Tips on How to Start a Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Campaign

Nowadays hotels understand the importance of the internet and the difference it can make to their business. They also know that being at the top of the search engine results pages is important for driving traffic to a website and subsequently making sales. The big question is how can they achieve this & at a reasonable cost?

Now, it’s not difficult to get to the top of Google if you are willing to pay to appear as a sponsored link, where you bid for the position and every time someone clicks on your advert you pay. However, as competition for the keyword phrases increases so do the costs and hotels will not be able to afford to continue with PPC forever.

The more cost effective way to appear at the top of the organic rankings, on Google that’s just below the sponsored links (normally 3) which appear on most search engine results pages, is to conduct an SEO campaign to get Google and the other search engines to index your website content and return it in search results. The other fact is that once you get towards the top of the rankings it becomes a lot easier to stay there because one of the key factors Google looks at is the popularity (traffic) of a website and by being high on the results you will get more traffic.

So how do you start an SEO Campaign?

Assuming that you already have a good, relevant domain name and have access to a Content Management System (CMS) to update your website, here are some of the most important steps that your marketing team can do before you employ a SEO specialist.

1. Research your targeted keywords / phrases

The first and most important step is to determine what are the most important keywords or phrases, usually 2 or 3 words, for which you want your website to appear on search engines? You know your hotel better than anyone else. You know your target audience. So find the key phrases, probably between 10 and 20, which you think that customers will use to type into the search engine and relate to your hotel. (E.g. “hotel in Town Name”) See more information here.

2. Choose the right page titles for your website pages

After you have decided on your keyword/ phrases, the next step is to place them in certain areas of your website pages. The title of your web page is the very first thing that any search engine crawler will read and take as a factor to rank your website – you can see the page title at the very top left of the internet browser. Your homepage title should contain your main 2 or 3 targeted keyword phrases. All the other pages of your website should have title related to the content of that respective page. (E.g.) the Keyword phrase “hotel in Town Name” would appear in the page title.

3. Set up meta keywords and description

Alhough Google has said they do not read meta tags content I you advise to put your targeted keywords in the meta keyword and a one line description about that webpage in the meta description. Many other search engines will still read them and if you are not stuffing keywords that are irrelevant to the page content then Google is unlikely to penalise you.

4. Create unique content for every webpage

Your website pages should have unique content describing the hotels featured services and facilities The content should include the keyword phrases that are in the title of the page. Experts say that you should use your targeted keyword phrase 2-3 times per every 200 words.

5. Create a business blog

Google gets excited by new and original content and a blog fits the bill. Use a business blog to communicate with your customers about anything happening in the hotel and very importantly update at regular intervals. Once or twice a week is good. Articles don’t have to be long and as long as they relate to your hotel then that’s good. Perhaps consider asking management to provide comments for the blog on a rotation basis. For example the chef can talk about what food is seasonal, the restaurant manager about the revised wine list etc. Wordpress or blogspot are easy to use and set up.

6. Use Web Analytics

Once your website is up and running you want to know more about where the traffic is coming from, the volume of traffic & the search terms being used amongst other things. Analytics software can do this and Google provide theirs free of charge so use it.

7. Review your website positions for the keyword phrases

Having put in the work to get the keywords phrases right and in the correct places on the web pages you are going to want to know that it has worked. Conduct some simple searches yourself for your key phrases and record the position each keyword phrase achieves and the page it is pointing to. I suggest you do this every 10-14 days and keep a record to see the movement. If you are improving then great, if however you start to drop down then you should consider making some changes to the keywords or content on that page. You can buy software to automate this or if and when you appoint an SEO company they can run theses reports for you as well.

8. Use social media websites to promote the hotel

Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Delicious are some of the buzz words today in social media industry an your hotel should be represented on them. Setting up your hotel profile on these & similar websites are must and then use them to have some fun. For more ideas on this take a look at this article I wrote a while back.

9. Register on the Open Directory (DMOZ)

The open directory is used as a base database by many search engines and is free so get your hotel listed on it. Go to

10. Register your Hotel with Google Local Business Centre.

The local business centre is free and supplies the results for Google Maps. Create your own entry and load as much information as you can including images, video etc.

11. Start a link exchange policy

Allowing other websites which are of a good quality ( look at Google Page rank) and are relevant to your own business to link to your site in return for a link form you to them is good practice. I recommend using http://www.linkmarket.net/ to manage the process. It’s only about $50 a year and easy to use.

I hope you find these tips useful and would welcome any thoughts or comments.

Kind regards

Robert Smith

Will the banks support hotels through the winter or call in the receivers?

For the last 12 to 15 months I've been searching for a small (up to 60 bedrooms) hotel to purchase ideally in the south east or midlands. During this time I viewed numerous properties which for the most part have been over valued, in a poor state of repair & under traded. Some of these properties have been on the open market for the entire time I've been looking and despite prices dropping do not seem to be getting any real interest from purchasers or if they are there is a lack of available finance.

In a conversation I had the other day with a respected  property agent he mentioned that he believed this winter was going to be a really difficult time for a lot of these businesses as well as many more which have seen sales revenue continuing to decline in 2009 and is showing very little sign of improving in 2010.

The question is what will the bankers do about supporting viable businesses  who are going through a tough winter?

Will they support them at a time when the media is focusing more on bankers bonuses rather than on what they are doing to help small and medium businesses?

Only time will provide the answers but don't be suprised to see a lot more hotels and other hospitality businesses going into administration in the coming months especially as so many are now suffering from inflated rentals due to the high valuations and the number of sale and leaseback deals during the last few years.

I see in the last couple of weeks Merchant Inns and Elizabeth Hotels have both gone into administration. More will surely follow unless the banks show some support!

Network Trademark Registration - another scam!

A few days ago I received the email below informing me that someone else wanted to use my domain name and I needed to register it.

Now being a bit of a cyinc and knowing that I own both the .co.uk and .com domains I use I did a little Google research to discover that a number of people have received these types of emails, usualy from the Far East and China and that it is indeed just a scam

I found a number of references to this scam and the best advice is not to bother replying at all as if you reply they can be very convincing and you could end up at worst being connned out of thousands of pounds and without doubt will be subjected to a large number of emails containing threats.

If you really are unsure then take legal advice.

Some of the places I found these scams referred to:

http://kontech-blog.blogspot.com/2008/09/sk-holdings-company-ltd-domain.html

http://elliottback.com/wp/domain-name-registration-scam/

http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/hong-kong-network-service-company-limited-scam/ 

The email I received is below. Please make your clients or company aware of this scam.

Robert Smith
Complete Hotels Services

Dear CEO/Manager,


We are a domain name registration center in Hongkong,mainly dealing with domain name registration and internet intellectual property rights protection. On November.16,2009 we received a formal application from a local company of your country who is applying to register some domain names with the keyword “completehotelsservices ” and register it as their keyword. After investigation,we find that you are the original user of the keyword. As this refers to your company name or trade mark, and in order to avoid the confusion and dispute on the internet, we inform you and would like to know your ideas, if you agree about this issue, we will finish the third company's registration, If you don't agree the third company to register, please inform me.looking forward to your reply.thanks for your understanding and cooperation.
Look forward to your reply.

Thanks

Kind Regards,

Diana Mill

Address: 19/F., First Block, New World Bldg.,

No.18 Quen Middle Road,

Zhonghuan,

Hong Kong

Tel: +852-31757931(ext8003)

Fax:+852-31757932

Email:Diana.mill@hknsc.org

Website: www.hk-net.hk

How can a Hotel, Golf or Leisure Club use twitter for business?

Social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Myspace have been getting a lot of press in the last few months and there is no doubt that they are making a significant difference to the way we communicate in our social lives but are they really any good for business?

I have spent some time considering the possible merits of Twitter as a communication tool for my clients, and in doing so become an avid follower of a huge number of individual hotels, groups and other leisure based businesses and receive either daily tweets or, in more cases than not, no tweets at all! The hotels which do Tweet seem to have very little to say other than basic marketing messages with the odd hotel, usually in a city where footfall is higher, doing Twitter specific offers and discounts on room rates.

My perception is that hotels, and probably businesses in general, are struggling to use Twitter in a manner which will engage followers and produce sales.

Now for my bright idea!

A lot of hotels have additional leisure facilities such as golf courses & gyms or spa’s and beauty treatment facilities. On a lot of occasions there are appointment or tee times, classes etc which are not being used and producing no revenue but incurring a cost, particularly in wages. The problem is that the facility has the space and availability but cannot communicate this effectively within a time frame to the customer. The customer may have a need, or at very least a desire, but thinks that at short notice they are unlikely to obtain an appointment or tee time and hence does not bother to enquire.

I believe that Twitter could be used to bridge this gap.

If the business create a Twitter account and then actively encourages and helps its membership or local customers to create their own accounts and enables them to follow the business and receive updates on by phone then Twitter can be used to communicate available time slots, special offers and anything else to the customer.

If successful this could, of course, be expanded to include restaurant tables, public events etc.

I’ll be encouraging my clients to give this a go and whilst it could well take a few months of hard work to set this up I think the results could be very worthwhile.

I would love to hear about any ideas or current strategies being used on Twitter to create sales or improve customer communication so please send me your comments.

Robert Smith

Director

Complete Hotels Services

Building a new hotel website and where to start with keywords

Your hotel needs a new website and you have made the decision to different make the investment in developing a new, all singing, all dancing website to impress your customers and deliver the business you need.

So, who is the right person to lead and manage the development of the new website? Is it the web developer, a sales & marketing/PR company or perhaps your own management team?

The truth is it could be any of the above but the end result could be very different depending on who you choose.

Before deciding ask yourself these questions:

1) Who understands our business, our brand and what we stand for?

2) Who are our customers?

3) Why do customers come to our hotel?

4) Where do our customers come from?

5) How do our customers find us?

You and your team have the ability, knowledge and are without doubt in the best position to answer these questions and that is why YOU should manage the development of the new website. Not an outside agent who knows very little about your core business.

I don’t mean you need to do the programming or create the design but you need to make sure that the designer and web developer you choose work to your plan that will result in a website that your customers will find informative, easy to navigate, attractive and easy on the eye, encourage sales and be optimised from day one.

The first point is to identify the keywords or keyword phrases that customers would use to find your hotel and the services it provides such as wedding receptions, conferences, restaurants etc.

This is a critical step because these keywords or keyword phrases are what will identify you to potential customers.

When identifying keywords or keyword phrases it's important to be as specific as possible. Analyze every possible service or product you provide to potential customers, and think of all the ways someone could do a search for those services and think about your location.
For instance, someone searching for a hotel in your town who has never been there before or is visiting a local attraction is unlikely to know the name of your hotel so they are more likely to use a search phrase such as “hotels in Town name” or “ hotel near attraction name”.
The same applies to your business. Think to yourself, who am I marketing to? Ask friends and family how they would look for a hotel in another town on the web. Then take into account variations of those keywords. What if I make them plural, can I abbreviate them, and are they frequently misspelled? Also, think in two and three word phrases, too few words and you might not be specific enough, too many words and it's overkill.
After you've identified and exhausted all the possible keywords start planning which pages on your website you will target with specific key words, don’t target more than two or three per page, and start to write the text including the keywords in the content. When you pass the content onto the web developer make sure you tell them which keyword phrases you have targeted for each page and get them to include this in the page title, meta keywords and headers on the page.
Well done, you have now started the process of optimising your website from the beginning and you will see the benefits. For more tips about website building and how to improve your website download this PDF from my website.

Robert Smith
Director
Complete Hotels Services

10 ways to attract your local media & improve your Hotel Public Relations

10 ways to attract your local media and improve your hotels public relations

Obtaining free coverage in your local paper, magazines and on local radio can be a challenge however, the potential benefits of being seen in editorial sections, rather than as a paid advert, can be significant and, better still, completely free. Consider following the following steps to help you make the local news.

1) Get to know your local media – Find out who’s who in your local papers, magazines, radio stations and community websites. Keep a note of the names of the decision makers such as editors, feature writers and broadcasters and note their target audience, publishing dates and deadlines.

2) Networking – Get yourself or a hotel representative involved in local networking opportunities including the Chamber of Commerce, Hoteliers Association or Council advisory committee. Offer to host events and meetings and be prepared to provide suitable quotes to local media representatives.

3) Approach Journalists – when you see journalists, editors or the like at local events make an effort to introduce yourself, be friendly and develop relationships. Make it known, although not pushily, that you are available for commenting and could introduce them to other prominent local business people.

4) Provide stories – Don’t wait to be asked for a story. Write brief, informative pieces about your opinions on business matters, local events, human interest stories and the like and submit them to the contacts you have made.

5) Write Press Releases – write press release about your business and submit to your contacts list. Always start with a clear headline that sums up the story and write the release in plain, easy to understand language. If possible supply, a quote, background information or images to support your story and finally provide your contact details.

6) Exploit PR Opportunities – Everyone loves a success story so exploit this by telling the local media about everything from a 10th trading anniversary to the fact that you have just served your 10000th customer or created a number of new jobs by expanding your business.

7) Create PR opportunities – proactively create PR opportunities such as teaming up with the local paper or radio station at Christmas or Valentines Day by providing a prize for a competition.

8) Get involved in the local community – Sponsorship of a local sports team, charity or event can generate plenty of PR opportunities. Back this up with a press release or story submitted to your contacts.

9) Fundraising – adopt a local charity and organise an annual fundraising event. Not only will it create income for your hotel on a potentially quite night the publicity gained could be significant. Invite local dignitaries and if the local paper won’t send a photographer then take some high resolution photo’s yourself and submit with a press release.

10) Review your success – successful PR takes effort and time, but can be very rewarding. Take the time to review local press to establish how successful you have been and perhaps even cost the coverage at the advertising rates.

Have a go – PR is not a dark art, it just takes effort, time and imagination.


Robert Smith

Director

http://www.completehotelsservices.co.uk/

Ways to improve your hotel website visibility in local search results

Ways to improve your hotel website visibility in local search results


Increase your websites popularity by linking your website to other local websites

• Exposes the property website to incremental traffic and highly qualified potential bookers

• Builds your website's Link Popularity, a crucial criteria used by the search engines to determine how to rank the website in the search engine results (e.g., Google and its PageRank). Link popularity refers to the number and quality of incoming links that are pointing to your website.

Here are a few suggestions of the types of local sites and directories that should be considered by independent hotels. These locally-based sites can boost the Link Popularity of the property website and generate highly relevant traffic and incremental leads and revenues:

• Local content portals and radio station sites

• Local destination & town/city directories

• Regional, County and town/city tourism websites

• Chamber of Commerce sites

• Local events

• Wedding / event venues without accommodation

• Local sports clubs – golf, rugby, football etc

• Area attractions and theme park sites

• Sporting event and venue sites (stadiums, race tracks etc)

• Local museums

Local Email Marketing to the Hotel’s database

Email marketing to the hotel’s own opt-in list is one of the most popular Internet marketing formats used by hoteliers today. Today’s online travellers subscribe to multiple travel email Newsletters and love receiving relevant email promotions, events and happenings – as long as they relevant to what they subscribed to.

Why is email marketing important and why should it be considered by independent hotels?

• Email marketing to the hotel’s own email list is the most cost-effective online advertising format; it costs pennies per email delivered vs. expensive print and display ads

• Your emails “speak” to an audience that already knows your hotel, amenities and services, or is at least familiar with your website

• Creates personalized interactive relationships with locally based customers

• Instantaneous message delivery; thousands of potential customers may be reached within seconds

• Serves as a tool to move distressed inventory

• Serves both as a direct-response vehicle and recognition tool

• Plants seed in the minds of recipients regarding future purchasing plans

• Keeps you in touch with your customers; recruits and retains customers, new and old

Invest in branded emails

Every time an email is sent out by anyone at the hotel it is an opportunity to put your website in front of the recipient. Invest in a branded email solution which will allow you to feature interactive sales and marketing banners in the body text of every email that you send, putting your brand and products in front of your target audience using your everyday business email communications. This allows the every recipient to view your outline website content and an easy way to click through. Look at http://www.onletterhead.com/  or http://www.verticalresponse.com/ or http://www.rocketseed.com/.

I hope these ideas will help you to think about your hotel websites local search results.

Thanks for reading my blog and please do post some comments and follow my blog to receive updates when new postings occur. Simply click on the follow this blog link at the top right.

Robert Smith
Director - CHS - http://www.completehotelsservices.co.uk/

Independent Hotels need to consider Local Search Marketing

Independent Hotels need to consider Local Search Marketing


Hotel chains are spending a great deal on paid search marketing with all of the major search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo. These campaigns play an important role in achieving brand recognition and capturing brand name-related searches, but they leave out tremendous revenue opportunities from local search initiatives. This presents an opportunity for a non branded local hotel to compete with the large brands in a cost effective way by simply using their local knowledge of the area, its events and attractions.

Why should independent hotels pay attention to Local Search Marketing?

• Online consumers conduct 2 billion local searches per month; 8 out of 10 local searchers follow a search with a phone call (ComScore).

• Over one-third of all searches on the major search engines are local in character (i.e., searches by Internet users for businesses in their immediate area).

• Online Directories such as Yell.com, Thomson Local, Free Index, Brownbook and others such as “The Best Of” are becoming viable online competitors for local search market share - they are often perceived to be “more local” than the major search engines.

Local search has gained strong momentum as more savvy online consumers are seeking highly relevant local business listings. All of the major search engines have introduced Local Search functionality.



Online travel consumers search for hotel services within the context of a particular destination. ‘Destination + hotels’ or ‘destination + accommodations’ are popular keyword searches for any location and are used for international, national, regional and local searches.

Local search marketing enables independent hoteliers to increase online sales by precisely targeting potential customers:

• Traveling on business or leisure

• Looking for a hotel near local attractions, e.g., a theme park

• Searching for a hotel room in conjunction with a local event (fair, festival, concert, sporting event)

• Interested in a hotel or venue for a group for family celebrations, wedding receptions, local corporate events, conferences etc

• Looking for a restaurant, leisure club or spa.

Branded hotel chains do not adequately address and capture these local business opportunities via the national marketing campaigns. Switched on independent hoteliers can definitely take advantage of this marketing gap to generate incremental revenues and stay ahead of the competition.



Local Search Marketing can be improved by:

• Local Search Marketing on Major Search Engines (Google maps)

• Paid Search Marketing on Major Search Engines (Google PPC)

• Online Directory Listings (Free and Paid)

• By creating individual pages about local events, attractions etc on your website and optimising them for specific search terms.

I hope these thoughts encourage you to think about your local search strategy and would welcome any comments or additional ideas.

Kind regards
Robert Smith
Director
Complete Hotels Services

Is your hotel website working for you?

Is your hotel website working for you?

This is a question which I find myself asking hoteliers on many occassions and the answers vary from yes it is , but we can't quantify it, to no idea at all.

What amazes me is that most hoteliers make a marketing investment of many thouosands of pounds in a website and then seemingly think it will just produce future sales without any further resources & investment or that once the website is launched they leave the promotion of it to a slick web marketing company who speak a different (technical) language, produce reports and assure them that they are top of the listings for certain keyword phrases. Most of which include the hotel name, and ignore the fact that people searching for hotels in a location usually do not know the hotel name and therfore would not use it as a search phrase!

Nowadays its not good enough to just have a website designed, launch it and expect sales to flow. Hoteliers need to have an internet strategy, preferably one for local search and one for regional/national search, and recognise that as the singularly most important communication tool websites need to be kept up to date a managed.

Some points for hoteliers to consider include:

1) Appoint someone in your organisation to be the website champion and accept responsibility for keeping it up to date.
2) Aim to update offers/information/content/ images/ banners on the home page regularly - perhaps every two to three weeks.
3) Consider the customers perspective when viewing your website. Can the the corporate guest see a clear navigational journey to find his information and likewise the leisure guest who has different requirements.
4) Use offers to attract customers. Try selling upgrades, restaurant meals, leisure, themed weekends etc.
5) Plan to expand the content on your website over the years. Seach engines love original and new content and this will help your rankings.
6)  Always have a newsletter subscription service and collect the customer details, with segmentation by interest, into a database.
7) Use the database to send out regular newsletters and relevant offers to customers.
8) Use pay per click to support marketing initiatives.
9) Submit your website to free directories to obtain free one way links to your website.
10) Finally, measure the sales that are generated by your website and invest further resources.

These are just a few points which I hope will prove useful, but there are many, many more. I would be happy to receive comments or if anyone is thinking of investing in a new website or revamping their existing one and need some help then drop me a line.

Finaly, please follow my blog by clicking on the follow this blog link at the top right and pass it along to colleagues or friends.

Many thanks

Robert Smith
Director
Complete Hotels Services
http://www.completehotelsservices.co.uk/


    

How can I improve my hotel website?

How can I improve my hotel website?

This is a question which comes up time and time again in discussions so I thought it may be helpful to share some of my ideas and experience by creating a list and making it available on my website. The list is written in my own words rather than techincal jargon and includes points for you to consider whether you are building a new website or planning an update of your current website.

I hope you will take a few moments to downlaod and read the list - it may just help you when you are talking to your web designer or  web marketing company.

If any has any additions or comments then I would be delighted to hear from you.

Download a copy of the list in PDF format here.

Why do you use "why not" as a marketing strapline?

Why not enjoy a meal in the restuarant? Why not stay this summer? Why not join us for Christmas Day Lunch? Why not, Why not, Why not?

Because I don't want to!

Do you see marketing material in your hotel or business with the phrase "why not" at the top? If so then I suggest that whoever creates your marketing straplines is being utterly uncreative.

By using the phrase "why not" they are asking the reader to come up with any number of reasons why they don't want to take up the offer rather than using a positive marketing message extolling all the reasons why the reader would be interested in making a purchase.

The simple truth is that using "why not" is the easiest option open to the "marketer" and hotel managers and owners should do more to question the effort put into the creation of marketing messages. In fact, just ban the use of the phrase and you'll notice the more positive nature of your marketing within weeks. It worked for me.

Try it.

Robert Smith
http://www.completehotelsservices.co.uk/
  

Welcome to my blog ............

During my time as a General Manager, Board Director and shareholder of Paten Hotels, an independent hotel group of four 3 and 4 star hotels in England, from 1992 to 2008 I learnt a lot about the challenges and issues which independent hoteliers face on a day by day basis to keep their businesses growing, improving sales, quality and the customer experience whilst having to deal with increasing competition, legislation and increasing costs.

Having successfully been part of the team that sold Paten Hotels in April 2008, great timing given the economic situation since then, I moved on to trying to acquire my first hotel as well as setting up Complete Hotels Services to provide consultancy services to independent hoteliers.

The consultancy side has progressed well and I have a number of clients who seem pleased with the results and the added value which I have managed to bring to their business however, the search for a hotel to acquire goes on and has been one of constant ups and downs, getting excited about possible opportunities one day only to be disappointed the next day as businesses prove to be over valued, (how can something making a loss have any value as a business!) and in exceedingly poor condition (chain hotels especially).

The aim of my blog is twofold. Firstly, to provide me with a platform to publish my rants, raves, dislikes and opinions about what is great and not so great about hotels, restaurants, pubs and the hospitality industry in general and secondly (more positively) to share some simple ideas and thoughts about how, in my opinion, hoteliers can improve their sales, marketing and operations without having to spend a fortune.

I hope that you will enjoy reading the blog and return on a regular basis, and if you feel compelled to post a comment then feel free to do so.

Robert Smith
Director
Complete Hotels Services
http://www.completehotelsservices.co.uk/