deals that other hotels don’t offer makes sense and it will build your email list. To convert more visitors into customers, and also retain old ones, you need to build your email list and take email marketing utterly.
Make the booking process seamless
You might have customers all over the world, which is why you need to enhance the experience of all these different users. There are a few ways to make your checkout process seamless. You may, for instance, let visitors make their online purchases with their own currency. It is also essential to ensure that you offer your prices/charges in their local currency for them to know much there are going to spend.
Another thing to ensure is to make sure your hotel’s website is mobile-friendly. This is due to the fact that mobile phones are now the preferred method to shop online. Making a mobile-friendly site for your visitors will make the booking process seamless and attract more customers to your hotel.
Final Words
A growing number of hotels are moving away from OTAs and are focusing on converting visitors from their own websites. This is both, in order to improve margins as well as to build a model that is not reliant on third party services. The strategies provided above should help you improve conversion rates that are an important component of your hotel’s online marketing strategy.