Creating a hotel website: focusing on the essentials
Why have a website for your hotel? An internet presence in the form of a website is a must for any hotelier wanting to communicate online.
Most people these days use search engines when they want to find something out.
According to the Digital Report We Are Social x Hootsuite 59% of people worldwide use the Internet in 2020.
So, having a website is an essential investment, whether you work BtoC and BtoC. Make your brand known with a website that reaches your target audience all year round with no interruptions.
It’s the perfect place to showcase your business, your virtual business card.
What aims should a hotel website have in 2021?
Firstly, figure out your reasons for redesigning your hotel’s website:
- To reposition your business
- To meet Internet criteria
- To improve awareness of your brand
- To build your database
- To increase your turnover
The purpose of a website is to answer your target audience’s questions, at the perfect time, increasing your return on investment.
Your website should showcase your hotel and make people want to book a stay with you, purchasing their trip on your site so they don’t go to bigger booking sites like Booking.com or Expedia.
WIHP supports hoteliers with a turnkey solution that meets the following objectives:
- a fast loading website
- user-friendly
- productive in terms of conversions
- a site that reflects the quality and design of your business
If you don’t yet have a website, then it’s well worth thinking about creating one. Creating a website is part of a digital strategy to increase the visibility of your hotel.
What steps do you need to follow to create your hotel website?
WIHP can help you analyse your needs and create a design brief, and when it comes to building your website, we will ensure the site you launch meets your objectives.
Creating a design brief for your future hotel website
A design meeting will allow us to work out the structure of your website, from how it should look & feel through to organic referencing (SEO), it’s a chance for us to ask you the right questions and provide you with the answers you need. This is an important step to working out the essential elements for your hotel website and an opportunity for you to share any issues, ideas or requirements.
What is our design brief based on?
- Your business and goals
- The site map: the structure and organisation of the entire site
- Graphic elements: graphic charter, logo & illustrations
- Media: photos & videos
- Text content
- What makes your hotel special, unique or different
- Your likes and dislikes
- Your technical, aesthetic and functional constraints
Creating a specific pitch for your hotel website
To attract new customers to your hotel’s website you can implement different marketing strategies that make you stand out from distributors.
You can, for example:
- Offer complimentary breakfast or spa access
- Offer preferential rates
- Display flexible cancellations
Offering preferential rates directly on the hotel’s website encourages direct bookings. The world of travel is changing and most people will check prices on a hotel website as well as elsewhere.
So it’s important to display rates and offers exclusive to your hotel.
Choosing photos for your hotel site
The photos on your hotel’s website are extremely important.
The photos display the over-all atmosphere of your hotel. When providing photos to create your hotel’s website, please ensure that they reflect the real thing.
Post high-quality photos to offer the best user experience possible.
When deciding on photos to use for your hotel website’s homepage, think about choosing images that are most likely to lead to a booking.
Choosing an efficient booking engine for your hotel website
When choosing a booking engine to integrate to your hotel’s website, remember to choose one that offers easy booking from a user point of view.
There are certain criteria to be taken into account for optimal customer experience when making a reservation, so choose a booking engine makes it easy for the user.
The booking engine is one of the key steps in the purchase process, so it must be chosen meticulously. An efficient booking engine should offer the following:
- Speed during the purchase
- A responsive booking interface
- A secure booking engine
- The option to add photos to complete the customer experience.
- A booking engine that can be tracked to measure results
Consider the page content for your hotel website
The page content you add to your website is important. The information that you choose to make available will affect visitors’ desire to stay in your hotel.
The most important page of your website is the home page.
This is the page that will determine whether or not someone remains on your site. This is the kind of page where you want to create a “wow” effect to keep people interested in browsing your site.
Another important page for your website is the rooms page. You must specify essential information, for example how many can stay in the room? Is Wi-Fi included? Complimentary breakfast? Room size. You can also create a page for special offers that will be displayed only on your site.
The Contact page allows your future customer to get in touch with you.
Finally, you must also create a gallery page so visitors can get an at-a-glance overview of your hotel and rooms. The purpose of this page is to make people want to come and stay in your hotel and get them to make a booking.
Working on your hotel websites’ user experience
If someone visits your hotel website it’s usually because they are thinking of staying at your hotel. Make every effort to get the reservation booked directly with you and not let your potential customer book via distributors.
Keep in mind that the customer experience when making a purchase must remain simple and efficient. Simple elements on your web pages can help you turn your visitors into customers.
Remember to make the booking button visible on your site at all times, so that as soon as the visitor decides to make a booking, they can access the page quickly and easily.
Remember, nowadays many bookings are made via multiple devices so it is important to create a mobile-friendly or adaptive website so that bookings can be made from a smartphone or tablet.
Conclusion:
To get live reservations, you need to inspire the visitor to want to make a booking directly on your site. That’s why all these steps are important when designing your hotel website.
Ready to create your hotel website? Contact our team of experts who will answer your questions.