While improving the traffic and engagement to your website is helpful, what matters most is getting bookings. Improving the conversion rate of your website takes trial and error. A good web design team will be able to help you beat your competition over time and optimize your site based on the way visitors interact with it. Follow these best practices to ensure your website is effective at getting bookings.
Set clear objectives
Setting specific goals for your site and making them clear to the creative team you partner with is important in the process of refining your website. Decide on the metrics that are most important to you. Whether you want to increase the conversion rate, overall traffic, more indexed keywords or simply make the site more visually appealing, make your priorities clear.
Tie your website goals to a specific number and time. When trying to improve your conversion rate, track how each call to action on your site performs and work to improve the ones with a low C.T.R. This could mean refining your copy, moving the call to action to a more clear spot on the page, or redoing the visual elements around it.
Get feedback on your design
Before launching your new website or any changes to your existing one, get enough users to test it out that can provide valuable feedback. Analyzing data and refining your work is helpful, but genuine feedback on the user experience is arguably most important in creating a site that converts leads into guests.
Ask users about their experience navigating the site and if they were able to get all the necessary information about your hotel in a convenient manner. Seek to understand if your hotel’s experience and brand is being reflected. Create a consistent stream of feedback and revise it. Implementing common user complaints before you launch will make a big difference to the quality of your website.
Describe your unique selling points
Take what makes your hotel’s experience stand out and make sure it’s at the forefront of your website. At times it can feel difficult to differentiate your hotel from the competition. However, this can go beyond rates, rooms, and amenities.
Seek out great stories that past guests have or the finest testimonials possible. Whether it’s through video interviews or blog posts, remember the times your hotel has gone above and beyond to provide exceptional service and showcase it on your website.
Include calls to action in the right places
Creating effective calls to action will be the decisive factor in increasing the conversion rate of your website. A combination of strong writing and well thought out visual elements on your site should lead to an easy and convenient way to book a room. Whether you say “Book Your Stay Today,” “Reserve a Room,” or anything else similar, make sure it’s visible and easy to follow without being too intrusive on the rest of the page.
There are many places throughout your site to include a CTA. All blog posts should include links to book a room. Keep these short, actionable, and simple.
Interested in learning about more ways to boost your hotel's marketing campaigns? Read more at the 97 Switch Guide to Hotel Marketing.
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