Three common mistakes in managing a hotel website

23 May Three common mistakes in managing a hotel website

There is no second chance to make a good first impression …
In fact, it often happens to take care of every detail in your own hotel, however leaving your “digital” image unfinished. If it is essential to pay attention to any particular detail that can make a unique experience to customers while staying at the hotel, it is equally important to make a good impression on the potential guest already in the pre-booking phase. In which way? Of course, through the 2.0 “business cards”, that is, website, social profiles, etc. …
From this point of view, caring for your internet image is one of the crucial aspects to sell more and better.
For a hotel or a B&B, in fact, it becomes extremely important to understand how to manage its digital communication channels. For example, let’s talk about the internet site, leaving aside social networks, marketplaces and all video marketing activities for the moment.
In the management of a hotel’s website there are some very decisive factors that can make a difference in terms of image and brand enhancement as well as sales optics. At the same time there are some aspects that are often overvalued.
First, we have to recognize that managing a website has become more and more complex over the last few years: the revolution brought about by such devices as smartphones and tablets has really changed the way you look up information and make your choices.
The need to place sales communication contents, the positioning on Google (and not only), the search for a more user-friendly experience, and a number of technical complications made it necessary and sometimes essential to be supported by specialized agencies.
But we don’t have to get scared by all this because, internet represents a huge possibility of growth in any case!
Here are three things to pay attention to while managing your website:

1. Slow or not responding site
In the first place, we definitely set the speed of the site. I think nobody likes to wait for the page to load. Certainly it also happened to you to search for something on the internet and to experience the frustration of a content which was not loading. In this case people generally go somewhere else!
This kind of experience, in addition to dwindling your opportunities of gain, leads to a negative perception of your hotel, making it (at least in the imagination of potential customers) averse from a point of view of modernity and reliability.
Luckily, there are valid methods to check, for yourself and for free, how fast or slow your website is. For example, you can use this professional tool provided by pingdom:
Just enter the internet address of your hotel and in a few seconds you will see the loading time of the site https://tools.pingdom.com
Well, what are the factors that most affect the loading speed? In fact, there are different ones. Among the simplest ones to check and to correct are your hosting service (Aruba, for example) speed and the pictures you put on your site. In the case the latter, weight and size go hand in hand with loading times. Then, the solution is really simple: reduce the weight of the images and reload them.
2. The site is not optimized for smartphones
There are plenty of hotel sites that aren’t yet optimized for smartphones and tablets, in web jargon they say “they are not responsive designed”.
Don’t you find it absurd? Smartphones and tablets have become a direct extension not only of our body, but above all, of our potential customers’ one…We can easily acknowledge this after a look at the analytics data (which unfortunately not everybody checks regularly). Seeing them would be enough to shed light on how many users reach your site through searches done with these devices … so why should we hinder these opportunities?By using this tool provided for free by google at https://testmysite.withgoogle.com/intl/it-it/ you will be able to see how your site looks like, also receiving useful hints and tips.
3 Experience.
How many times have we heard or used this word? Sure, because a nice “experience” is what people are looking for and is also the key to sell more and better.
If you have already improved the stay of your hotel guests or you’re thinking about it, then you can concentrate your energies on improving their digital experience.
To better understand what we are talking about, we can identify some key points that need to be prioritized on a site:
The booking button should be highlighted, possibly with a well visible colour.
Likewise, the navigation bar must be easy to use, with sections positioned vertically or horizontally but always visible.
As for site design, simplicity and order generally yield more in terms of user experience … but be careful not to look too banal!
So what’s the next step?
The next step will be to repeat the following as if it were a mantra: “The journey of my clients begins long before they reach the hotel.”
After having “studied” how to make the site navigation more comfortable for your potential customers, Parity Rate will consider how to improve and simplify the management of your hotel or B&B on booking portals with a simple click.
What more can you ask for!?