Digital marketing has surpassed all other kinds in importance in every industry, including hotels and travel. Many digital marketing strategies have proven effective, but sometimes, the most basic is the most important.
By stripping down digital hotel marketing to the essentials, experts believe that you'll be successful in building a brand with intelligent positioning. These include creating the perfect website and online presence, smart search engine optimization, and more.
Optimize Your Website
Your website is your online home. As important as social media is for finding and communicating with your target audience, your website is where serious customers go to book their hotel stays. If you don't have the absolute best website, it could devastate your business.
It's also critical to understand that it isn't just about your regular website, either, as you must optimize it for mobile users. Even if they end up booking on an actual computer, they are much more likely to visit your website for the first time on a mobile device.
Your website should showcase your amenities and convey your brand at a glance. Your visitors also must be able to book seamlessly and securely. Gather feedback on the booking process from guests whenever you can.
Getting on Google and Leveraging SEO
You absolutely must list your hotel on Google. It's the first place potential customers go for everything, including hotels and travel. Best of all, it's free to register your hotel on Google using a service called Google Business Profile (formerly known as Google My Business).
When you do, your business will be Google-verified, and all of your contact information will be updated and ready to go. In addition, a Google Business Profile gives you greater control over your online presence, as well as ratings and reviews.
SEO, or search engine optimization, helps your hotel's website rank higher in internet searches for relevant topics. There are many ways to improve your SEO. Some of them involve using keywords and phrases effectively. However, a large part of SEO also involves behind-the-scenes practices, including sometimes paying SEO experts to improve yours.
It's also important to leverage local SEO. That way, you can be more visible to people who are actually in your area. It helps effectively narrow your audience and direct the most important potential customers to your website to book.
Utilize Social Media for Hotel Marketing
There's so much to be said about social media, and using it effectively for multichannel marketing for hotels requires expertise. There are three social media tactics that you should be utilizing.
The first is going live, which can increase your engagement with your followers and audience. Videos, in general, are fantastic for showing off the beauty and amenities of your hotels. Potential customers love to watch tours and get a 360-degree view, imagining themselves lounging by your pool, having a drink in the bar, or entertaining clients in your conference spaces.
The second is to utilize influencers in your marketing for hotel campaigns. Influencers help you build trust with potential visitors and find new followers. They can be incredibly valuable. Pay special attention to famous travel bloggers, as a feature on your property can help increase your visibility and provide easy advertising.
Finally, social listening is the practice of monitoring and responding to mentions of your hotel. That way, you can answer questions, address problems, and thank visitors for feedback.
Managing your brand is about so much more than creating relevant content. It's also about monitoring how past and future visitors express their interactions with you and your properties. You must have a presence in those conversations to help control the narrative.
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