We've recently heard many stories of hotels that feel stuck with their current emarketing provider.  Sometimes hoteliers are immobilized by ironclad contracts that give all website rights to the emarketing vendor. Other times a hotel is locked in a perpetual relationship with an emarketing provider due to proprietary technologies and accounts.  Of course, these types of lock-ins are never a problem when the customer is happy, but when things go south that's when the swords come out and the legal dogs are let loose.

Nobody likes to be locked in a partnership, particularly with a business that has let them down. Maybe the product you purchased didn't live up to the marketing hype. It could be that the customer service just stinks. Or perhaps the quality of the service provided is the pits.

Regardless the reason, you're disappointed. You paid the big bucks and you've got nothing to show for it but frustration.  In the best case scenario, you complain directly to the company via social media or navigate the dreaded automated phone maze in order to reach a live human being, only to get platitudes about "quality" and that company's commitment to "service." Most of the time though, you make a mental note of the offending brand and vow never to support their evil empire of shoddiness again! Unfortunately, in some instances you're met with a dead end: you've purchased a product or service that locks you into some sort of agreement that you are unable to break without some sort of severe psychological or financial cost.

How To Trap A Client

Here are just a few examples that we've seen of hotel clients who have been locked into unhealthy relationships with other vendors. The hotel names have been removed to protect the innocent.

• Trapped by a Contract:
  Hotel 1 had signed a contract with a vendor that provides emarketing services but was interested in switching to a new emarketing vendor. The old vendor had built their independent website and provided some dubious ecommerce services. Understandably, the hotel was unimpressed with the performance and the company's overall attention to detail.  Since the hotel entered a contract with the vendor, the General Manager was simply waiting for that agreement to expire before moving on to Blue Magnet.  Unfortunately, upon further review of the vendor's contract, the hotel came to realize that the vendor actually owned the domain name and the design of the site!  This meant that even if the hotel let their contract with the vendor expire they still would not be able to take their website with them.  After all, according to the contract, it was property of the vendor! As a result, the hotel would basically forfeit their entire website and any search engine performance earned by the site thus far. Essentially the hotel would have to rebuild their site if they wanted to change vendors. They were trapped, just as the vendor had planned. They wanted out of their contract, but doing so would financially harm their hotel in the short term.
• Trapped by a Proprietary Product:
  Hotel 2 had paid an emarketing vendor to create their website, but had since decided to go with a new emarketing vendor. Part of that transition from one emarketing vendor to the next involved the management of the hotel's independent website. Unbeknownst to the hotel, the site was developed on the vendor's proprietary content management system (CMS).  This was fine while the hotel was working with the vendor because they managed all the content through the proprietary CMS.  However, the hotel soon discovered that it would be unable to migrate the site away from the old vendor without breaking all the code that tied the site to that vendor's proprietary CMS.  As a result, the hotel had to invest additional funds into rebuilding the broken site in an open, non-proprietary format with the new emarketing vendor. The open format would allow the hotel to freely move the site to whichever vendor they chose without the headache caused by the old vendor's system. Although the proprietary CMS may have offered slick features and options unique to that platform, it needlessly bound the customer to that provider.
• Trapped by Proprietary Information:
  Hotel 3 had an independent website that was being tracked with Google Analytics tracking software. This tracking provides a wealth of historical information about all kinds of user behavior on the website. The vendor set up the hotel's Google Analytic profile (as well as those of their other clients) on their own central vendor account. This meant that when it came time for the hotel to switch online marketing providers, the vendor told the hotel that they would be unable to give them ownership of the data because it was tied to their own corporate account.  The hotel could create their own Google Analytics account, but they would lose the historic data tracked across the previous years. As a result, the hotel was forced to abandon all their old historical data that helps to analyze and improve future site performance, all because their previous vendor held their data captive.

It's clear why these companies choose to do businesses this way. They assume that trapping customers with contracts, proprietary formats and locked data is a way to ensure continued revenue streams. Let's face it, new business acquisition is challenging and comes at a significant cost to any business (time and money). It's tempting to lock someone into your services. But forcing customers to stay with your company against their will is a shortsighted solution. Once that barrier is removed, that customer is going to bolt, spewing obscenities about your company in their wake. Putting up false obstacles is never good for customer satisfaction either. Blue Magnet was founded on the idea that customers would want to stay with our agency because we've become a valuable part of their team, not because they've been trapped by a proprietary product or slick contract that grants us rights to all their website content.

How To Protect Yourself

There are a lot of sketchy characters out there, and not all of them conspicuously don the Snidely Whiplash mustache with matching "bad-guy" cape. In fact, many vendors appear to be acting in your best interest, and for the most part they are. You just have to make sure you read the fine print on the agreement. The best defense against getting trapped with an unscrupulous emarketing vendor is the same in any industry: do your homework! In addition, these simple tips will help keep you free from the shackles of an unhealthy business relationship.

1. Call vendor references - Investigate the company with which you are considering doing business. And don't just call the clients the vendor provides you. Snoop around the internet. Google's great for sleuthing! And because many vendors will place a link back to their own company website in the footer of their clients' websites, you have an easy way of tracking down potential references (even ones they may not want to explicitly advertise).  Another good tool for investigating this beyond the search engines is to run a search for the vendor's website in OpenSiteExplorer.org.  Here are the results from a search for BlueMagnetInteractive.com. You can see many of the sites we built for our clients.
2. Use open source solutions - If you think you may switch emarketing vendors at some point, make sure your website isn't built on that vendor's proprietary framework. Some examples of content management systems that are open source are Joomla!, Drupal and Wordpress, among others.  Unless you really need a custom CMS, many of these open source solutions will be able to accomplish the same goals. More importantly, they can easily be transferred from one vendor to another without having to worry about breaking the system.
3. Purchase your own domain - Make sure that when you purchase your domain name (examplehotel.com) that the WhoIs information (contact info for the domain) is in the hotel's name. There is no reason for the vendor to own this. In addition, the contract that the client enters into with the vendor should clearly state that the domain is property of the hotel, not the vendor.
4. Request full access to the hosting - Many vendors will host a client's website on their own servers. This is fine, as long as the client is given access to manipulate content on the back end of the system.  Some vendors prevent outside access to their systems.
5. Set up accounts in your name - Should you ever choose to leave your current vendor, you're going to want to take all your hard earned data with you. Otherwise, how will your new vendor know how to benchmark your performance? Let's take Google Analytics as an example. The vendor should set up a separate Google account in the hotel's name in order to track your website. Vendors that insist on setting up the account under their own vendor profile are only setting you up to lose all your historical web data when the day comes that you choose to leave that vendor. Ask that any new accounts for your hotel be set up independent of the vendor's other clients, for portability's sake. Also, make sure you request admin access to any accounts they set up for you.
6. Own all creative rights - This should be a given for any kind of work-for-hire, but ensure that when your vendor builds your website that they transfer ownership rights of all design and development work, all copy on the site, all images to you. The vendor is building the website for you. You should not need to license the site from them. If you paid them to build it, you should own it. Make sure the contract says as much. There's nothing quite like spending thousands of dollars on a cool new website, only to find out that you're not the real owner--the vendor is.
7. Review the contract carefully - This tip covers many of the items above, but it's important to list on its own. Many clients who think they're free to leave with everything they've already paid for are often shocked to find that the simple agreement they signed states otherwise. Have your legal team review the terms before you give the final sign off on any vendor contracts, particularly if you're unfamiliar with the technologies referenced in the document.
8. Ask questions - Grill your vendor with some hard hitting questions. This is your money! Make them work for it. It's harder to walk all over a client when they're knowledgeable about the emarketing industry. When I bring my car to a mechanic they look at me and see a sucker. That's when their eyes quickly flash dollar signs, a cash register chime is heard, and with a wry smile the mechanic assures me, "We'll take it from here, chump." A little knowledge goes a long way in showing the vendor that you'll call them out if they try any funny business. You don't have to be a jerk about it--just be knowledgeable and ask questions based on the list in this blog post.
9. Understand what you're purchasing - Finally, just make sure that your vendor tells you, in plain English (not legalese), what your business has purchased from them. What do you own at the end of the day when you decide to walk away? How long are you in the contract? What does the vendor own? How easy is it to migrate the website, hosting, domain, services and accounts over to a new vendor? Even if you're on good terms with the vendor now, always make sure you have an out.

Most client/vendor problems can be avoided by simply understanding what you're buying into as the client. Admittedly, emarketing can be a confusing industry; there are a lot of technologies, intellectual property rights and participating parties involved in website development and marketing the site online. Keeping it all straight can be exhausting. Just be sure to use these tips as a guideline so you can understand what your hotel will walk away with after the relationship has ended. Contracts in themselves aren't inherently evil, and in many cases should serve to protect both parties; However, as identified above, when put into the wrong hands they can certainly be used for nefarious purposes. The more you understand before signing the contract, the less pain you'll experience when you and your vendor decide to part ways. Fortunately, most reputable emarketing vendors won't need to rely on underhanded contracts to secure their business model. Vendors that rely on the strength of their performance and the quality of their support will never need to rely on fine print agreements to lock in their clients. Quite the contrary--those clients will never want to leave!

LinkedIn is often overlooked as a great online sales and networking opportunity for hoteliers. In a recent blog post, I outlined how to begin using LinkedIn as a sales tool. Now that you are aware of several lead generation techniques afforded by this social network, it’s essential to build engagement and enforce your new strategy. But how? For your convenience, I have created a checklist in the form of an infographic that will help hotel professionals effectively utilize LinkedIn and engaging target audiences. Make sure to save this on your desktop, email it to your sales staff or post it on the cork board in your office. Some of these overarching tactics will also be of value to your hotel’s other social media strategies. Now get out a pen, start checking...and selling!

Most people who work with hotels for any substantial period time inexorably come to understand two major things – First, the hospitality industry is not like other industries. It presents a set of challenges (such as running a 24/7/365 business, dealing with OTAs, managing a dynamic pricing system, and more) that, when combined, demand unique strategies and solutions. Second, when it comes to technology and e-commerce, hotels are definitely on the later end of the diffusion curve. Certainly, there are some exemplary hotels that have been pioneers in the realm of online marketing and technological innovation, but taken as a whole, hotels and major hotel brands have largely been cautious in their embrace of the internet and still lag behind other businesses in the extent and effectiveness of their e-commerce efforts. As a result, hotels that are willing to put some time and resources towards e-commerce are, for the most part, going to be able to dominate their competition; however, the question remains: How?

In my humble estimation, the answer is search engine optimization (SEO); however, it has been my experience that many hoteliers are somewhat daunted and confused by SEO. This is understandable because while there is an overabundance of information and articles about SEO in general, there is a paucity of content specifically dealing with SEO for hotels and the hospitality industry. As a result, hoteliers who try to learn about SEO have difficulty separating the big, important strategies and general themes from the very specialized, nitty-gritty strategies that are only necessary for businesses in industries with more advanced and competitive e-commerce fields. Therefore, they either become so bogged down by info that they give up or become fixated on unnecessary advanced strategies while neglecting the essentials.

To rectify this situation, I want to clearly lay out the SEO strategies that hotels really need to know. As I mentioned above, the hospitality industry is unique; it has many opportunities and challenges that other industries do not have, and if hoteliers do not use the same offline business models as tech companies, why should they use the same SEO strategies? In many ways, SEO is just a new form of the sales and marketing techniques that hoteliers have been using for years to sell their hotels, and the simple fact is that hotels in general do not have highly developed SEO campaigns; therefore, by implementing the following basic but essential SEO strategies, many hotels will see drastic improvements in search rankings and site visits. Forget about what non-hospitality focused SEO experts have told you, these are the SEO strategies that hotels really need to know.

SEO is not a trick

The first and most important thing that hotels need to realize is that despite what they may have heard, SEO is not about “tricking” search engines. Rather, it is a series of practices by which websites tell the search engines who they are, what they do, and why they are relevant to searchers. If hotels implement these practices, the search engines will rank them well in search results. That’s it. The hard part of SEO is knowing what those practices are and resisting the urge to lie to the search engines in order to try to get them to rank you for keywords that are not very relevant to your hotel. If you want to appear for non-relevant keywords, you can pay the search engines for ads, but don’t lie to them.  Even though you can pay your way to the top of the PPC game, irrelevant keywords can negatively affect your PPC campaigns too. As for knowing what practices to implement, just read on!

What language does Mrs. Bing speak?

The first step in telling search engines what your hotel is all about is to make sure you are speaking their language. If the search engines can’t understand your website, they can’t judge its relevance and quality. To make sure the search engines can easily crawl and parse your website, you need to ensure that your site has a search engine friendly structure and is properly marked up. Unfortunately, this is such a basic element that many designers and developers overlook it in their pursuit to design and build fancy websites.

Now, I don’t expect hoteliers to go out and start learning how to build websites, but if you are looking to update your hotel’s website or build a new one, make sure that whoever is developing your website understands SEO and search engine friendly site structure. No matter how great the rest of your SEO efforts are, if your site structure is not search engine friendly, it will never rank as high as it should.  This is very important for independent hotels and branded hotels with standalone sites. If you are a branded hotel, your brand site is probably decently structured, and there is nothing that you can do to improve it, so that is one thing, at least, that don’t have to worry about.

Dear R. Google, My name is Hotel Blue Magnet

Now that you are speaking the search engines’ language, you have to introduce your hotel.  How do you do that? It’s simple - Take a second and think of the three best ways to describe your hotel Good, those are your main keywords. Keywords are simply the phrases that best describe your hotel. Some keyword variations are better than others and some keywords are more competitive than others, but there is no real deep secret to choosing keywords.  Once you have your phrases, go to Google’s Keyword Tool, type them in, and then Google will tell you what variations of those phrases have the most search volume.  There is all manner of research you can do for keywords, but for many hotels, it will do wonders just to choose keywords that are relevant and that people are actually searching for. Once you have your keywords, you need to write your Meta Title Tags. To do so, use this simple formula:

Main Keyword | Hotel Name | Secondary Keyword (Optional)

Meta Title Tags should be under 70 characters, so if adding in the secondary keyword makes it too long, save that keyword for another page. You’ll want to write one Meta Title for each one of your pages and include your main keywords on your most important pages and relevant pages (Home, Accommodations, etc.). For your less important or more specialized pages, you can do more keyword research to find relevant keywords that have search volume, but simply including a descriptive phrase that reflects the content on the page will be better than a generic page name. Once you have these written, give them to your website developer or brand contact, and they will be able to add them to your website code.

What’s your line, Master Yahoo?

Now that your Meta Title Tags are in place and you have introduced your hotel to the search engines, the next step is to tell them what your hotel does. This is probably the least technical part of SEO, but it is massively important and will become even more important in the future. To tell the search engines what your hotel does, you need to write great descriptive content for your web pages. This is really as simple as it sounds. As search engines get more sophisticated, it will become harder and harder to trick them, and the quality of your content will become more and more integral to your SEO.  If you simply write great content now and keep it updated, you will not have to worry about the changes to search engine algorithms that are always causing SEO professionals to freak out; instead, you will have consistent and predictable search rankings.

So what is good content? Good content is not awkwardly stuffed with exact iterations of your keywords and lots of spammy looking links. Good content is well-written, natural sounding copy that clearly and concisely details the topic of the page. Your content should reflect the keywords in your Meta Title Tags, but it does not need to slavishly adhere to the exact phrasing of those keywords at the expense of readability This stress on the importance of content over keywords may sound a little strange coming from an SEO professional, but I strongly believe that at this point, especially for hotels, keyword heavy content will never get you better rankings than more natural content, and in fact, it could hurt your rankings, which is just what happened to a number of over-optimized websites after Google's recent Panda algorithm update. If the person who does your SEO says otherwise, you may want to rethink your partnership with that company. They are likely out of touch with SEO trends and could end up getting your site penalized with their unsavory tactics. When writing content or reviewing content that has been written for you, always remember, search engines will never penalize great content.

Why?

So the search engines know who your hotel is and what it does. All that remains is to tell them why your hotel is more relevant than competing hotels. Among websites in different industries, the why of SEO can vary hugely. The basic tactics are the same, but the relative of importance of those tactics changes depending on the nature of the business and the goals of the SEO campaign. Through my experience performing SEO for hotels, I have been able to discover what I think are the most important tactics for convincing search engines that a hotel‘s website should be ranked at the top of searches – Optimized local listings and unique, relevant links. That is not to say that other tactics do not work or are not important, but it is my opinion that these two are the most important and effective.

1. Optimized Local Listings
   
   Hotels are local businesses by nature. Even if a hotel is part of a national or international brand, it has a location that is unique to that hotel. Being located in a specific spot is one of the best reasons for relevance a hotel can give search engines. You can and will include location-based information on your website, but that is not quite enough to convince the search engines. You need to establish your location on their terms by claiming, optimizing, and managing your Google +Local Page, Bing Local Listing, and Yahoo Local listing. If you have not done so already, stop reading this article and go to the links above to claim your pages. By claiming and optimizing these pages with the exact name, address, phone number, and website that is listed on your website, you are telling the search engines that the business located at the address of your hotel is the same as the business represented by your website. As a result, when a search engine detects a location-based search, they will include your hotel as a business located in that area, which might not happen if you just had your website. These listings are already massively important for hotels and are only going to become more important with the rise of mobile search. One more thing to note about these listings is that even if you have them claimed, the information displayed on the listing can change at any minute. As such, it is imperative to consistently monitor your Local Listings.
2. Unique, Relevant Links
   
   Local Listings will ensure that search engines know where your hotel is located, but they will not convince them that your site is authoritative and trustworthy and that your content is of the highest quality. To do this, you need to show the search engines that other people find your content useful and trustworthy. How do you show them this? Get your site listed on sites that Google already knows and respects. In SEO parlance, this is called Link Building, and there are as many ways to link build as there are stars in the sky; however, I believe that for hotels, there is one form of link building that is most important – Building links from established local businesses and organizations. Any hotel can hire a SEO contractor to submit their link to every directory and local listing site, and the search engines know this and as a result they do not give much credence to such links, and, in fact, Google, with their Penguin update, has started penalizing websites with a lot of low quality, spammy links. It is much more difficult to convince other businesses and organizations to link to your site. Unlike directories, linking to other sites is not the point of these businesses and organizations’ sites. In order for someone to link to your hotel, you have to provide them with a good reason for it. Search engines also know this, and they give much more weight to these kinds of links. If owners of respectable businesses believe that their customers will want to go to your website, the search engines will conclude their searchers will also want to go to your website.

The great thing about this kind of link building is that it can be done by owners, GMs, and DOSs with little to no technical skill.  This is all about relationships between businesses and how well your hotel works with other businesses. For specific tips, I suggest that you check out these two blog posts from my colleagues Diana Friess and Kim Leveque, but what I really want to convey about this kind of link building is that it’s more of an attitude than a tactic. Too often, hoteliers think of the online and offline portions of their business as separate entities, and I’m suggesting that you start thinking of your website in the same way you think about your hotel.

On the internet, your website is your hotel. Just as you would want local businesses, colleges, convention centers, museums to recommend your hotel if someone asked in person where they should stay while visiting; you also want those same businesses to recommend your hotel online; and in the online world, that kind of recommending is done through linking to your site. Keep this in mind as you go about your daily on-site and offline tasks and you will start finding more and more opportunities to ask for and receive links to your site.  Just remember to always offer a link back in return if possible and make sure to always give out the same exact URL when someone agrees to link to your site.

SEO is just good business

One of the biggest points that I wanted to get across with this post is that at its core SEO is nearly identical to offline business and sales strategies. Too often people not in the SEO industry (and even many in the industry) think of SEO as collection of arcane, technical tricks and tactics that are only tech gurus can understand and implement. SEO can be different depending on your industry, but within each industry, it’s just a new way to do the same things that have always made businesses in those industries successful. If you know how to market your hotel offline, you already know how to perform SEO for your hotel – You just didn’t know that you knew. Hopefully, you do now.

You already understand the importance of link building for search engine optimization purposes, so it’s time to take your link building to the next level. Obtaining links from quality websites can help raise your hotel’s organic search rankings. In addition, by creatively utilizing some of your current sales strategies you can obtain links on sites that encourage extended stays, which in return can help you increase your hotel's average length of stay (LOS).

Start by talking with your sales team and asking a few questions: Who are they already reaching out to for sales leads? You may find that just by having this simple discussion you can already come up with a list of new sites to target for link building. Your sales team is probably already in various discussions with a variety of companies attempting to negotiate group rates for upcoming conferences or meetings near or at your hotel. Work with your sales team to build each group a specific booking code to place on their company site to make it easier for attendees to book their stay at your property. Link building can be as simple as that!

Then, build upon the list they provide to you. Consider this: Why would someone want to stay at a hotel for longer than a few nights? In what situations would be a potential guest need week-long or month-long accommodations? Below are a few suggestions to help you brainstorm:

• Partner with local area realtors and ask them to refer house hunters to your hotel verbally and on their website. When a family is relocating, typically one or more members of the family will do the majority of the house hunting. Since this can be a longer process, this family member will typically need to stay close to their new location. Offer a local realtor an incentive for referring clients to your hotel, and be sure to ask them to link from their site to your hotel sites. You could even set up special rates for “house hunting” family members looking for accommodations for 3+ days. Work with local moving services to explore opportunities for marketing on their sites.

• Stay current with construction plans in the area. Any time there is construction happening in the area, there will be a need for housing and opportunities to book extended hotel stays. If a new neighborhood is under construction in the area, new residents may need a temporary housing solution until their new home is complete. Ask for links from the new neighborhood’s informational website to the hotel’s website to get in front of the new residents. Likewise, if a new shopping center or restaurant is opening in the area, you’ll want to be listed on these sites as well; many companies will send employees from different stores or restaurants to help open the new establishment and these teams will need somewhere to stay.

• Contact local businesses to discuss relocation for employees. For example, if you have any family members that work with an airline, you may know that airline employees frequently relocate. Work closely with the airline to form a partnership to become the referred hotel for extended stay while these employees search for permanent housing.

• Work with local moving services to explore opportunities for marketing on their sites. Talk to moving van & storage facilities to ask for leads. Also, ask them to include a link to your hotel site to your hotel website.

• If your hotel is located near a symphony or concert venue, work with the talent coordinator to secure your hotel as a preferred property for performers. Often, groups like symphonies or bands would prefer to stay in hotel accommodations while in your town than to try to sleep on a crowded tour bus. Although it won’t be a constant revenue-generator for your hotel, securing a partnership now could result a large group for an extended time period in the future.

• Contact the webmaster at your local hospital and rehabilitation center. While the patient will most likely be staying in the hospital, friends and family may need a place to stay to be close to their loved one. Become a recommended hotel and ask the hospital to link to your website. If you can, offer a discounted rate to family members of hospital patients to encourage them to stay with you, rather than sleeping on a hospital chair.

• Local police and fire stations may also be a good resource to acquire extended stay guests. When tragedies happen, like a house fire, people will need somewhere to stay fast, and for an undisclosed time frame. You may be able to speak with the Red Cross as well, as they are known for helping displaced homeowners after a disaster.

• Reach out to local divorce attorneys. When couples decide to split, most likely someone is going to need some temporary housing. Ask local divorce lawyers to direct their clients to your hotel.

Even if you’re not technically an "extended stay hotel," partnering with local organizations that could help you attract guests with longer length stays. Depending on your property and market, some of the suggestions above may not work for your hotel. However, if you do end up with a guest with a 30+ night stay as a result, you’ll be happy you took the time to acquire these links.

As hoteliers, budget season is upon us so now is the perfect time to ensure you have the resources in place to create and optimize that ROI-producing mobile-friendly site everyone is raving about. With the increased importance of SoLoMo (social local and mobile opportunities, for the uninitiated) in 2012 and 2013, if you don’t have a mobile site you’re already behind the eight ball, but there’s still time to get back ahead of the competition. Creating a site using responsive web design may be the most efficient and budget-friendly option for your hotel to ensure your presence is optimized for all booking devices.

What is responsive web design?

Simply put, responsive web design is a development technique that optimizes your site for any sized screen, based on size of the device that is viewing the content. For example, if someone views your site from their desktop computer, the website's code will detect the larger sized screen and appropriately adjust the site's layout and design for that larger monitor. Things such as the main navigation, body content and image size will be optimized for people browsing at a desktop computer, in order to provide the best layout for usability on that device.

On the other hand, the same user will likely interact with the site very differently on a tablet or smartphone than they would sitting at a computer with a mouse or a laptop touchpad. When searching on a tablet or mobile phone, users have to tap directly on the link in order to get the information they want, instead of hovering over the information with a tiny pointer. In order to provide the best user experience for someone on a mobile phone, buttons have to be bigger so people can easily tab where they want, phone number should be clickable (and trackable!), and information should be concise and easy to find.  Fat fingers and small smartphone screens are a bad combo.

What does responsive web design look like?

Let’s use the beautiful but imaginary Blue Magnet Hotel as an example. Say you’re searching for the Blue Magnet Hotel on your desktop computer during your lunch break at work. You will see the full site like this:

Then, on your way home from work, you decide that you liked what that hotel had to say and you want to check out rates on your phone. The site would look like this.

Finally, when you get home, you announce to your spouse that you found the perfect hotel and want to get their final approval before you book your room using your iPad.

The same content is presented and the changes are very slight, but the site dynamically adjusts to make the site more usable based on the viewing screen of the device being used.

Why does my hotel need a responsive website?

Below are 4 reasons you should consider building your hotels site in responsive web design:

1. Usability and user experience: Think of how annoying it is when you are searching for something on your phone and you land on the site’s desktop version, with microscopic links and too much information. What do you do? Most likely you'll try to pinch and zoom on the screen until you can make out the information you’re looking for or bounce off immediately and go to a site that’s easier to use. Either way, this makes for a bad user experience and a potentially lost guest.  With responsive web design, the right version of your site will always be served to your user on the first try which makes for a better user experience.
2. Cost and return: Your initial investment in the site may be slightly higher, it may take a bit longer to develop, and you may have to research to find a developer with the proper skills to effectively create your site in responsive web design. However, since potential guests will be served the information they want on the first try they’ll be more likely to stay on your site and book if they like what they see. Also, if your hotel is easily bookable through all mediums guests will be more likely to book with you.  Another thing to consider is that instead of paying someone to manage the content on three different websites (desktop, mobile and tablet), with a responsive website you're only paying someone to update content on a single website.
3. Three websites in one: As mentioned above, content management is simple for all three sites, because you're really only updating a single website instead of three separate ones. Most responsive websites will have a simple content management system. The Blue Magnet Hotel example above was built in Wordpress. Since this is all technically one site, we only have to make the change once and the mobile site, tablet version and desktop version will all reflect the updates. This is great for maintaining consistency of information across all of your sites.
4. Google will love you: In June of 2012, Google explained the best practices for building a mobile site and responsive web design was mentioned as the "recommended configuration" for targeting smartphones. Responsive websites, whether viewed on a mobile device, tablet or desktop computer, all use the same HTML, which make it easier for Google to index.  Rather than indexing 3 different, independent versions of your accommodations page, Google prefers to only index a single page--a responsive one that adapts to various screen sizes. This doesn't necessarily give you any SEO bonus for using responsive web design, but it helps avoid duplicate content issues that arise from having a copy of each of your webpages in each of the various viewing formats.  Google doesn't need 3 different copies of your homepage.  It's redundant and Google will likely drop one from its index if it identifies it as such.  It's best to have a single page at a single URL that works across all devices.

With the importance of SoLoMo increasing in 2013 and beyond, building a responsive website may be a modest budget hotel's best solution. Your content will be more shareable, Google will give you the thumbs up, and your website's usability will be better than ever before on any device. Having a flashy desktop version of your site is simply not enough to guarantee conversions anymore; responsive web design will help you convert guests no matter what device they use!

Is your hotel’s Facebook page struggling to grow fans? Do you feel like you are communicating into an empty void on this supposedly social network?  But you’re doing everything you can to achieve the exact opposite results, right?   Sometimes it takes a little more than on-page optimization, creative content and eye-catching photos to get the response and growth you’re looking for.

While there are many ways to remedy these issues, the quickest solution isn’t a new trick or a new Facebook feature; it’s the old hat trick of Facebook ads.  Before you say “I have no idea what Facebook ads are, let alone know how to set them up” or “We don’t have the budget for ads,” hear me out!  Setting up Facebook ads is actually quite simple, and as for cost, you need to try it before you dismiss it, because a little bit of money can go a very long way towards growing your Facebook network.

Facebook ads can be set up under one of two different advertising models: the pay-per-click ad model (a la Google Adwords) or pay-per-impression ad model. Choose whichever model best suits your goals. The ads appear as Sponsored Ads on the right-hand side of the desktop version of a Facebook page.  From the ad a user can click to visit the business page or simply "like" the page without even clicking through to view the business page.  The ads include information on how many people like the page, or if a friend in the user’s network likes the page as well.  This is actually valuable information that helps increase conversions and actions.  Seeing that a friend already likes the page assures the user that this is a recommended page worth liking and clicking on.  Now that we’ve reviewed the placement of the ads and what all is included on the ad, let’s dive into the process of setting them up.

Step-By-Step Facebook Ad Set-up

1. Begin with logging into the Facebook account that has administrator access to the hotel’s page.
2. On the left-hand side click “Ads Manager,” which will take you to your campaign page to set up a new ad.  At the top right corner click on the green button "Create an Ad."
3. On this page it will ask you to select the Facebook destination; meaning which page are you wanting to promote.  Your hotel page should appear below since the account has administrator access.
4. Next you will select what you want to promote, the hotel or a specific post.  In most cases you will select the hotel.  However if you have a particular message you want to get across or to guarantee a certain amount of people see the particular post you would select the latter option.
5. Then choose new ad about the hotel in the “People will see” section.
6. In the next step you set up the actual ad.  The headline is predetermined by the title of your hotel’s Facebook page.  Fill in the ad copy within 90 characters and load an image to be sized at 100 pixels by 72 pixels.
7. The last question in this section asks “Where will people be taken to when ad is clicked?” You can choose the hotel’s timeline or if you have different applications like a welcome page or booking page you could choose those as well.
8. After setting up the ad you need to determine the audience the ads will target.  Target your audience by location (country, state, city, zip), age, gender, precise interests, connections (people already connected to page, people not connected to your page, or opt for advance setting to target people connected to specific pages).  As you fill in these requirements, on the right hand side you’ll see your audience reach update which shows you how many people your target settings will qualify to see the ad.

Hang in there, only a few more quick steps till your ads are complete and ready to run!

1. Now you need to define the objective of your ads.  Do you want to reach people who are most likely to click on your ad and visit your Facebook page, or do you just want maximum exposure to those people who will simply like your page?  Select “click on my ad” to set up the ad on a cost-per-click model since your objective is to have people click on your ad.  The other option, “show ad to people most likely to like my page” will set the ad up on a pay-per-impressions model.  I recommend the cost-per-click model since the goal for most advertisers will likely be to reach fans with a true interest in the page. These are the people that are likely to visit the page for more information and interact with hotel.  Plus, it is easy to control your budget and spend in cost-per-click structure.
2. Finally set a campaign name, budget (cost/day or lifetime budget), schedule (continuously or defined date range), and your bid.  Facebook offers a suggested bid range, however I advise starting on the low end and after a bit if you are not seeing the results you want, you can increase bid later.
3. The very last step to complete the set-up is to click the place order button and add billing information to the account.

Congratulations, you’ve just set up Facebook Ads to promote your hotel to thousands of Facebook users!  Keep reading for additional tips to effectively use the ads to benefit your social media strategies and goals.

Improving the Performance of Facebook Ads

Start by optimizing the ad itself. The ad copy is your first impression and chance to summon the interest of a multitude of Facebook users.  You only have 90 characters to do this so be savvy in writing catchy copy that lets people know what makes your hotel unique with a call-to-action to click on the ad or like the hotel’s Facebook page.  The image on the ad is very small so use this space intelligently as well. Load an image that is of high quality and easy to see in such a small format.

Use the ads to target valuable fans. In a successful social media campaign the account has a large and constantly growing fan base with a genuine curiosity in the business.  By targeting individuals that already have a shared interest in the hotel you’ll be more likely to gain fans that are truly interested in your business with a desire to interact with the hotel on Facebook.  Select precise interests such as the hotel brand, travel, vacation, local area and other relevant topics to the hotel.  Honing in on people with shared interests will have a positive effect on the hotel’s Facebook page in the long run due to increased engagement, to being the top of mind hotel in area, and growing dedicated fans that will not unlike the page weeks later.

Use the ads as a vehicle to promote more than just your hotel’s Facebook page. Facebook ads can and should be used for more reasons than to just build awareness of your hotel and grow fans.  Use the ads for other objectives such as promoting special events happening at the hotel.  Keep Facebook ads in your “distressed inventory strategy” toolbox to promote special offers for dates the hotel needs to drive occupancy.  Create additional hype about the hotel on Facebook by running a contest and use the Facebook ads to reach a large audience for maximum exposure.  Facebook ads will become an essential tool to expand your hotel’s reach, cultivate fans, inspire response and realize successful campaigns.

Don't forget about your non-paid Facebook posts. As powerful as Facebook ads can be for growing fans and increasing interactions, the ads are not to be used as the single voice and activity on the site.  After driving all these new fans to your Facebook page it is crucial to maintain Facebook management best practices to keep the new fans and inspire the desired interactions.  Continue to post frequently about relevant and interesting topics, share photos, and offer great deals to foster long-lasting relationships with your fans.

Monitor your results. As with most pay-per-click campaigns, the ads are not to be set and forgotten about.  Keep a constant eye on your budget and monitor results.  Within the campaign you can run multiple ads to test different copy and images to determine which ad yields the best results.  Increase or decrease bids accordingly to make the most of your budget.  Set goals for your ads such as attaining 50 new fans a month.  Once you reach the goal turn off the ads to save money and restart ads the following month.  By closely monitoring your campaigns you’ll quickly see that you can easily control spend.

There are plenty of benefits to running Facebook ads.  Obviously the ads will bring in a quick and steady pace of new fans.  More fans means more people will see what the hotel is saying.  More eyes on the content increases the potential for even more interactions.  More interactions and engagement with users will increase your organic reach and help the page to grow fans through unpaid efforts at a greater pace than before.  And in the end the hotel can decrease dependency on the ads to acquire new fans, but have the knowledge to use the ads for other objectives when needed.

Travelers are increasingly booking via the internet, with greater transparency and options more prevalent than ever.  In a Google study conducted in 2011, 37% of leisure travelers report that the internet prompted them to book, up from 28% two years ago.  Over 70% of travelers conduct research online before booking a hotel room. Specifically, search engines are some of the primary tools in the arsenal of the travel researcher.

But how can a guest learn about your hotel or make a reservation online if they can't find your hotel's website?

That's where search engine optimization, commonly known as SEO, comes to the rescue!  Utilizing the right SEO strategy will get your website in front of your targeted online audience, attract potential guests and ultimately increase your online reservations and revenue.

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

SEO is the process of building and maintaining various components of a website in order to increase the number of visitors to that site from search engines. The effectiveness of SEO is ultimately measured by the position of a website on a search engine results page (SERP) when searching for a certain keyword. In general, the higher your website is ranked on the search results page, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users.

A common misconception about SEO is that it is strictly about targeting the right keywords to reach your audience.  The truth is that SEO is an ongoing process that involves multiple facets - from the words or "copy" on each page of your website to the way other sites link to you on the web. SEO even includes building your website's architecture so that it is structured in a way that search engines can "crawl" it and understand your content.  In a good SEO strategy, your hotel's website isn't just optimized for search engines: it's also about making your web site better for guests too!

Why Does my Hotel's Website Need SEO?

Google and Bing are two major search engines that likely drive the majority of online traffic to your hotel's website.  There are other online avenues that generate visits to your website, such as social media, online travel agencies (OTAs), or travel blogs, but search engines are the preferred method of navigation for most Internet users and travelers.  Search engines offer a unique online opportunity - they provide targeted visitors - people who are looking for exactly what you offer.  As it relates to Google's 5 Stages of Travel, SEO helps hotels capture guests in stages 2 and 3 - planning and booking! Travelers who are researching their travel to a "Chicago hotel" or "hotel in Chicago" should be able to find your hotel's website right away if those keywords match your hotel's description and you are utilizing the right SEO strategy.  If your hotel's website cannot be found by search engines, then you are missing out on valuable guests, occupancy, and revenue.

Specific Factors that Contribute to your Hotel Websites' Ranking Success:

At Blue Magnet, we can effectively summarize search engine optimization as the integration of the following three components to your hotel website:

1. Architecture
2. Content
3. Reputation

Architecture

The first key component of search engine optimization has to do with the overall structure of your site and its technical coding. SEO seeks to pair the website address (domain name), the internal code of the website and the content of your site with the keywords that users search for in Google. This is called building relevancy. Architectural website components such as your choice of domain name (website address), the directory structure of your web pages, the simplicity of your webpage code, effective use of sitemaps, and lack of broken links or missing pages can all contribute to your hotel website's visibility (or lack thereof) in major search engines. Remember that a webpage is viewed differently from the crawlers of a search engine vs. the eyes of a human being.  The key is to mesh the structural components so that both search engines and human visitors can find and read your website.

Content

When people hear the term "search engine optimization," most people think that this is the sole component of an SEO strategy.  The fact is this is only one piece of the entire SEO puzzle. Optimizing content refers to conducting keyword research in order to determine which search queries people are typing into the search engines to find your hotel. Remember, it's not always about getting any ol' visitors to your site, but about getting the right, qualified kind of visitors.

Through the detective work of researching and analyzing your hotel's keyword demand, you not only learn which terms and phrases to target with SEO, but also learn more about your potential guests as a whole.  Some of the most popular keywords for hotels are "hotel in CITY," "CITY hotel," or "hotel near ATTRACTION."  Once these keywords for your specific hotel and location have been selected, they can be properly integrated in the visible text of your website. Search engines have become savvier in that they can decipher between well written content for human consumption versus content written specifically to achieve higher search engine rankings.  It is up to a balanced SEO strategy to integrate your hotel's chosen keywords and phrases in a natural way throughout your site that will help search engines and users alike understand exactly what your website can offer.

Keywords must be effectively integrated into many different areas of the site, including body text, meta tags, image alt tags, captions, PDFs and more. For a great example of this, check out a great blog post from SEOmoz that provides a great overview using a reference to chocolate donuts.  In addition, even though they are considered part of the back-end code of the site, it's also important to integrate important keywords into the meta tags of your site.  Meta tags are a great way for webmasters to provide search engines with information about their sites which aids in higher search engine rankings. Two of most important meta tags are the title tag and the meta description tag.  The title tag is intended to be a concise description of a page's content built from keywords.  It is a key component to both search engine optimization and a user's experience.  The meta description is a short description of the page's content that is displayed as the snippet of text beneath a search engine result listing.  Although these days the description meta tag has no impact on your search engine rankings, the copy you write for this tag will impact the clickthrough rate for the listing since it will often be displayed in the search results. A well-written description tag could mean the difference between a potential guest clicking on your listing and clicking on your competitor's listing.  To produce the greatest amount of traffic to your website at the highest conversion rate for your hotel, incorporate a solid keyword strategy, relevant and fresh content, and targeted meta tags.

Reputation

Your website's reputation is one of the more complex and possibly the most difficult component of successful search engine optimization campaigns. Search engines view your hotel's online reputation as a combination of numerous factors, including inbound links to your hotel's website, the age of your domain, the level of proficiency expressed within the content of your site, and your social media profiles. When outlining your link strategy, you want to focus on high quality inbound links to your website.  These can be found in the form of relevant industry sites, travel bloggers, niche market sites, event and attraction websites, and Convention Visitors Bureau (CVB) websites. A solid link building strategy is imperative to the success of your SEO strategy because major search engines consider each inbound link to your site as a "vote" for your reputation. Search engines with give you a better reputation with the more high-quality votes your site gets from other relevant websites. Hotels can optimize their websites for keywords till they turn blue in the face, but unless they get the link support from other reputable sites they will never outrank the competition.

Another crucial factor in a website's search engine rankings is valuable content.  This point ties into the content section we discussed earlier, but the value and importance of your content is a another influencing factor in your reputation in the search engines.  If you have strong, compelling web content, you are more likely to draw in new visitors to your site and attract high quality links.  So ultimately, by creating interesting content, you are increasing the number of quality inbound links, thus boosting your site's overall reputation, and finally increasing your website's search engine ranking!

Lastly, one aspect of SEO that is often forgotten is the impact of social media on search engine rankings and your online reputation.  Search engines such as Google and Bing are now taking social cues into consideration in ranking your site.  The connections you have within your network and the sites that are favored within that network will likely appear more prominently in your own personal searches. Most hotels make a big mistake by ignoring social media as part of their online marketing strategy. Provided you have the resources to maintain such communication, we recommend establishing a profile and constantly engaging with your community on the following sites, in order to aid your online marketing strategy and manage your online reputation:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Foursquare
• YouTube
• Pinterest

Here are some tips to best integrate SEO into your social media profiles:

1. Name your profiles correctly and fill out the entire profile completely - Use the full name of your hotel across all social media channels.  All areas of the profile should be completed: photos, bio, videos, links, topics, tags - whatever the channel offers, take full advantage of it.
2. Leverage your social media active contacts - friend/follow/connect with them on each of the platforms and interact with these contacts on a regular basis.
3. Link to legitimate accounts - Remember relevance is important and if the social media profile of a group or user looks unnatural or keyword-stuffed, your reputation is at risk

Invest in your social media profiles and they'll reward you with enhanced visibility within search engine results.

Can search engines still find my hotel's website without SEO?

Each year, Google changes its search algorithm anywhere from 500-600 times! And those are just the updates us SEO folks know about!  Most of these changes are very minor, but every few months Google rolls out a "major" algorithm change that heavily impacts search results (you may have heard of the Google "Panda Update" or the "Penguin Update").  The major search engines are always working towards improving their algorithm and technology to crawl the internet more thoroughly and return better results to users. However, search engines are not perfect and there is a limit to how they can operate.  Just as using the right SEO tactics can grant you thousands of visitors and bookings, the wrong SEO tactics can hide your site deep in the search results where visibility is minimal.  How many search results pages are guests going to go through to find your hotel? One? Two? Three? The majority of internet users never venture past the first or second page of search results.  Since the Internet is becoming increasingly competitive, those hotels that utilize a solid SEO strategy will continue to rank on the first page of search engines and will have a greater advantage in reaching new travelers.

All these areas of SEO can seem a bit daunting--from discovery of the terms and phrases (keywords) that generate traffic, to building a site that is search engine friendly, to acquiring the links and marketing the unique value of your hotel and your hotel's website.  But remember, if guests cannot find your hotel online, they won't be able to learn about your property or make a reservation.

*This article was co-authored by Jennifer Dewey and Ashley Stevens.

Number crunching, headaches, owner approval, Brand approval, and furious calculations… It sounds like budgeting season is here!  We know how tedious it is to go through last year’s budget to determine where you can cut costs or where more money should be spent. Not to mention, it’s difficult to keep up with the ever-evolving online market, let alone to know how much money to set aside for new initiatives that may arise.  That’s why Blue Magnet has put together this list of online marketing budget advice for hotels that will help you plan for a lucrative 2013.

Although it can be an exhausting process, we know that once a hotel has a set budget, it becomes nearly impossible to reallocate these funds. Budgeting season is our opportunity to ensure hotels know how to allocate the appropriate funds for internet marketing costs in order to see the ROI they expect.

Planning for Hotel Budget Season

The first step in budgeting effectively is to understand upcoming trends and opportunities in general, both for your market and for hotels. In 2013, social, local and mobile (SoLoMo) will continue its steady rise, while investment in traditional media will continue to dive. Google reports that 50% of travelers reserve hotel stays online, so doesn’t it make sense to allocate at least 50% of your overall marketing budget to digital marketing? Even though SoLoMo will take precedence, Blue Magnet Interactive recommends guaranteeing your entire online presence is up to par by allocating funds to all of the online marketing strategies below in order to see the best ROI on your campaign. Without further ado, here are Blue Magnet Interactive’s recommendations for how to spend your online marketing budget in 2013, staring with SoLoMo.

Social Media (The “So”)

While it’s certainly possible that Facebook may someday go the way of MySpace, social media as a movement is here to stay. Reputation management and engaging via social channels will continue to be a crucial piece of your online marketing campaign.

Engaging in social media can even help your organic search rankings. As engagement increases in your social media campaigns, research suggests that you may gain higher search engine rankings in correlation to your social media usage. Bing, for example, now has a very prominent social search bar on the right side of your screen, encouraging people to see what search listings their friends like and recommend. Google, too, is starting to boost rankings to hotels that have been +1ed by your inner circle. Hotels with little or no social media presence will start to slowly drop in rankings, unless they decide to jump on the social media train and engage.

In order to increase your engagement and your number of followers on social channels, hotels should create a social media marketing plan that strategically incorporates paid ads as well. Facebook Ads are very inexpensive, simple, and they are a great way to target people with interest in your hotel or property.

Blue Magnet social media budget recommendation: ~15%

Local Search (The “Lo”)

Why is local search important? Consider how you search. Typically, when searching for a hotel or restaurant you have a rough idea of the area you’re searching. For example, say you are heading to Nashville on business and you need to find a hotel. You’ll probably type something like “hotel in Nashville” into your favorite search engine. Or, if you’ve just landed in Nashville you will probably do a search on Google Maps or Yelp on your smartphone for hotels nearby. Both of these are considered local searches.

In order to make sure you are showing up in these local searches you need to optimize your presence for local searches as well as organic searches. There are very specific ongoing strategies for increasing your visibility through local search. Blue Magnet Interactive has seen success by utilizing Whitespark’s Local Search Citation finder to ensure we are covering all of our bases with local search. Please keep in mind that this, too, is a strategy that is ever-evolving and needs consistent attention throughout 2013 and beyond. Blue Magnet Interactive recommends having an SEO expert handle all of your search marketing.

Blue Magnet local search budget recommendation: ~10%

Hotel Website & Mobile Site (The “Mo")

Your online budgeting goals should all boil down to one objective: Drive direct online reservations through your hotel website (brand website, standalone website or both!). In addition, with the increase in the number of searches though mobile channels in 2013 it will be essential to encourage mobile bookings by creating a mobile friendly website.

Take a look at your competitor’s websites. Now look at their mobile sites. Go back and objectively look at your own brand and mobile sites. If your site is over 3-5 years old, there’s a great chance that your competitors are stealing your bookings just by having a more aesthetically pleasing site, even if your product is better. If your website is cluttered, poorly designed, difficult to navigate, lacking compelling imagery, or outdated, it may be time for a complete redesign. It’s often a potential guest's first impression of your hotel — better make it a good one!

Hotel websites with the highest conversion rates are based heavily on hotel photography and they are easy to navigate. If you’re building a site from scratch, it will be extremely important to consult an SEO team to ensure your site is built to be search engine friendly. SEO has changed drastically in the last 3-5 years, so if your site is older, there’s a good chance your hotel websites structure and content are hurting your rankings just by its outdated construction.

In addition, mobile site usage is quickly increasing. Experts predict mobile hotel bookings will surpass desktop bookings very soon, if they haven’t already by the time you found this article. Mobile sites can be simple and inexpensive, plus they tend to convert well and produce an excellent ROI. What's more, new technology, such as Responsive Web Design, allows you to create a website that is both mobile optimized as well as desktop and tablet optimized. Responsive web design can be an extremely affordable solution for your hotel, as it essentially allows your site to dynamically adapt to the screen size of any viewing device, whether it’s a smartphone, desktop computer or tablet.

Blue Magnet website and mobile site budget recommendation: ~20%

Budgeting Beyond SoLoMo

New Photography

The same rule applies to new photography as it does to your hotel website’s lifespan: If your hotel photos are more than 3-5 years old, now is the time to budget for a new photo shoot. Likewise, if your hotel has been renovated since your last photo shoot and your website does not reflect your new photos, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to showcase your newly renovated accommodations.  While costly, photos are crucial to selling your site, particularly online. Moreover, photo gallery pages tend to be one of the most viewed pages or your site. Photos turn lookers into bookers. Our analytics show that beyond the homepage, the Photo Gallery consistently receives the most visits on hotel websites.

Blue Magnet Interactive recently recommended a photo shoot to one of our clients with outdated photography. After one month of having the photos live, their conversion rate increased 5% YOY to an almost 12% conversion rate! If you’re driving traffic to your site but the conversion rate is consistently low, updating your photos may be the key to securing more bookings.

Blue Magnet photography budget recommendation: ~15%

Paid Search

In 2013, hotel should continue to allocate a fair chunk of the budget towards paid search in Google and OTA sites. Paid ads are still one of the quickest ways to gain exposure for targeted keywords and one of the most measurable sources of online ROI.

Google’s PPC program is one of most commonly used methods of paid advertising and it works well for many different advertisers. Specifically in the hospitality industry, we have seen the most success with Expedia Travel Ads, Intent Media Sponsored Ads (Orbitz & Travelocity), and Facebook Ads. These programs tend to be very successful because they are so customizable and give hotels the ability to target specific need dates.

Blue Magnet paid search budget recommendation: ~10%

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

In the past, we’ve heard clients say “Our site is already SEOed, we don’t need ongoing management.” Just because your site was initially built to be SEO-friendly with keyword optimized content and meta tags, that does not mean your rankings will withstand the test of time. In 2011, Google changed their algorithm over 500 times. As a result, Google’s search results are becoming more relevant and valuable. If your hotel isn’t keeping up with website updates and adjusting the SEO strategy accordingly, your hotel - that previously ranked on the first page of Google’s search engine ranking position (SERP) - could drop drastically in a matter of weeks or months. Allocating funds monthly to an SEO specialist is absolutely essential for maintaining and gaining exposure in various search engines.

Blue Magnet SEO budget recommendation: ~20%

Reputation Management

Funding reputation management is always a budget must-have. No matter how well your website looks and functions, your guests will have positive and negative reviews on various internet channels. According to RateTiger, 33% of bookers change their choice of hotel based on reviews alone. Unattended negative reviews can be the difference between a guest choosing your hotel or choosing your competitor’s product. However, simply having someone manage your reputation and respond to any review in a helpful, concerned manner will be dramatically beneficial to you reputation. Consider SoLoMo again; Google+ Local now shows Zagat reviews on their listings, clearly displayed for users once they click on your listing.  A reputation manager can manage all review sites, respond to these reviews, report fraudulent reviews entries, and even perform other tasks that will encourage new, more positive reviews to push any negative reviews further down on the list and thus out of sight.  Dedicating some of your budget to reputation management is a definite must for 2013.

Blue Magnet reputation management budget recommendation: ~5%

Maintenance and Miscellaneous

It’s a well-known fact that the internet is constantly evolving at a rapid pace, which means your newly-constructed website or your perfectly-tweaked social media profiles can’t just be left by the wayside. Someone needs to constantly update your website’s content for freshness and usability.  Your social media profiles should be updated regularly with valuable content that engages your community and encourages online conversations.  As you can imagine, maintaining a website’s freshness and posting regularly on social media requires time, dedication, and knowledge.  What’s more, as the internet evolves, there may be new initiatives that arise throughout the year that will require additional budget.  For example, in 2011 Google launched their social media platform, Google+, and just recently, they combined Google+ with their Local Search listings to create a one-stop shop for online users.  This affected the hospitality industry since hotels must now have a Google+ Brand profile in order to optimize their Local Listing.  New initiatives (i.e. the introduction of Apple Maps) that require time and knowledge will continue to crop up as the year continues and as the internet continues to grow.  Be sure to allot enough money in your budget to handle these maintenance and miscellaneous expenses.

Blue Magnet miscellaneous budget recommendation: ~5%

2013 Online Marketing Budget Breakdown

Tying It All Together

While headaches, number crunching, approvals and many scratch-outs may still be a part of your 2013 budget meeting, planning ahead for your online marketing budget will save you the hassle of reallocating funds. These tips should provide you with clear insight as to what is important to budget for 2013, so that you don’t get caught empty-handed when that new travel website launches or when Google releases a new update.