Your hotel website aim should be to connect with and convert visitors into revenue spending guests – that’s where Step Online can help you.Our background is from the leisure and hotel industry and we know what works and what doesn’t. We work with all types of different hotels and hotel groups including Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, Best Western and Rezidor Park Inns.

As a hotelier you understand the importance of making the direct online hotel booking channel the focus of your online marketing strategy. For a hotel competing in either the hotel leisure or hotel conference market, or both leisure and conference, you know that by having a hotel website which is able to take bookings direct, there is no need to pay out expensive commissions to booking agents. In this difficult economic climate a direct online hotel booking channel can expect to achieve around a 76:24 direct vs. Indirect online distribution ratio, and direct online channel sales should exceed 61% for the industry as a whole in 2009.

The important thing to remember is that not to cut out other online partners as they are still vital in generating new revenue. Strict rate parity needs to be adhered to across all marketing channels including a best rate guarantee, however, in order to encourage more bookings direct through your hotel website then you need to add more value by offering unique product offerings and unique added value. So the goal of your website may be to significantly increase your direct online sales and shift bookings away from more expensive online distribution channels to the least expensive channel i.e. your hotel website!

When a visitor logs onto a hotel website they do so for a number of reasons, goals and intentions. Their need to visit your destination, for business or leisure, and stay at the best location, best value/budget and best ‘experience’ hotel that they can find. When a visitor lands on your site they do so for a number of reasons and our job is simple when designing and building a website for you with the end user in mind and that is to capture, connect with and convert online visiotrs into high-yielding online revenues. In order to fully maximise on this you need to consider the following in this order:

• Capture – produce qualified, quality targeted visitor traffic through a Search Engine-friendly and fully Search Engine Optimised hotel website.
• Connect – Encourage and motivate website visitors to conduct a full online hotel show round, by exploring deeper into you hotel website. We can help you guide your visitors around the best features of your hotel and really highlight the benefits to the end user of why they should choose you.
• Convert – Return on investment – Turn your online visitors into high yielding direct hotel revenues.

When thinking about how you want your hotel website to look bear in mind the end user experience and how you will convert them into visitors. That’s where we can help, we specialise in getting websites found and converting them from a browsing visitor into a revenue paying client/guest. The design process is not just about the way the site looks, but the ways in which the end user will interact with the site and give their full seal of approval by returning again and or spending money with you. You could have the best website in the world, paid a fortune for it and have the design that you have always wanted – but if nobody finds it or uses it – then what’s the point?

With the emergence of all types of venues for leisure guests, conference venues for “out of the ordinary” meetings, civil ceremonies and high profile leisure clubs – coupled with the economic slowdown – hotels can not afford to be complacent in their choice for getting them the best possible platform to showcase their hotel website. Step Online will help you and guide you through the hotel website design and development with proven, effective marketing methods that work for our clients. The cosmetic appearance of your website is crucial in motivating visitors to explore your online hotel products. You have to guide them to buy or search for the relevant information to which they require. In order to do this it is fundamentally important that the following is done correctly:

1. The site is built correctly in the first place all our sites pass the online web validation test and you should use this link to check any potential website design company, after all if they can’t build their own site correctly, then what chance have they of building yours right. http://validator.w3.org/

2. The content needs to be done correctly, you need a minimum of 250 words per keyword or key phrase – e.g. for the term “Glasgow Hotel” in order for that to stand any chance of being found then the more text you can write the better. But beware, do not make the mistake and cram it full of keywords as this will not help you and the keywords have to make sense.

3. The site navigation should be clean and uncluttered i.e. the end user can find what they want and when they want in a matter of a few clicks – that’s where we can help you.

4. A good link building strategy or campaign is essential to any website – each link you get from another website which points directly into your site acts as a vote for your site. The more votes you receive the higher your site will naturally climb up the search engines. Try not to do reciprocal links i.e. I’ll put a link on my site if you put one on yours! This only dilutes the process. We can help you with your link strategy.

This process is all about generating you a return on investment!