O'Rourke Hospitality Marketing on Linkedin.com O'Rourke Hospitality Marketing on Facebook O'Rourke Hospitality Marketing on Twitter O'Rourke Hospitality Marketing Blog

Archive for 2009

20 Secrets of Top-Converting Websites and How They can Boost Your Hotel Bookings

Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009

Re-cap of Bryan Eisenberg’s presentation at SES Chicago

 

top 20 image

If the average conversion rate for a website is around 3 percent, why do some websites achieve a 10 percent conversion rate? What do they do that the others don’t? This is the question that Bryan Eisenberg set out to answer in his presentation ‘20 Secrets of Top-Converting Websites’ at the SES Chicago conference this December. Bryan revealed 20 of his most valuable tips that will help you increase your hotel website conversion rate. Bryan is a New York Times bestselling author and a recognized authority in improving conversion rates, persuasion architecture and persona marketing.

First of all, what is a conversion? A conversion is when someone takes a desired action on your website i.e. they purchase a product, download a whitepaper, or in the case of the hotel industry, they make a reservation. You may attract a lot of traffic to your website but this means nothing if your site isn’t designed to facilitate conversions. (more…)

Has Your Hotel Ever Asked, “What Would Google Do?”

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

Recap of Jeff Jarvis presentation at SES Chicago

 

what would Google do screenshot

Jeff Jarvis, author of ‘What Would Google Do?’ kicked off the Search Engine Strategies Conference in Chicago last Monday.  He spoke about Google bigotry and how some traditional news corporations view Google as a monster, or Godzilla, and Google views itself as Snuffleupagus, who is harmless and just wants to help. He also addressed media as a process, not a product, and outlined some traits that make Google so successful. We took a look at how hotels can apply these same philosophies to build a better brand. (more…)

Attract Guests to Your Hotel by Producing Video Content Related to Travel – O’Rourke Interview with Tubemogul Co-Founder Brett Wilson

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009

Hotels and other brands can reach their target audience by providing them with helpful information or interesting content they are looking for, whether it be through videos or articles. The content you create doesn’t always have to be directly about your hotel, but could also be about anything relevant to travel or the city you are located in. For example, if you have a hotel in Chicago you could consider creating short video clips of great restaurants in the city. Someone planning on traveling to Chicago may very well conduct a search in Google on ‘restaurants in Chicago,’ and find your video.

Even though you are not directly promoting your hotel in the video, your brand will still be associated with the content, and you could have a link back to your hotel website. Once you discover and create the content your target audience is searching for, you must also take steps to promote your video online, and optimize it with keywords so it will appear in the search engine results pages.

(more…)

Prepare Your Hotel for Google Sidewiki Comments! Tips on What Your Hotel Should Do, and How to Monitor Reviews with RSS Feed

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009

speechbubble

It’s been two months since Google introduced Sidewiki on September 23, but it hasn’t really caught fire . . . yet. When it was first announced, there was a lot of buzz on blogs and news sites, and it felt that the internet would be taken over by user-generated comments and opinions, but so far it hasn’t gained that much traction. We believe it will catch on soon, and that your hotel should be prepared for when it does.

What is Google Sidewiki and will it go mainstream?

Sidewiki is part of a Google Toolbar browser plug-in that allows users to open a sidebar on any website they are visiting and comment freely on anything they like; the website, the content, how they feel about the topic or the brand, or what they had for breakfast. These comments can then be seen by other visitors to the site (provided they have downloaded the Sidewiki toolbar) and they can leave comments as well. Users can also add links and videos, and share their comments through E-mail, Twitter or Facebook. (more…)

Tip 5: Install Analytics on Your Hotel Website

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

Are you tracking the return on investment from your hotel website? Do you know how many visitors your site receives every day? Are you analyzing the metrics on the pages viewed, the time spent on your site, and the exit pages? Do you know how visitors were directed to your site?

If you have analytics installed on your website then you have access to this information. However, our research this month revealed that 41.8% of New England first class and luxury hotels don’t have analytics installed on their website!


Analytics Chart C

(more…)