Increase your hotels online visibility

November 17, 2003 |

Does your hotel have more than one entrance…or do all your customers, visitors, meeting attendees, vendors and employees come through the same door?

by Liz Craig

Does your hotel have more than one entrance…or do all your customers, visitors, meeting attendees, vendors and employees come through the same door?

Not very likely.

What is most likely is that your hotel has a Banquet Entrance, a Restaurant entry, doors from several parking areas and perhaps an access from a convention/commercial center. A single URL website (http://www.yourhotel.com) is the digital equivalent of one entrance. In essence, it forces all potential website visitors to find the same door.

So how do you make it easy for various visitors to find the entry most convenient for them? Create multiple entries, each with a unique URL. The more entries, the easier it is for potential customers to access pages relevant to the viewer.

Online visitors search for your hotel from their unique viewpoints. Variously, they may think of the hotel in connection with the convention center or the place next to the museum or as ABC restaurant, etc.

Can a hotel take advantage of multi-access AND varied viewpoints for greater online visibility?

Definitely, take a look at online marketing lessons from other industries.

Notably, Coca Cola has married its brand and their target audience’s key interest…the result [url=http://www.cokemusic.com]http://www.cokemusic.com[/url] A potent URL. Clearly Coke is not in music business but one of their critical markets is comprised of young, trendy, music downloaders.

Pottery Barn, purveyors of stylized home furnishings, has launched [url=http://www.pbteen.com]http://www.pbteen.com[/url] While minimizing their brand they are maximizing their appeal to teen shoppers, a new market for them.

While both were big budget projects, hotels can create a similar “Wide Net Effect�? with very little investment (OK, maybe some time investment).

Where to start?

Purchase domains and create pages organized by profit centers, such as….

[url=http://www.yourhotel-meetings.com]http://www.yourhotel-meetings.com[/url]
[url=http://www.yourhotel-city-meetings.com]http://www.yourhotel-city-meetings.com[/url]
[url=http://www.yourrestaurant.com]http://www.yourrestaurant.com[/url]
[url=http://www.yourrestaurant-sectionof]http://www.yourrestaurant-sectionof[/url] the city.com

Combining your destination in the URL will significantly impact search results .

This particular strategy of supplemental pages organized by profit centers has been coined ‘horizontal marketing’ by Richard Chambers, President of TravelClick Interactive.

But don’t feel limited to your obvious product lines. Mirroring Coke’s strategy, URLs can evolve based on customers’ interests:

[url=http://www.yourhotel-weekends.com]http://www.yourhotel-weekends.com[/url]
[url=http://www.spa-relax-yourhotel.com]http://www.spa-relax-yourhotel.com[/url]
[url=http://www.shop-city-stay.com]http://www.shop-city-stay.com[/url]

Yet another approach is to amplify a promotion that is being marketed offline. This is a particularly powerful tactic if the promotion is also a trademark.

Examples:

[url=http://www.city-familyrates-weekends.com]http://www.city-familyrates-weekends.com[/url]
[url=http://www.city_kids_stay_free.com]http://www.city_kids_stay_free.com[/url]

Select URLs with market momentum. You may need only one page but be sure to include booking capability on that page. This is a ‘product sales page’ NOT a hotel information page. Links to your primary site will permit an interested visitor to get additional information.

But what if all hotels begin to use these same tactics?

Horizontal Marketing is a competitive advantage only while you are the only one to do so. Every hotel has banquet space/restaurants/health spas, on and on. However, a sustainable competitive advantage can be gained by ‘signature sites’…mini-sites that project characteristics that truly distinguish your hotel.

Examples:

If your chef is well-known a page, [url=http://www.chef_Dupont.com]http://www.chef_Dupont.com,[/url] linked to your restaurant page and hotel site can deliver those searching by his name or specialty cuisine.

[url=http://www.yourhotel_atrium_dining.com]http://www.yourhotel_atrium_dining.com[/url] works for distinctive architectural characteristics.

That said, all the creative URLs, new content and snappy site design are a waste of energy unless e-marketing is budgeted…funds or staff time. Pages need to be intelligently optimized, referenced and indexed. Pay per Clicks become very valuable, not to mention less expensive, when using your creative URLs.

Good news…while e-marketing takes a concerted effort, it is really no more difficult to e-market your ‘signature site’ than a page from your primary URL, e.g. [url=http://www.yourhotel.com/meetings]http://www.yourhotel.com/meetings[/url] vs. [url=http://www.yourhotel-city-meetings.com]http://www.yourhotel-city-meetings.com[/url]

The outcome, however, is a much wider casting of access points on the Net.

Capitalizing on other industries’ experience, here are the key lessons:

1. Little by little surround your core business (booking page) with signature pages.
2. Spend time e-marketing signature pages in ways that correspond to customers’ interests and preferences.

By creating more online entries to your business, you will generate ultimate ‘Net effect’… more customers.

Liz Craig is President of Oneglobe Network, a company that provides strategic internet services to the hospitality industry.