Here are a few simple questions to help you determine whether or not you need to improve the performance of your website.

How effective is your website in generating its own traffic?

Here’s a simple test. Pretend you’re a potential customer searching on Google for your type of hotels in or near the town of your address, e.g. ‘luxury hotels near Cheltenham’ or ‘country house hotels near Cheltenham’. If your hotel is not in the top 10, there’s work to be done because most of your potential customers are searching by destination.

Do you subscribe to one of the many luxury hotel portal websites?

If so, it’s important to appreciate that your existing website is capable of outperforming these portals substantially in the amount of revenue generated. Your entry in one of these websites might appear in the Google top 10 when searching for luxury hotels in your area but your potential customers are also introduced to all your competitors in the same area. Your own website in the top 10 enables you to compete more effectively on your own terms.

Do you monitor how many visitors are arriving at your website and where they’re coming from?

It’s always useful to know how many visitors arriving at your site have come direct by typing in your website address or have searched for you on Google by hotel name, for instance. It’s also important to know how many visitors are finding you via the search engines using search phrases such as ‘country house hotels near Cheltenham’. (I would recommend Google Analytics; it’s very comprehensive and it’s FREE! www.googleanalytics.com). If potential customers can’t find your website in the top 10 or at the very least in the top 20, there’s some serious work to be done.

Are you making the most of email marketing?

In my experience, a good email promotion to your database should always sell rooms. Your website, therefore, needs to be generating the database and your email promotions need to be carefully planned. Most importantly, they need to sell!

How effective is your reception/reservation team in converting website enquiries?

The fact is no-one can sell your hotel as well as you can. Your website is generating more enquiries and they’re all arriving at Reception, either as phone calls or emails. Incidentally, most people still use the phone to make an enquiry or a booking. If you’re not responding to these enquiries and you’re delegating this role (arguably the most important role in the business) to receptionists, how capable are they at converting enquiries? I’m frequently horrified by the number of bookings lost by careless telephone manner and poor email responses.

Improving ‘revpar’, occupancy and overall revenue growth via your website is the focus of Alberghi Marketing.