Best practices for hotel website design

Does your accommodation website read like an online brochure or does it still offer dead, stale content and outdated visual images? 

Today’s hotel and accommodation websites now carry the burden and responsibility of generating the bulk of bookings for your property. Across the industry, in 2010, Direct Online Channel sales (via the hotel website) will exceed 62% of total online hotel bookings.

According to research, in the first quarter of 2010, 71.7% of online bookings for the top 30 hotel brands were direct via the brand websites. The Direct Online Channel is by far the most cost-effective distribution channel and provides accommodation businesses with excellent ROIs, immediate results, and long-term competitive advantages.

The property website has become the backbone of the hotel marketing mix and is the main digital asset of any hotel. In this age of multi-channel marketing, any type of hotel marketing initiative (from search engine optimisation (SEO), Google Adwords, email marketing and social marketing) ultimately should drive your customers to your website.

Approximately 83% of all travellers plan and research travel online. There is no doubt the hotel website has become the “first point of contact” for the majority of customers. Unfortunately, on many occasions a visit to the website turns out to be the “last point of contact.”

Accommodation businesses must realize that the hotel website has become not only the main revenue driver for their property, but also the main influencer for making travel purchase decisions. Therefore, enhancing and optimizing the hotel website to meet and optimizing it to meet and exceed industry best practices and customer expectations should be a top priority.

Here are some important things to take into consideration:

If your hotel website is over 2 years old:

• So many things have changed over the past 24 months that hoteliers no longer have a choice of whether to re-design their website or stick with their old and tired site. This is a matter of “life and death” for any hotelier!
• The new website should reflect 2010-2011 industry’s best practices for an optimum revenue generating website. It should be user-friendly, search engine friendly, have an easy to use booking system and it should also be Web 2.0 friendly

If the site is over 12 months old:

• Ensure you hire a reputable company that only specialises in Search engine optimization (SEO. Get your website ranking now for specific keywords and phrases
• Web 2.0 optimization is now due to improve customer engagement on the site.
• Ensure your website is targeted towrads your key customer markets. Eg. content, images or menu tabs that cater to meeting and group lanners, corporate or leisure travelers, families, weddings etc

Best Practices for Today’s Hotel Website Design
When re-designing your accommodation website, you need to understand that website design is not an art and it is certainly not rocket science - it is a creative solution to a business problem. If your hotel website’s bookings are down, that's a business problem. If your visitors can't find your website, that’s a business problem. Your website is hard to navigate and functionality does not work? That's a business problem.

Obviously the new website design needs to also take into consideration other criteria, such as industry best practices, site usability and booker-friendliness.

Your site needs to “meet and exceed” user objectives and not provide any obstacles to achieving these objectives. If the hotel site has a solid, professional design layout that is supported by easy-to understand navigation, helpful functionality and relevant content and visual images, users will stay longer and will explore the site deeper—ultimately resulting in bookings.

Today’s hotel website should reflect 2010/2011 industry’s best practices and should be:

• User-friendly - The website should be easy to navigate and have the necessary information/core products laid out in an easy to read format.
• Search engine-friendly - The search-engine friendliness of the hotel website is important not only for organic search. Good SEO on a website improves the Quality Index for paid search as well. The Google Quality Index determines how much you pay per click (PPC) and the ranking of your PPC listing, and is based on keyword relevancy, quality of the marketing message and relevancy of the landing page (i.e. the website and its SEO). With a lower Quality Index you pay more per click and your ad is ranked lower.
• Booker-friendly - the booking engine is easy to use and lets them book quickly and without hassle. Users should also feel safe that the booking system is secure.
• Web 2.0-friendly (customer engagement-friendly) - The Web 2.0-friendliness of the hotel website is dependent on how well the website can intrigue users and enable them to provide comments, share information, upload content, and interact with various features and functionality. Eg customer reviews on the website, blog on the site to share the latest news, photos, a newsletter that they can view or sign up for, social media share bar, and Facebook 'I like' buttons and links on your site so they can share your webpage with their friends
• Mobile-ready - Travelers are already using their mobile devices to plan and book travel and hotels. Features of a mobile-ready hotel website include - fast download speeds, efficient and simple navigation, short and concise textual content, scaled-down visual content, a one-click map and directions to the hotel

Conclusion
The hotel website is not only the main revenue generator for the property, but also the main influencer for making travel purchase decisions and enhancing, optimizing and re-designing the hotel website to meet and exceed industry best practices and customer expectations should be a top priority for any hotelier. If the website is visually appealing, provides the customer with all the necessary information, they will be more likely to book directly on the site.

Before you start redesigning your website, choose your website design company very carefully, as this is the most important decision you will have to make. With 45% of all hotel bookings in being made online in 2010, the capability of your hotel website in generating bookings will determine the overall success of your property.

Work with a website design company that understands best practices in hotel website design, uses state-of-the art technology, has proven results in the form of prestigious designs and have transformed clients’ hotel websites into their most cost-efficient revenue generator for their property.

If you would like more information about our website design capabilities, to view our portfolio and get an obligation free quote on a new website design, speak to one of the marketing consultants on 07 3040 3588 or email us directly on email@tafastrack.com.au.