Top 10 ECommerce Initiatives (tips) For Hotel Websites

Article by monroebennett

A well defined, fully developed website is a must for any kind of business to flourish. For hoteliers, this fact holds even more importance. An efficient website is competently a ‘window display’ for the public through which the hoteliers can invite more business. When used optimally, your hotel website can potentially be a powerful channel of attracting more opportunities and sales. Following is a compilation of the top ten things you should be doing on your hotel website:1. Embrace Social Media: Majority of social media users expect companies to have a social presence. They want companies to interact with them on social sites. By embracing social media i.e. with a well planned social initiative, you can turn visitors into fans and ultimately, into brand loyalists. Your social media page should be neat, tidy and not cluttered with too many buttons. You should use a concentration on interesting articles, offers and promotions to make your social media page more attractive. Also, very importantly by embracing social media, you can send messages to thousands of people with just a few clicks on a button.2. Download speed and Landing pages: Internet users are highly impatient and if your website takes too long to open, it will encourage potential visitors to visit your competitors’ website. The loading time of a page should be no longer than 4 seconds. Please note, background music, flash or large images increase your load time. If you are adding any of these elements, make sure that you account for increases in loading time or you might end up driving potential guests away. Once the potential customer has visited the site, the landing page needs to be convincing enough for the customer to stay on the site and ultimately make a booking. 3. Image & Video search: Image and video search is an effective way to benefit from different search traffic. You can render image search by including searchable photo galleries, adding images for things to do on the site, being a part of image sharing sites like Flickr, Picasa and also adding images on the hotels social pages on Facebook, Twitter etc. 4. Mobile search: With over 590 million mobiles in use in India, you can leverage the mobile market by modifying your website for mobile phones and improving the download speed of your website by eliminating flash and heavy graphics. You need to ensure that your website is mobile compatible. This will enable you to tap a larger audience and promote mobile sites across all platforms. 5. Manage website navigation smartly: Most web users focus on the upper half of the webpage and then scroll down if they find it appealing. Since the space above grabs most of their attention, it has to be made attractive. You can enhance your web page by using an engaging photo and prominent calls-to-action. The website should be crisp, clean and consistent in every way; after all it reflects the image of the hotel. Maintain the same layout throughout all of the pages and be uniform with your site navigation, as users don’t like learning how to use an unexplored site. 6. Booking engine: it is imperative for every hotel website to have a booking engine. By installing a user-friendly booking engine that easily integrates into the look and feel of your website, you can be rest assured that your bookings will keep growing. Adding additional benefits for the customer such as dinner vouchers, spa treatments or arrival gifts can also boost the number of bookings. 7. Clear brand image: Knowing who you are as a company and what you are promoting is very important. If you don’t place a clear picture in front of the customers then they will not comprehend the brand or your product. Including a prominent hotel logo which has a direct link to the home page will make it more convenient for the user. Without using too many unnecessary marketing fuzzwords, include a descriptive tagline that clearly states what your hotel is all about. 8. Broken links: It is necessary to check your website for broken links on a regular basis as broken links leave behind a very questionable image. Missing one or two of such links is inescapable for some hoteliers; this calls for the use of creative error messages. 9. Get Hyperlocal: The term Hyperlocal is essentially an extension of your local social marketing which is typically intended for residents of a particular community, region, town, city, village or neighbourhood. It includes websites such as Facebook Places, Google Maps etc. Getting hyperlocal will literally put your company ‘on the map’. The rise in popularity of geo-tagging applications means that you can offer incentives for ‘check-ins’ to your hotel.10. Study the site statistics: Studying your website statistics will show you the ‘ways and means’ to improve your website. Acquaint yourself with the various terms that are used to describe website traffic including- visits, hits, page impressions, unique views etc. This will enable you to find out which pages are the most successful, at what time of the day does your site receive maximum hits, which search engines people use to reach you etc. Keeping a track on these statistics will keep you posted on how successful is your website.In summation, a well managed website will help you to advance your sales and bookings. Let your website start working for you now! ResAvenue ‘Direct Connect’ is a website booking engine that enables you to handle reservations arriving directly on your hotel website. Register with ResAvenue today and watch your bookings grow!

About the Author

Ensure that your efforts to increase traffic to your website and enhance your hotel brand presence online pays off in higher conversion rates by adding an online hospitality solution to your website. Sign up for ResAvenue, a cost effective online hospitality solution that enables you to close reservations in real time.

How to find a good marketing company for Hotels

Article by Ayush Kumar

A lot of people will tell you that the most important thing is experience. An online marketing company who doesn’t have a lot of experience, they’ll tell you, can’t give you the quality that an experienced designing company can. We don’t agree. While experience can be useful, it can also be a drawback. Just because a designer has less experience doesn’t mean that he or she can’t build a beautiful site for you.

Before you base your decision solely on how many sites they’ve built or how long they’ve been in business, think about this:

Many long-time designing companies are stuck in their habits and might not be willing or able to give you a cutting edge website .

If a designer says they’ve been building websites since before 1995, they are almost definitely exaggerating. When I started working on the Web in 1995, very very few people had even heard of the Web, let alone had set up a business. I was working at an Internet company, which is the only reason I was involved with it at that time.

A professional web design company has the design skills and online marketing experience and know-how to create a website that will be an optimum selling tool in the world’sbiggest sales market. One of the most important things is the balance between graphic design, web design , web marketing, search engine optimization and web development.

Here some tips to find a good marketing company for your hotel:

Know what you need. If possible, determine what you?re looking for before you start your search. You may want to set an initial budget, then develop a timeline for your search, especially if you have important dates to hit. You don?t want to run out of time and make a selection before you?ve finished your evaluation.

Identify your prospects. Don?t know a slew of people or companies already? Here are a lot of ideas for developing your list of potential vendors. Make sure you have enough to talk with.• Ask for referrals!• Look on industry websites including trade organizations, associations, guilds, regulatory boards, and certification agencies.• Get specific with Google.• Check out your favorite industry publications, email newsletters and websites. Pay special attention to the articles, ads and resource listings.

Think carefully about your key success criteria. You don?t want to spend an hour talking with 20 people or companies. Instead, the first call is about pre-qualifying. What do you absolutely need for the project? Make a short list of pre-qualifying questions that will give you a good flavor for the vendor?s experience and ability to handle your project.• What is your true specialty?• Who are some of your current clients?• How do you normally handle this type of project?• What?s your general cost / fee structure?• Do you have any special expertise or specialty offerings that may help my projec

Make your first cut. You may find a lot of your initial answers on those companies?websites. If not, spend 10 minutes on an initial intro call.

Ideeën & label studios web marketing consulting is based on the study and planning positioning strategies in the search engines top lists. Moreover we create professional web marketing campaigns in order to give visibility to your on-line presence and image, suchas: indexing in national and international directories and search engines, keyword advertising, demographic campaigns, traffic increase, positioning analysis, statistics service, Web Analytics consulting, banner and Google Adwords pay-per-click campaigns. Ideeën & label studios considers every customer as UNIQUE and, consequently, we offer a personalized consulting service by a Personal Account Manager and an in-depth marketing analysis of your business field.

It is important for a hotel to have a multi-channel marketing approach and for all channels to complement each other and work together to create synergy for online marketing campaigns. Contact us if you are considering partnering with a hotel internet marketing company with a proven track record in the industry for generating high website revenues and return on investment.

About the Author

web design hotel Italia provides some facilities such as web design ristorante Italia or web design ristoranti varese in affordable rate.

Hotel reservation software ? Making Online Booking Easy!

Innovative software for hotel reservation commonly termed as hotel reservation software have become quite popular in a comparatively short span of time. This software has eased the way in which day to day operations are carried out in a hotel.

Starting off with the reservation in a hotel the internet reservation software has made it much more convenient for people to get the hotel of their choice booked in time – right from the cosy comfort of their home.

While Internet made the availability of information easy, the internet hotel reservation software has made both the process and the management of reservations comfortable. The customer can very easily book a hotel sitting in another part of the world.

Additionally, the management can keep the records and details of its customers conveniently, keeping track of their check in and check-out times and also keeping a record of their preferences. This helps them in catering to their visitors better and better every time. Efficient record keeping of check in and check-out times helps in computing the final accounts well. The hotel management software comprises of various customizable modules. Being a part of the hotel management team it is important to know your requirements well. What do you actually want from the various functionalities provided by the hotel reservation software? It comes with additional features like client management, reservations, billing management and customer database accounting system.

]]>

Hotel reservation software is not very costly software. You could get it in smaller modules. Also it is extremely important to train your staff well to work with the software. Make them accustomed with all its functionalities. This would ensure smooth functioning when the system is actually put into practice. Ensure that your operators are familiar with the various troubleshooting aspects of the software too.

On the whole the hotel reservation software and the internet reservation software are easy to install and operate. They are user friendly with interactive features. The password management system is also easy. Another word of caution the software installed must have all the security features in place so that no confidential information moves out of the hotel premises. Also, tampering with customer information may prove harmful to your business.