Assume that a prospective guest has made it to your hotel’s landing page—how your page has been crafted will determine your odds of making the sale. After reviewing landing pages from a variety of hotels and brands, it was easy to tell that some are better than others. Having the right information and being easy to use are obvious traits of good sites, but what are the top tips to a landing page that can help drive revenue? To answer these questions, I enlisted the help of e-marketing expert Corey Trautvetter, senior director, e-sales and e-marketing at hotel SystemsPro and a 16-year veteran of Hilton Worldwide. We recommend the following:
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William Edmundson
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1. Compelling text. It’s great to get prospects to your site. After all, if they don’t or can’t find your site, you are not likely to get the business. Once they do find your site, you must have compelling enough copy so that they (1) have enough information to make a purchase decision, and (2) are interested enough in your “product” to make that purchase. This compelling text should be structured cleanly and concisely (bullet points) and should be written in easy to read font styles and colors. In addition, this compelling text should include a clear and concise header (or H1) that immediately lures the consumer in.
2. Keyword density. The ratio of your keywords to all other words on your page. If you are getting the prospect to your site, you’re probably doing this right. Target keyword density of around 3 percent to 5 percent on your landing pages. Be careful about overusing keywords. Search engines do not regard well those pages that overuse keywords.
3. “Call to Action” allowing conversion. The ultimate goal of getting prospects to your pages should be to encourage them to take further action that will (hopefully) increase your profits! Be careful, if your call to action is difficult to find, or if you don’t have a call to action, your conversions will be low or nonexistent.
4. Minimal visual distractions. Consider your page visuals carefully. Content is king, and imagery is the crown on the king’s head! Your imagery should be both good and relevant. Be careful not to use stock photography or unrelated images that may not represent what you are offering. Also, be wary of flash, animated .gifs and other moving files. They should be subtle, or they can distract a consumer. Guests are looking for the information that they need and a simple way to complete the transaction.
5. Updated content. In addition to ease of use by the prospect, the page should be easy to use by the Web site owner, especially when it comes to adding and/or updating content. The search engines like content that is kept up to date, but some landing pages are built in such a way that makes it difficult to rewrite, add to, or correct existing content, either text or images.
6. Certification. If your site is new or relatively unfamiliar to many consumers, consider trust certification symbols, such as SSL certificates and W3C Markup Validation Service.
Take some time to review your landing pages as if you were a prospective guest. Are you maximizing the return on your e-marketing dollar? Does your landing page tell you what you need to know to make a buying decision? Is it easy to use? Use these tips to update your landing pages and you should see improvements in the performance of your landing pages and the business they deliver.
William Edmundson is a hospitality executive with more than 20 years experience in brand building, culture creation, innovative marketing and sales, operations, and franchise relations. He has worked on industry leading brands for Holiday, Promus, Hilton and Choice. William is currently consulting, speaking and writing for the hospitality/travel industry and can be reached at williamledmundson@yahoo.com or 301-653-0506.
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