It’s budgeting season, which means your hotel is probably ready to start planning how, when, and where you’ll be investing in 2020. As part of the “20/20 Strategy” series, we’ll offer expert tips to help you budget for key areas that could define how successful you are next year— including your hotel website. This is part 5 of the series.
Part 1: Budget season tips: Mapping your hotel’s 2020 digital marketing budget
Part 2: Why digital marketing metrics can lie – and how you can better evaluate campaign performance
Part 3: 3 Essential Data Practices For Improving Your Hotel’s Website Strategies
Part 4: 2020 Budget season tips: How to decide if your hotel needs a new website next year

To build a powerful, conversion-focused website, you need to feature the content guests are really looking for and give them an intuitive browsing experience. In addition to our ebook, our website strategy checklist will help you optimize key pages on your website to drive guest engagement and bookings.
Here are some of the key website elements to include:

Important Content About Your Hotel
Clear and easily identifiable room descriptions
Your website should make it easy for users to choose between room options. One approach is to use bullet points to highlight each room’s main amenities. Splitting room details up across multiple pages also removes information overload, helping guests with their booking decision. See our top tips to drive direct bookings through rooms and special offers copy.

Quality photography and gallery images
To help connect with your customers and tell your brand story, quality images are essential. Check out our post on photo selection lessons to boost guest engagement to learn more on this topic.

Compelling offers
Make sure your offers clearly highlight value, both in terms of the offer name and direct booking benefits. Your customers should know exactly what they stand to benefit.

Diverse offers
In addition to displaying compelling offers content, use an array of offers to cater to a broader group of users. We’d recommend having offers that cover the following areas:

1. Future bookings (Advanced Purchase / Stay Longer, Save More)
2. Urgency or Exclusive bookings (Last Minute Getaway, Web Exclusive offer).
3. Demographic Offers (AAA/AARP, Florida (state) Resident’s package)
4. Value-add Offers (Free Breakfast, Late Checkout)
5. Experiential Offers (Romance package, Wine & Dine package).

Bear in mind that having too many offers may overwhelm your customers, so aim to limit your offers from 5-10 depending on your hotel and guest base.

Reviews page

Most hoteliers know how vital guest reviews are to drive bookings. Does your hotel website have a well-populated reviews page? Take a look at our article about encouraging guests to write hotel reviews to discover our top recommendations.

FAQ page

A FAQ page lets your customers get quick answers to common questions. To help identify what those questions are, check out the comments by your guests on your social channels, emails, and review sites. You could also reach out to guests prior to arrival to ask if they have any specific questions, needs, or concerns. Identify any commonalities and integrate them within your FAQ page.

Neighborhood guide and events

Hotel shoppers aren’t only interested in your rooms — they also care about your location. Are you near the beach, downtown, or major attractions? Let them know with a comprehensive neighborhood guide on your website, and include a calendar with upcoming events. By offering this kind of information, you’ll keep users on your website for longer and inspire them with all the experiences they can enjoy at your hotel.

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