Hotel Inbound Marketing Guide

Internet searches are the starting point of most commercial transactions nowadays. Every business is affected – hotels are no exception. Approximately 400 million searches are performed daily, as of 2009, and it is therefore important to consider inbound marketing and social media. We have put together a brief introductory guide to help provide you with a basic knowledge on how to launch your hotel's inbound marketing strategy.

Establish a Plan

Before launching a campaign, you should establish a plan:

• Define goals and target markets
• Establish a starting point
• Analyze competitors

This will provide you with a good base moving forward. Document information such as the number of visitors you currently receive, as well as any meta data, for instance. This type of information provides a way to compare past, current and future initiatives as you begin implementing new content and refining your practices. Be sure to note that there typically is a delay between implementation and results. You should not expect results instantaneously – it could take months.

Refine Your Website

A key aspect to SEO is the content published on your website. It is important to determine what you have to offer the community, whether it is new content, updates, resources, testimonials, etc. Search engines also look at how often you update your content, so you should do this frequently, either via a blog or news resources.

• Content should contain targeted keywords, which help direct searchers to the website
• Each page should have unique content and meta data
  • Do not use duplicate content, as it can be banned or filtered from search results
• Avoid using Flash, AJAX and Java, for many crawlers cannot search the content that is embedded

Utilize Social Media

Hotels can use social media sites to share information and build relationships with others. Social media is valuable to receive feedback, as well. In the hospitality industry, you can utilize social media accounts to communicate with your customers, providing them an outlet to submit compliments or complaints. It's an easy way to establish a positive reputation and create a brand awareness that encourages openness and reliability. This will ultimately help increase the number of bookings the hotel receives. Facebook and Twitter are great outlets in regards to this strategy. Other social media outlets include:

• Flickr: a good place to share photographs of the hotel(s)
• YouTube: videos are now integrated into search engine results
  • Upload videos that highlight the property or demonstrate various activities and features
  • Use YouTube to make company announcements, as well
• FourSquare: a fast-growing application
  • Allow customers to “check-in” to your hotel
  • Offer promotions, for instance to those that have checked in the most via FourSquare, etc.

Aim High

All combine to help search engine rankings and ultimately lead to a better online reputation and higher hotel bookings. There are so many other ideas out there that you can try, but this is just a guide to help you get started. If you have any questions, please let us know! We are more than happy to help or elaborate on any suggestions. Sources: Enge, E., Spencer, S., Fishkin, R., & Stricchiola, J. C. (2010). The Art of SEO: Mastering Search Engine Optimization. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly Media, Inc.