Free etravel promotional guide for independent hotels and accommodations

8 simple steps to attract etravellers to your hotel website

Some years ago I started to manage the website of my parents' small guest house. I had no money for expensive marketing campaigns, but everywhere read: internet marketing is the future of travel industry. So I started to search the web, how to do it for free. I surprised: there was no websites for beginner hotel internet marketers, especially not for free. I had to read several books and articles (more thousands pages) about general internet marketing, and tried to apply on our accommodation website. And surprise-surprise: the 10-bed lodge website achieved almost 10,000 visitors per a year, a population of a little town. I launched this site for beginner hotel internet marketers, independent accommodations' managers, to help them with the essence of accommodation web promotion. Everybody is talking about it but few people do it on the right way, and especially: successfully. The following "traffic building guide" help you to understand the main techniques, and, if you ask for free troubleshooting, I help you personally. etravel promotion .com 2009

To promote your accommodation website effectively on the Internet, you have to

find a good keyword combination related to your hotel (2-3rd steps)	plant it into some elements of your website (4th step), and	ask some other, proper website owners to place your hotel link on their websites (5th step).

With some other small, sophisticated steps (6-9th) you have to refine your online presence and the crowd of tourists will find your website. 

The search engine optimization (SEO) described above is easier than you would think. There are several other ways to promote your website on the Internet, but just think about it: when did you click last time on a banner advertisement? Or when did you buy anything based on a marketing e-mail? On the contrarily, if your Dublin hotel is in the top10 page in the Google page rank for searching phrase "dublin low-cost hotel", you will gain a huge number of motivated backpackers, who are actively looking for a hotel room in your city.

3rd step: Keyword analysis Find a niche market with many etravellers and a few competing hotels

On the internet, you can analyze very exactly the demand and supply, and can find niche markets with many costumers and a few competitors. Websites like SEOToolSet.com provide free of charge tools to analyze your keywords' searching activity. Enter each keyword and word combination on your long list into the "Keyword Activity" box of SEOToolSet.

This smart tool shows the "demand" for each word on your long list: this or that word approx. how many times are entered into the searching box of Google/Yahoo/Bing. Some phrases have surprisingly low activities, others have surprisingly high activities. No problem, just select the top15 - and this is your short list.

Now create a chart like this:

	demand (=daily activity by SEOToolSet.com)	supply (= the number of websites on the Google result list)	demand/supply ratio	supply side info
key word or phrase nr.1
key word or phrase nr.2
(...)
key word or phrase nr.1

 
I guess, it's clear: the 1st column is for the short list keywords, the 2nd one for the discovered searching activities, into the 3rd one you write the searching result numbers of Google (you have to type each keyword into the searching box and realize the result number), you have to calculate for each keyword a demand/supply ratio and write it into the 4th column, and finally, into the 5th one write a short overview about your general impression about keyword-suppliers (competitors), just to see, you are in the right box (e.g: you compete with hotels, not with airlines) and you are able to get a top10 ranking (if on the first top10 site of Google result list there are only the Marriott, Four Seasons, Hilton and the Meridien, you probably are a very small fish in a big sea full with sharks. Search a smaller, peaceful lake!)

Theoretically, the keyword with the best demand/supply ratio is the winner. But. The world is a bit more complicated.
 
As I mentioned in  the 2nd step, the keyword generating is a kind of word magic. The grammatical failures, misspellings, the order of words in your phrases can make a big difference in the keyword activity. Let's take an example: you have a small hotel in Sydney, Australia. You have more options:
 

	demand (=daily activity by SEOToolSet.com)	supply (= the number of websites on the Google result list)	demand/supply ratio (x million)	supply side info
Sydney Hotel	4,385	0.634 million	6916
Hotel Sydney	518	3.96 million	130
Sidney Hotel	54	0.253 million	213
sydney hotel	4,385	4.03 million	1088

 
Do you see the difference? The "Sydney Hotel" has six times better ratio, than the small letter "sydney hotel", and the misspelled Sidney Hotel can mean a small but promising niche for your small hotel. And this exercise is too primitive to model the complexity of real world, because in a big city you have to specify keywords, e.g. "Sydney Bay Hotel" or "Sydney Airport Hotel" or "Sydney Hotel call girls" or "sidney bay accommodation" or "bay hotel Sydney" etc. The English language, like every modern language has approx. 500,000 words, and you cannot imagine the number of word combinations, phrases misspelled by etravellers, order of words etc. On the top of all that: the keyword activity (demand) and the number of competing sites (supply) change time to time, so you have to shoot on a moving target.
 
All in all: the keyword generating is not a science, you have to follow your instincts, you have to be lucky, and you cannot outsource it to your trainee or to an SEO company - no one else knows better your hotel, than you.

4th step: Keyword-focused redesign of your website Build in your magic word combo into your site and etravellers will find you

More elements of your site have to be changed when we are talking about the keyword-focused redesign. If you cannot manage it alone, ask help from your web designer or from the guy who made your site originally. If you have no active connection to your webdesigner, ask technical support in the framwork of free troubleshooting.

I suppose, your main service is the accommodation, and one keyword combination describes your main service. If you also deal with car renting or conference organization, you have to create its own page with its own keyword combos - if you sold your other services independently from accommodation, for another target group. If these services are complementary, guest-only services, don't waste time for newer keyword hunting, your home page will be the landing page, where the etraveller arrives on your site firstly, and your home page will rank by search engines.
 
(1) <title> The title tag is the blue link to your site on Google/Yahoo searching result page. Let's take an example:
 
Hotel Corsica : Hotel porto pollo : hotel Les Eucalyptus, lodging ...

Hotel porto pollo : hotel corsica, Les Eucalyptus, porto pollo, South corsica, lodging corsica, tourism corsica. www.hoteleucalyptus.com/index_en.htm - 5k -

 
Your title is important for search engines to index your site and also for etravellers. Etravellers read your title firstly, this is your hotel's first impression to a potential guest - should I say how important the first impression is? You have to start with your keyword combination (for search engines) and than write something exciting for etravellers to convince them to click on your website link and not on competing websites. Your title has to be promising and short - 6-8 words maximum. Avoid advertising-like titles, e.g: "Best Family Hotel in Colorado you've ever seen" - these keywords have low activity, and the top of all that people don't like aggressive ads. Instead, your title should sound like a good friend recommendation: "Colorado Family Hotel: a Grandmother-substitute for vacation". Don't include your hotel's name or any other unimportant filling word into it.
If you look at the Hotel Eucalyptus' title, you can realize the mistakes: wrong keywords ("Hotel Corsica" is probably a sea full with sharks, "Hotel porto pollo" is a too small lake), too long title, fillings, no promise. This excellent hotel's first impression is very mediocre.
 
(2) <meta description> The meta description doesn't appear on your site, etravellers meet it on the result list only, under the blue title tag. The meta description has maximum 150 characters, start with your keyword combination, and in one or two full, short and exciting sentences provides some additional information to the title - but differs from it. Remember: don't use aggressive advertising sentences.
 
(3) <meta keywords> Some years ago meta keywords have more importance, but today the Google doesn't investigate it for page ranking. However, you never know when will be investigated again, so just write here your nr.1 keyword combination, and maybe some other keywords from your short list.
 
(4) <H1> and <H2> Headlines: Now see your hotel opening (home) page itself. The search engines also study your site's texts. The opening sentence, the headline 1. starts with your keyword combination. If you have headline 2, it also includes keywords.
 
(5) <body text> Search engines study every word on every page of your website. Page ranking also depends on keyword density, the number of your keyword combination on your pages. So, try to plant your keyword into each pages of your website.
 
Further option could be your URL, if the www.yourwebsite.com is equal to www.yourkeywordcombo.com. It works when you launch a new hotel website, don't change your good old domain for a keyword only. And finally: your keyword will be placed into the incoming links, as we will see it right now.

5th step: Incoming link building "They link, therefore I am"

 
If you do nothing else, just place your hotel's link on 200 other websites, it will route a lot of etravellers to your site. However, if you make it cleverly, also the search engines evaluate your efforts and you gain traffic via search engines AND via incoming links from referring sites. It's clear: incoming link building is very important to increase the number of etravel visitors and to increase reservations. Let's see, how to do it.
 
Just linking from non-selected sites on yours, will generate a lot of non-selected and non-targeted traffic (no etravellers). The first step is to identify your target sites. There are two fundamental methods for it:

(1) Spy out your big (keyword) competitors' incoming links. Not too elegant, but very effective. Your big competitors' probably contracted with an SEO company to identify the best touristic site related to your keyword. You are a poor, independent hotel, who have to save money. So, do this: enter into the Yahoo searching box the link:http://www.yourcomtetitor1.com phrase. It will list all the incoming links of your competitor. (To identify your competitor just search on your keyword combo and the hotels on top10 result page are your competitors for the keyword.)
I prefer Yahoo for this job, because Google somehow finds less incoming links for the same website. If you have finished the first competing hotel site, copy the list of incoming links in a text file. Than check the next competing hotel site with the
link:http://www.yourcomtetitor2.com-link:http://www.yourcomtetitor1.com
phrase. It results all the incoming links to the second competitor minus the already spied out links to your first competitor. Do it until you have at least the same number of incoming links like your biggest competitor has. Copy all into the text file.

(2) Search for target sites. If you enter together the "add URL" phrase and your keyword combo into the searching box of Google, the result page will contain websites related to your keywords and at the same time ready to accept your link. Copy to result page into your text file, after the links spied out. You can try also the "submit link" or similar phrases, and you can increase the target sites' number on this way.
 
If you have 200-300 target sites, I guess, you can stop to search. The next step is to contact all the target sites and I am afraid you have no time to contact 1000-2000 sites. Actually, when you choose a keyword combination, you choose competitors and choose a number of incoming links to reach. If the number is too big, find a keyword combo with less activity, less competitors and less incoming links requirement.
 
So, on your target site list there are probably touristic guides and hubs, hotel review sites like TripAdvisor, hotel directories, local newspapers' forums, blogs related to your destination etc. These websites are operated by governmental touristic agencies, volunteers, enterprises, and most of the sites will be glad to accept your link free of charge, or you can post your message on their forums. Hotel review sites become more and more important, here you find some details about the topic.
 
To prepare your incoming link building campaign, you need some instant messages. You have to convince the owner of sites to accept your link and forum/blog readers, etravel visitors of the site to click on your link. So, I suggest to prepare two "instant" messages:

a) For site owners: a very polite and short e-mail text, pointing on compatible features of your site to his site. Many sites have online forms for site submissions, in this case you don't use your short email text. But a lot of site owners have to be contacted personally, via e-mail.
E.g: "Dear Mr. Corleone, were you so kind to place the link of my Sicily Hotel (www.yourwebsite.com) on your excellent website cosanostra.blog.com? Your readers probably will appreciate this opportunity when they plan to visit Sicily. Thank you, (your name and your hotel's name)"

b) For etravellers: they meet with your link on the referring sites, like searchers on result pages. Not surprisingly: use your title for incoming link text. Some directories don't accept other link title, than your hotel's name, but just try to submit your keyword combo everywhere. Two example for "sicily coast hotel" keyword combo:
E.g.1 - instant message for forums and blogs: "Dear All, the sicily coast hotel is waiting for life artists to enjoy the sun and clamour of the sea. Regards, (your hotel's name)"
E.g.2 - instant message for directories: Sicily coast hotel, Alcamo

So, you know to whom and what to say. Before you start, create an e-mail account for your link building campaign, to leave clear your "normal" e-mail account.
The link building campaign itself is a tiring, slave-type job, try to outsource it to your husband or to your trainee. It needs approx. 10 minutes/websites, so 100 enquiries for incoming links need 16-17 hours. But, if you do it all day long, you can finish everything in some days (depending on your target number of links).
 
What happens if a site owner refuses your ask to link or simply say nothing? Behave as a cool professional and say a polite thanks for refusing e-mails. Who knows, when will change the site owner's opinion? If she/he don't respond anything for your enquiry in 2 weeks, very politely remember her/him to your ask. Finally, try to track somehow (e.g.: in your target site text file), who has linked to your site, who has said 'no' and who has done nothing and will have to contact again in two weeks.

6th step: As the big boys do it -advanced internet marketing tricks Competitor intelligence and link magnets

A good keyword focus redesign of your site and a link building campaign will boost your booking. However, if you have many time and some money, there are some advanced techniques to try.

Competitor intelligence
You have done the first steps: you spied out your competitors' keywords (in the step 2) and also their referring sites. It's very important to keep in mind: when you choose a keyword combination, you choose competitors - the top10 sites on the result page. You have to monitor your competitors' sites and have to know what they do on the Web.
 
Try out the name of hotel operating company. If you search on hotel's name and the company name at the same time, you will find some press news, suppliers', clients' and other competing hotel's notes about your competitor. If you search in Google Groups and Yahoo! Groups on hotel+company name, you can get some information, posted maybe from an employee or a former guest. If a group has a newsletter, just subscribe on it. These information can help you to follow the internet presence and plans of your competitor, and prepare for changes. Look for your competitor's weaknesses and failures to improve your operation!
 
Link magnets
When we talked about link building, we didn't analyze the spontaneous or unsolicited incoming links. Some web sites draw links like magnet the iron. The site owner build up the first 200 incoming links which after some year increases spontaneously 2000.
 
Imagine that you create a keyword focused site about an attraction of your destination. Not about your hotel, but an attraction only (a monument, typical outdoor activities, coast, famous little town etc). A very descriptive, full with important and useful information about this attraction, e.g: the history of the local castles, museums and exhibitions in each castles, opening times and rates, fantastic photos, bus timetables, weather forecast, news, forum, short videos made by travellers etc. You provide all the information free of charge, just for the benefit of etravellers and local touristic business community. You have to do the same SEO job with this "attraction site" (keyword identification, keyword focused webdesign, incoming link building for some dozen links), and you will realize boosting incoming links from local entities, appreciating the free and useful infos. You achieve a big traffic on this link magnet.
And now: this site has a lot of and increasing incoming links. But it has only one outgoing link: to your hotel's site. You achieve etravellers from this popular info portal and via search engine, which appreciate very much the incoming link from this link hub.
 
I don't say it's simple to create link magnets - it costs a lot of time, energy, and some money. But, if you think about the next level of your hotel internet marketing, that's it.
 

7th step: Resubmit to SEs  Call search engines' attention on your site's new, exciting features.

The search engines index your site time to time, and you come into the proper box. However, you shouldn't wait for search engines, you can call their attention on your new keywords and new incoming links. Visit the search engines submission site and resubmit your hotel site:

                                          
 

After resubmission, SEs will know your website strengths and after some days, if we did a good job, you will be in the top10 page ranked by them, and etravellers find your website via search engines and via the network of incoming links.

8th step: Google Analytics - a free way to analyze your website traffic If you have no feedbacks from site visitors, you don't know what to change

The Google is well-known as the leading search engine of the world, but Google has further exciting services. For you, one of the most important is Google Analytics, the free web traffic analyzer tool of Google. The application helps you to know how many website visitors (potential guests) do you have in daily distribution, where (which country and city) do they come from, across which referring sites (incoming links), what keywords do they use, what do they do on your hotel site (e.g. what is your most and less popular webpages), how does your website perform compared to global hotel industry benchmarks etc. After a free of charge registration, Analytics gives you a tracking code which have to be planted simply in each pages of your website. If you cannot manage it alone or have no active connection to your webdesigner, ask for technical support in the framwork of free troubleshooting.

It's very important to define your website's conversion goal (G1 in Analytics). Conversion is the end of my traffic building guide: you have to convert website visitors to hotel guests. The conversion goal is a page to reach by website visitors. Your conversion goal is your booking page, the sales page of your main service. If you have an online booking system on your site, you have to set up your "Thank you for booking" page, the ending page of online booking, as a conversion goal. The conversion rate is the ratio of goal site visitors to the total number of your website visitors.

This web analytic tool helps you change time to time what doesn't work and improve conversion. It means, you shouldn't fall in love with your website, its structure, design, pictures etc have to change permanently to achieve higher and higher conversion - big website traffic is nothing, big conversion (occupancy) rate is everything!