Make sure you engage in a digital dialogue with tech-savvy consumers, who may post details of their stay on websites while still at your hotel. Make sure you engage in a digital dialogue with tech-savvy consumers, who may post details of their stay on websites while still at your hotel.


4 People want an easy life

Make sure that finding information and booking your hotels online is fast and easy. Web analytics provides an easy way to evaluate your site’s performance, allowing you to optimise your customer journey. Conversely a slow and frustrating experience will have a negative impact on your brand and act as a barrier to any future interactions.

5 Don’t rest on your laurels

The most successful sites are constantly looking at how they can improve and develop their customers’ online experience. Use web analytics to help you identify areas of improvement.

6 Make yourself visible

The first places most people will go to find a brand’s website or destination information are search engines. It is vital that brands dominate the top results for specific terms, especially when searching on brand names. Although more people are searching using brand names they are not always ending up at the brand sites. Employ paid for adverts (PPC) on search engines to capture people’s attention.

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7 Spread your wings

Look to increase awareness and accessibility of your site by increasing the number of other sites that talk about your hotels, your brand and link to your website. Ensure any literature, advert, review, news article and press release both off and online includes a link to your website. Not only will this increase awareness of your site and enable people to easily access it, but it will also improve your listing in search engines.

8 Stop

Don’t rush in where fools fear to tread. Just because there is a new online trend, it does not mean it’s suitable for you and your brand or that you are ready for it. Evaluate the service first and plan how you will use it in the short and long term. Importantly, make sure that you have the resource and the content to be able to make the best use of the medium into the future.

9 Look

Look at how your customers are using the internet and how they are finding your site and interacting with your brand online; don’t be afraid to engage them on their own ground.

10 Listen, respond and engage

The web has become the new world of mouth; amplified, more infectious and faster than ever. Customers are using social networks to have their say and they can provide a free and valuable sense check — a source of consumer information and feedback. Are you listening, and more importantly, are you prepared to react to what they have to say? You may find customers are twittering or blogging about their stay while they are with you. By monitoring this real-time, you can address their problems immediately and turn a possible PR disaster into a positive brand experience. We believe that brand is equal to reputation, therefore, make sure that your reputation lives up to your consumers’ standards.