No-Cost Marketing You Aren’t Using, 7 Good/Bad Websites

7 Inns Reveal the Good, the Bad and the Ugly and How to Fix it

Good Design, Good Title Tags

Chatham Gables Inn – Good Website Design and Good Title Tags – Study the title tags – always include city and the region (Cape Cod and Chatham in this case). Something many “designer-types” miss.

Alpine House – Nice use of Res Nexus, good images – arresting home page, consistent, elegant and clear booking tab on every page.

Don’t Make These 5 Website Mistakes

Lindley Bold and friendly – but poorly performing title tags
Faunbrook Delicate, beautiful design – very poor title tags – negative SEO
Highland Estate – Beautiful design, No clear path to booking, Out of date blog
Trois Estate – Colors highlight the area but confuse the path to booking – large block of color takes your eye away from booking. Too many conflicting hodge-podge elements.
Duchess of Wellington – Truly out of date website but fabulous title tags.

Fresh Websites Always Pay for Themselves
(No-Cost Marketing)

It’s amazing just how fast a fresh inn website pays for Itself – sometimes even within a week, often within a month. That’s why I’m saying “no-cost marketing”. I have never seen a well-executed inn website that hasn’t paid for itself quickly.

That means that the site has generated many additional reservations – and within a very short period of time.

This has been true for the last 10 years when we’ve interviewed innkeepers about their new websites asking – “How long did it take to pay for itself?”

Our Mission with websites is to remove technology road blocks that hold back some of America’s best innkeepers.

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3 Solutions to Travelers Leaving Your Website

1. Location Photos
In a recent study by the hotel marketing website Leonardo, travelers – 50% of them – don’t know where they want to go when they first start looking. So you have to Meet Them with Photos on your home page that capture your location, not just shots of your inn. And a good location is subjective to the traveler so do your best to convey the value of traveling to your region. Know who your ideal guest is and tailor your photos accordingly.

2. Your Story
Hotel stories can also play a big role. Paint a picture of what experience hotel guests can expect at your property.

3. Local Events
Include information on local events and nearby attractions to convince site visitors that the time to travel is NOW.