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!

Have you ever tried to quickly update your official hotel website with time-sensitive information, but were told it would take weeks for the brand to make the change? Do you want to include links to your hotel’s social media accounts on your official website but the brand says you can’t? Has your brand ever prevented you from adding a link to a website you thought might be valuable for your visitors? Or maybe the brand has placed restrictions on the landing pages you are allowed to create within your site.

As you probably know by now, there are many additions, enhancements and optimization techniques that simply can't be made to your hotel’s official brand website. If this sounds familiar to you then your hotel’s online presence is being limited by your official brand website.

But don’t worry, you’re not alone! Many individual hotels flying big brand flags face these same challenges. Fortunately, an independent hotel website can be a boon to your overall online marketing efforts by effectively bypassing these brand limitations altogether!

Why major brands use constrictive website templates

Hotels may dislike these restrictions and limitations on what they can do with their own sites, but for the most part it's understandable why the brand maintains this control. After all, major hotel brands have massive amounts of content to manage across ALL their sites for ALL their hotels. As such, these brands often need to create strict standards and limited customizable content in order to effectively manage all the web content for their massive portfolio of properties. Imagine trying to manage online content for 2,000 different hotel websites with 2,000 different designs for 2,000 different Directors of Sales? Coordinating that process at the brand level would be a nightmare, hence, the necessity for an easy-to-manage website template with content limitations.

Your website should reflect your hotel's unique personality and destination

While the aforementioned template strategy is great for the corporate brand managers, who strive for uniform brand messaging across all properties, it fails to truly differentiate hotels in the same brand from one another.  In the end, the unique personality and visual appeal of each individual hotel gets homogenized by the templated nature of the sites.

For example, consider the official hotel website for an Embassy Suites in Waikiki, Hawaii.  Notice how it presents visitors with the same aesthetic appeal as the official website for an Embassy Suites in Piscataway, New Jersey. These are two hotels in very different markets: one a lush, tropical paradise known for luaus, leis and lava rock; and the other a small town in the Garden State settled in 1666 by Quakers and Baptists. It's difficult to make that distinction based solely on the screenshots of their homepages below. Online consumers are visual creatures--as evidenced by the fact that photo galleries are often one of the most visited pages of a hotel's website (after the homepage)--so it would be in each hotel's best interest to customize their site design to reflect their unique destinations.

Can you spot the difference between Hawaii and New Jersey?  No?  Me neither.

It is difficult to showcase the defining characteristics of your hotel and the destination in which it resides when the brand fits each hotel with the same school uniform. As a GM, DOS or hotel owner, you know your hotel stands apart from your competitors, but your official brand website is preventing you from creating this distinction in the eyes of your customers! A unique, custom, independent hotel website is often the only way to truly differentiate your hotel from others in your market. Remember, you’re not only competing with other brands in your market, in some cases you’re even competing with hotels in your same brand!

With that in mind, here are the top 7 ways an independent website can benefit your hotel:

1. Offer helpful links and additional content for SEO

With an independent website, your hotel has the authority to add any outbound links to other relevant sites. Links on landing pages and area attractions pages provide a great resource for SEO and link-building campaigns. If your hotel has a page dedicated to the wineries in the area with links to the winery websites, the wineries might be more likely to list a link to your hotel on their website. In addition, interlinking the pages of your independent site can help boost rankings for landing pages targeting niche keywords, like those for area attractions and events.  Efforts like this are simple to implement with an independent hotel website, and can help rank your site for more niche keywords in search engines.

2. Cover more ground in search engine results

With both your official brand site and an independent site, your hotel is able to be fully optimized to rank for many more keywords. There are a limited number of pages of brand websites that can be optimized, targeting just a few keywords. Creating landing pages about upcoming area events, updating meta tags to target important keywords and keeping fresh, keyword optimized content on the site are just a few ways your independent hotel website will stand out in search engines for the keywords that tend to convert better.

In addition, independent websites give your hotel complete control over common SEO strategies that aren't always available on brand websites, including optimizing H1, Title tags, alt tags on photos and creating a search engine and user-friendly site structure.

3. Present a unique design and improved user experience

An independent website showcases your hotel property and can be customizable to your unique surroundings. Is your hotel on the beach? A winery? In a city center? Your unique, independent website can be customized to your hotel property type, giving you an edge over the template brand websites.  Why would you want your hotel, which sits at the heart of a bustling metropolis, to have a website that looks the same as a hotel in the middle of rural America? Whether you like it or not, people do judge books by their covers, and your customers are no different.  Potential guests are making snap decisions about the quality of your hotel by the way it presents itself online.  If you have a poorly designed site, don't expect customers to be lining up at your reservation desk.

For a good example of this, Embassy Suites Temecula is located in the heart of Temecula wine country in the beautiful rolling hills of southern California, which is reflected by the unique background on their independent hotel website. Because of the template of their brand website, the hotel isn't visually showcased as such a great destination. As you can see, the background, photos and unique design on their independent website give visitors a snapshot of the beautiful location and everything the hotel has to offer.

Independent Hotel Website (visit site)

Brand Hotel Website (visit site)

Along with the website design, the pages of the independent hotel website are customizable as well. If your hotel wants to promote pet-friendly rooms, on-site weddings or green accommodations, a unique landing page can easily be created to capture search traffic for those terms.

4. Make website updates more quickly

With an independent website, the hotel has complete control over the content. If your hotel recently created a special brunch menu, or took new photos of the lobby, those can be displayed on the independent hotel website within hours or even minutes. Not only do brand websites typically have a lengthy approval process, but there is not always a dedicated spot on your brand site to display important content, making it more difficult for visitors to take action on those items. Even loading simple content on some hotel brand sites can sometimes take two weeks or more--a long time to wait if you're trying to promote a last-minute special offer!

5. Showcase on-site hotel outlets

Hotels frequently ask Blue Magnet for help promoting their on-site outlets, including spas, restaurants, gift shops, fitness centers and golf courses. Although there are great strategies for promoting hotel restaurants and other on-site amenities, a branded website only allows for so much customization.

For instance, Hilton La Jolla Torrey Pines wanted to be sure they highlighted their popular on-site amenities as you can see below. They specifically wanted to be sure they were actively promoting their on-site restaurant, which is frequently updated with special menus and even includes a special Meet Our Chef page.

With the freedom a hotel has with their independent website, outlet pages can include important things such as a widget for visitors to make restaurant reservations, descriptions and photos of your on-site spa services, special event flyers or the ability to view and book tee times. These can be fully optimized for local dining or local attraction keywords and can capture searches not only for guests staying at the hotel, but for non-hotel guests looking for area amenities as well.

6. Better social media integration

Hotels now realize the importance of social media in their industry and have hopefully created hotel profiles across the major social media channels. Now, how do you let your guests know that you have a Facebook page or Twitter account?

Unfortunately, many hotel brand websites don’t allow for on-site integration, thus limiting the promotion of such channels. When equipped with only a hotel brand website, visitors will likely only find your social media profiles when specifically searching for them. Independent hotel websites allow you to integrate and prominently showcase each one of your social media profiles, making it easy for visitors to follow, like and interact with your hotel.

The Hilton Bellevue Hotel has a link to their Facebook, Twitter and TripAdvisor listing on each page of their website, as you can see in the screenshot above. Visitors to this hotel website can easily follow the hotel on Twitter, like them on Facebook, or leave a review on TripAdvisor following their stay. The easier it is to find your social media profiles, the quicker a hotel will grow their fan base.

7. Detailed website tracking and analytics

This may be the most important benefit to having a unique, independent hotel website. With website analytics, the hotel can track how users are finding the website and can monitor visitor activity and behavior once they arrive. This invaluable information for hotels includes everything from number of visitors viewing the site on mobile devices, search terms visitors are using to find the site and popular room types or specials. New analytics tracking even allows us to see social media influences on conversions and how multiple channels (PPC, SEO, social media, etc) are working together to influence each booking. This information can only be accessed through independent websites, as many hotel brands don't provide such detailed analytics tracking to their hotels.

This hotel, for example, can see that a majority of visitors to their website are going straight to the reservation widget to book a room or check rate. They can also see that their breakfast and dinner menu on the dining page are the 2nd and 3rd most viewed events on the website, followed by the Double Queen and Standard King room types. With this insight, the hotel knows that their dining page should be fully optimized, as many people are viewing the menus. They can also see that maybe they should take another look at their lunch menu, as maybe it is not as enticing as the Breakfast and Dinner. There are many opportunities to find when you have insight such as this.

Another helpful analytics report shows what country website visits are coming from. As you can see below, this hotel has quite a few Canadian visitors. This is great insight, as the hotel can focus on making sure they are optimized online for both Canada and the United States, including updating their listings on popular Canadian travel websites or creating special offers for Canadian travelers.

Many major hotel brands provide very limited reporting to their individual hotels, making it difficult (if not impossible) for them to track and analyze user behavior as highlighted above. In the end, having access to these kinds of web reports and being able to analyze the behavior of your users can help you modify your site’s content to increase overall conversion rates.

A necessary ingredient of the online optimization pie

An independent hotel website allows for many opportunities to stand out online, above and beyond the 7 reasons above. With all the benefits and flexibility it provides, for many hotels an independent website is a necessary ingredient of their online marketing mix. With the ability to track website clicks, gain detailed keyword insight and really showcase your unique property, independent websites are a popular alternative to hotel brand websites.

That's not to say that you should ignore your official brand site!  Far from it.  After all, all reservations must still be directed through the official brand booking engine.  But as an individual hotel you should use the Brand-provided website as a base platform--a starting point.  It will allow hotels with smaller budgets and fewer resources to participate in the online marketing game, and will elevate those hotels to the same level playing field as bigger hotels flying your flag.  But it won't set you apart.  An independent site allows you to create your own, flexible digital marketing hub.  It gives you the power to elevate your property above the brand's base efforts and experiment with exciting, new online revenue generators in which the brand may not be interested in participating.

Overall, an independent website is simply a more efficient, sexier vehicle in which to move a guest through the 5 stages of travel--from the research, to the booking, to sharing. In the end, it's hard to resist a hotel with a well-designed, unique, custom website, complete with all of the information visitors are looking for. Create one and your conversion rates will thank you for it.

Need more information?

Give us a call at 877-361-1177 x202 or send us a note if you are interested in finding out more about independent websites or how Blue Magnet can help you achieve your hotel's ecommerce goals.

When visitors arrive at your hotel website using their mobile phone what do they see? Is it easy for them to book a room? To find directions? To call the hotel? Or have you forced your potential customers to try to view and navigate your standard website--which was designed for large computer monitors--on a small, mobile screen about the size of a playing card?

If your customers are still pinching, zooming, scrolling through your standard website on their mobile devices, it's likely that you're losing out on room revenue from mobile visitors due to your hotel website's frustrating mobile experience. Discouraged customers will book elsewhere if it's too difficult for them to navigate your mobile website. Stop driving paying guests to your mobile-optimized competitors by creating a mobile version of your own website!

Just take a look below at how a standard website appears on your mobile phone versus the mobile-optimized version. As you can see, the mobile optimized website on the right is much easier to read and navigate right from the get-go--no zooming required!

As a hotelier, being able to communicate effectively to your potential customers on their mobile phones can have a tremendous impact on your bottom line. Unlike a standard computer, most people are tethered to their smartphones all day, every day. Think about it: if you're a smartphone owner, try to recall the last time you were separated from it for more than 10 minutes. Chances are that gadget is next to you at all times: while you eat, while you sleep, while you commute, while you're at work and maybe for some of you it's even with you in the bathroom. Your mobile phone is an always-on, omnipresent device that's connected to the internet 24 hours a day, thanks to the wonders of fast 3G/4G data streaming. The chances of someone searching for your hotel on a mobile phone are quite high when you consider how much time we smartphone owners spend with our gadgets. This is great news, because there's nothing a marketer likes more than an always-connected audience to advertise to.

Why bother with a mobile hotel website?

There are two primary reasons why your hotel needs a mobile site:

1. An increasing number of users are reaching your site through mobile devices
2. The way a mobile user interacts with your website is very different than that of a non-mobile user

Because of the sheer volume of mobile users it makes it that much more important to address this growing group's needs. In order to foster the best conversion rates on your site you need to present the right content in the right format depending on how the visitor is accessing your site. If you just bought a new house you wouldn't use a single pickup truck to move in all your furniture! Sure, it might save you a little money and would get the job done, but it would take forever! Using a moving truck with professional movers is a much more efficient way to accomplish the task. The same goes for your website. Sure, users can muddle their way through your standard website on their mobile device, but it's much more efficient to have the site optimized to fit their mobile browser. It's all about providing the right tool for the size of the job.

The rise of the mobile user

So just how many users have gone mobile, you ask? Well, you've likely heard the recent statistics about mobile phone ownership outpacing personal computer ownership (PDF). Or how half the population of US mobile subscribers now own smartphones. Or that it is estimated that there will be over 108 million tablet users by 2015. While there are plenty of sites that have these statistics, at Blue Magnet it's even more compelling when we look at our own client data.

For instance, take a look at the increase in mobile visits to this hotel's website in July 2010 vs the same month in 2012. Keep in mind that by 2010, the original iPhone had already been out 3 years, yet this hotel still only saw 5% of their traffic coming from mobile devices. Fast forward to July 2012 and you can see that in those two short years mobile visits to the hotel website now represent 25% of the total site visits! That's a full quarter of their traffic that represents over 8,000 visits in that month alone.

If you've made it difficult for these people to book a room or call your hotel by showing them a non-mobile optimized page when they arrive at your site, you've drastically cut your conversion rate for those visitors. You've made it much more difficult for them to navigate your cumbersome, standard website.

In another example, let's compare three months worth of mobile traffic for a cluster of hotels in 2011 (orange) versus the same months in 2012 (blue). Comparing the same 3 months year-over-year we see an astounding 140% growth in mobile traffic to this website. And, as you can clearly see from the chart below, the mobile trend line continues to move upward and onward. In one year this cluster of hotels managed to more than double their mobile traffic (from 22,839 visits last year to 54,748 this year).

What does it mean to have a "mobile optimized" hotel website?

As you probably know, most modern smartphones are able to render mobile-optimized and non-mobile optimized sites without a problem. If you view any website in your mobile browser, chances are your Android, iPhone, or Windows phone will be able to show you the page without a hitch. But just because you can view a webpage on your mobile phone doesn't means it's optimized for that smaller screen size. Consumers interact with websites on mobile devices differently than they would on their standard computers, and because of this, your site should be optimized appropriately to help them accomplish their goals.

Consider these elements when creating a mobile-optimized hotel website:

1. Consider your audience and how they're consuming your content - We want to format our website in a way that makes it easier for consumers to browse our content no matter what device they are on. At the most basic level, this means creating two separate version of your website: one that can be viewed on a normal computer monitor, and one that can be viewed on a mobile device (which includes both smartphones and tablets). In order to send the correct version of the website to the correct visitor, some code is placed on the backend of the site that determines whether the user is viewing with a standard computer or a mobile device.
   
   Some businesses even go as far as to create separate website layouts to address the distinction between smartphones versus tablets within the "mobile devices" category. After all, the behavior of smartphone users is considerably different than that of tablet users. As such, the content should be structured in a way that is most conducive to the usage requirements of each type of visitor.
   
   There's even a new web development technique called responsive web design, which involves a single website that reformats dynamically to the size of the user's viewing screen. This is a great option that entails essentially creating three versions of the website (standard, tablet, smartphone) in one. Regardless of which technique is used--creating different versions of your website or using responsive web design--the goal is the same: present visitors with content that is optimized for viewing on their specific device.
2. Show only the most important content - Mobile users navigate a site differently than their non-mobile counterparts. Things such as directions, contact info, and click-to-call are some of the most important actions a mobile user might want to make on your site. You probably don't need to feature every little niche landing page you've ever created on your mobile site. Those kinds of pages likely aren't at the top of the list of useful content for your mobile visitors, so they probably don't need to be featured on your mobile site.
   
   Consider this: according to an article in USA Today, Vice President of Marriott eMarketing Andrew Kauffmann states that about half of Marriott's mobile bookings are same-day reservations. This means that these mobile guests will be probably be using their smartphones to 1) see photos of the hotel;  2) review accommodation options;  3) call the hotel with questions; 4) book their same-day reservation; or 5) find directions to the hotel. If you don't have elements on your mobile-optimized site that quickly and clearly address these key customer goals, you're making it much more difficult for those mobile users to become heads in your beds.
3. Avoid Adobe Flash - Many mobile phones, notably the ubiquitous iPhone, simply won't display Adobe Flash content. Instead, that Flash content will show up as a nice, big, ugly grey box in the middle of your pretty website. If you think your standard website looks absolutely breathtaking with a nice Flash slideshow of your property on the homepage, keep in mind that most mobile users will never see it. With mobile-friendly HTML5 and jQuery alternatives, there is no reason a hotel should need to rely on Flash for their website slideshow or photo gallery.
4. Make text larger - When mobile browsers render your non-mobile site they often start "zoomed out" to fit the entire webpage width in the screen. Then, for the visitor to read the teeny tiny text on the screen they have to pinch and zoom in order to hone in on the section they want to read. While many users have gotten used to this format, it's far from ideal. For one thing, if you've zoomed into to one part of the screen to read an article, you then need to zoom out in order to reorient yourself within the page and then zoom into the next section of the page you want to read.
5. Beware of small links for fat fingers - Similar to the previous item, small links on mobile devices can cause problems for even normal sized fingers, let alone those with over-sized digits. For instance, many main navigation bars have many links listed close together. If your site isn't optimized for mobile devices it's too easy to accidentally "click" the wrong link with your wide digits. Shoppers tend to get frustrated with having to constantly go back and try again; by utilizing a more ‘mobile-friendly’ template you’ll be able to get your potential guest the info they want more quickly.
6. Improve cumbersome booking widgets - Don't make booking a room at your hotel a chore for your mobile customers. For most mobile users a click-to-call button would easily accomplish the same function as a booking widget, but would require less steps and less input. There are likely many people that don't want to have to manually enter their credit card information into your system to reserve their room. Ideally, you might give the mobile customer a choice: offer a click-to-call button but also offer a "Book Now" button that takes the user into your mobile-optimized reservation system. Regardless of what you offer, simpler is better on the mobile device.
7. Streamline lengthy forms - Although I have some friends who can probably text faster than they can type on a standard keyboard, for most consumers it can be a pain to fill out lengthy forms on mobile devices. These kinds of forms might be okay when viewing the page on your standard computer, but no one wants to fill out 20 fields in a Contact Us form on a mobile device when a well-placed click-to-call phone number would accomplish the same goal much more quickly. Also, I'd venture to say that, based on my own experiences, consumers hate filling out lengthy forms anyway, regardless of whether your site is mobile optimized or not.  Keep 'em short!
8. Give customers the option to return to the non-mobile site - If you have a mobile-optimized version of your website, make sure you at least give your visitors the option to view your standard website. Since many mobile sites only display content that is most pertinent to the mobile user, oftentimes some of the standard website content might be omitted to avoid clutter. While this can be a good tactic, it can be quite frustrating to view a mobile website only to realize that the content you want to view is only available on the standard website.
   
   In fact, many sites now place a link at the bottom of their pages that says "view full website." This ensures that your visitors aren't trapped in mobile view if they'd prefer not to be. As an example, you can view the mobile version of the Hilton Chicago website. Notice that while they do a great job of providing a mobile site with essential information (phone number, address/map, hotel policies, reservation button), the site does not provide a way to go back to the standard website. If I wanted to view this hotel's dining options or special offers I'd have no way to do it from their mobile site. Giving customers this option helps reduce frustration, a key user experience goal for any website.
9. Track and analyze - Make sure you track the actions of your users across both your mobile-optimized and standard websites. You need to understand how mobile users are interacting with your content so you can help improve and refine their path to your desired goal: booking a room. Which mobile pages are most popular? Is there a call to action on those pages? If you find that too many visitors are clicking the "view full site" link then it might mean your mobile site has omitted important content that visitors want. You might even consider purchasing a call-tracking system to determine the conversion rate on your mobile website's click-to-call button. If mobile visitors compose a quarter of your site traffic, it's important to understand the how the conversion rates, booking windows, ADR and conversion funnel differ from that of visitors to your standard website. Chances are those two groups behave very differently, and understanding their actions can help you better guide those users towards their goal.

Optimizing your hotel website for the mobile visitor can have a tremendous impact on your mobile conversion rate. Simply by making it easier for that user to navigate your site on the small screen, you've given a boost to your mobile ROI. As such, the user experience on your website should always be one of your top priorities. Your website might feature great content, amazing photos and perfect calls-to-action, but if it's excruciatingly difficult to navigate and view your site then you've failed to deliver that great content to your potential customers in a way that's convenient for them.

Unless your site was built using responsive design, it is likely not a one-size-fit-all scenario. Yes, there will probably be an additional cost to create a second site targeted to mobile users. Yes, this means you may have to update two different versions of your website. But the alternative, if you don't optimize the website format for this audience, is that you're possibly missing out on a chance to convert a large segment of visitors to your site. Furthermore, with increased data speeds, easier-to-use mobile interfaces and faster smartphone processors, the mobile user base is only going to continue to expand.

Time for a little exercise: Take out your mobile phone and access your hotel's website. So, how does it look? Will your mobile visitors be converting to paying guests?

Move out of the way, Google! There’s a new old-guy in town called Bing with a better way to search, by using other people’s perspectives on movies, products, and more.  The redesigned search engine rolled out in May 2012 under the URL www.bing.com/new, but today you’ll find the new 3-column search engine display using either Bing.com or Bing.com/new.

So, how does this new 3-column display affect the way in which we now search on Bing? According to The Bing Team on Bing’s Blog, “Bing now integrates search and people in our social networks through a dedicated social 'sidebar.' With the sidebar, Bing brings together the best of the web, using the social opinions and preferences of experts and your friends alike, giving you the confidence to act. This new way to search lets you share, discover, and interact with friends like you do in real life."

Let’s dive into the elements of the Bing Social Interface to flesh out what the changes are and how they may help improve the way in which we search.

The Core

As previously stated, Bing has rolled out a new 3-column display on search. The Core Search, or the main search page, remains fairly unchanged. However, Bing removed the social annotations from the core search results, as they claim the social annotations caused more confusion for users in identifying credibility for each result. The assertion by Bing that social annotations didn’t help the user search experience is contrary to the reports that Google has released, so I guess we shall see who comes out victorious in that battle.

The Snapshot

Moving to the immediate right of the search results (but still within the main search window), you’ll find the “Snapshot.” The Snapshot provides the user with additional information about a search listing without needing to leave Bing’s main search results. Often times, the Snapshot will appear for a restaurant listing and it will provide the contact information, display pictures of the restaurant, and it may even include snippets of user reviews.

The Social Sidebar

Finally, the most significant upgrade to Bing’s search is the Social Sidebar to the far right of the screen. By logging into Facebook or your Windows Live account, the Social Sidebar integrates your search queries with your social network friends’ knowledge. The goal is to provide you with well-rounded (depending on your friends) perspectives on your search queries and allow you to make informed decisions.

When logging on to Bing, the most noteworthy update to the interface is the social sidebar on the far right-hand side of the screen.  This sidebar can display up to four different components:

• Ask Friends
• Friends Who Might Know
• People Who Might Know
• Activity Feed

Ask Friends

The "Ask Friends" section of the sidebar (see the blue circle to the right) allows you to do just that: ask friends on Facebook.  Simply, type your question into the text box and tag any friends that you think may be able to help answer your question. Your question will then be posted on your Facebook Timeline as a status update and any friends who were tagged in your question will receive a private message containing the question.  If you’d like to control who sees your Bing posts through Facebook, go to  your Account Settings and change the Bing settings under “Apps.”  Please note that Facebook will employ their “Edgerank” algorithm to determine which friends will see your question/post, depending on how relevant Facebook thinks that friend is to your question.

Friends Who Might Know

Another element of the Social Sidebar is the “Friends Who Might Know” feature.  Once you have signed-in, Bing pulls from Facebook to suggest relevant friends that may have knowledge on your search subject.  Bing determines which friends are relevant by searching the photos they’ve shared, the pages they’ve liked, and even posts in which they mention the search subject.  If you’re uncertain as to why a friend was suggested, just hover over their picture to release the drop-down box with the links, photos, and pages they’ve shared that made them relevant.  If you want to send questions or add links to this friend for advice, just click on the plus symbol icon next to the friend’s name.  Remember, everyone can see the question posted on your Timeline, but your “friend” will receive a private message containing the question and links.

People Who Might Know

While the first two features of the Social Sidebar crawl your Facebook friends for relevancy, the “People Who Might Know” section of the sidebar searches a variety of social channels that Bing considers appropriate to your search.  Some of the social channels Bing crawls, besides Facebook, are Twitter, LinkedIn, Quora, Foursquare, Blogger, and even Google+.  The people who may appear in this section will not be your specific Facebook friends, but rather experts, authors, and anyone with information that’s relative to your topic as Bing sources blogs, tweets, and other relative posts.  One significant difference that should be noted about this element of the Social Sidebar is that the results are not personalized; the "People Who Know" results will be the same for everyone performing that same search.

Activity

Finally, the Activity section of the Social Sidebar at the bottom of the column is simply a running feed of questions that you or your Facebook friends have asked (see the green circle in the screenshot above). You can respond to your friends’ questions by clicking on the question.  To see your responses, also just click on the question.  The questions that appear in this section don’t correspond with your current search query – it’s simply a running list of questions asked over time by you or your friends.

Changes to Bing's core search results

Now that we’ve gone through the different elements of the Social Sidebar, let’s quickly run through the changes made by Bing to the Core Search Results.  As I previously mentioned, Bing removed the social annotations under each search result because they determined that the annotations weren’t as helpful as they had expected.  In place of the social annotations, Bing is now using small gray icons to identify “Trending Topics” and “Thumbs Up” topics by your social friends.

For search results containing trending topics, a small gray arrow will appear to the left of the search result.  By hovering over the arrow, Bing will show where the topic is trending, such as on Facebook or Twitter.  For results that your Facebook friends have liked, a small gray icon with a thumbs-up will appear to the left of the search result.  By hovering over that icon, you can see what friends either “Liked” the article or the source from which the article was pulled.  These small social annotation upgrades are less intrusive than the previous version of Bing’s social annotations, but be aware that trending topics will sometimes rank higher than your personalized results as part of the social integration of Bing’s new search algorithm.

It's clear that Bing is working hard to pave a new path in the social integration of search results and stand apart from Google's progress. I personally think Bing's new social interface is a highly useful improvement on several fronts. With the new, 3-column lay-out, Bing extricates social results from global results which lends to less confusion as to which sites are "credible" and which sites are more social and opinion-based.

I also see the Social Sidebar being very helpful in the hospitality and travel industries, as users now have the capability to interact with their Facebook friends or "People Who Might Know" while making travel arrangements.  For example, a user who is trying to plan a vacation to Europe can now use the Social Sidebar to ask Facebook Friends for suggestions on hotels, attractions, and even the best time of year to visit.  Depending on the number of people logged-into Facebook at the time of the question, that user could have answers and suggestions within minutes of posting the question. Furthermore, that same user will automatically be able to see which of their Facebook friends lived, studied abroad, or has some level of knowledge on that travel location that the user may have been privy to prior to his/her Bing search.

Having that level of interaction and connection to other people while sitting alone on the computer in your living room is revolutionary and, if used correctly, will help shape much more insightful travel plans.  If businesses or hotels begin incorporating Bing into their social media management schedules, it could potentially be another channel for marketing and engaging with future guests. Simply answering questions posed on Facebook from Bing could provide valuable information to the user and could convert into a reservation. I'll be keeping my eyes on Bing as this new interface continues to grow and evolve.

If you were to ask most travelers how many distinct stages are involved in the general act of travelling, I would guess that most people would identify two: the research phase and the booking phase.  And for most people that's what they do--they research the destination, the transportation, the rates, and then make a final decision that leads to the booking for hotel rooms, flights and car rentals.  It's a good start, and I'm guessing that many hoteliers are only concerned with the actions a potential guest takes up to the point where they actually select their hotel, but it's not the whole picture.  In fact, Google has identified 5 stages of travel, and as online marketers its important for us to target customers at each point in that buying process.

Research and Booking: A Fraction of the Travel Cycle

For most hotels, the booking is the final goal of their online marketing efforts.  It is seen as a linear path that starts off with the consumer planning and researching their travel plans online, and finishing at the checkered flag at the hotel reservation.  Unfortunately, once that guest crosses the finish line some hotels will wipe their hands clean of that customer.  Well, you could stop there...but then you'd be missing out on a huge opportunity to foster brand loyalty and have guests' experiences at your hotel work in your favor long after their stay in the form of word-of-mouth advertising.

Google's Take On How We Travel

Just take a look below at this nifty little infographic that Google developed, identifying what they consider the 5 Stages of Travel.  Whether you agree or disagree with the specific stages featured below, there's no denying that there is a multi-faceted sales cycle and different online marketing tactics can and should be used to target travelers at each of the various phases in this process.  Whether the customer is dreaming about their next vacation or experiencing it firsthand, it provides a huge opportunity to connect with your customers at each of these key moments in their travel buying cycle.

So based on this interactive infographic from our buddies at Google, how can hotels target potential customers as they move from stage to stage in planning their vacation?

Stage 1: DREAM A Little Dream

As a traveler, you've got to start with a dream.  Maybe you saw a billboard of a spectacular Hawaiian sunset emblazoned with the simple phrase, "Visit Hawaii."  Maybe you're friend just posted a video of their hilarious attempt at surfing in Maui on Facebook.  Or maybe your little nephew just picked up the ukulele and suddenly your mind wanders to the land of luaus, leis, and lava rock.  And then again, maybe it's 3 degrees in Chicago and you just need one sweet week of pure tropical escape.  Regardless of how the idea entered your head, you're now starting to talk it over with your friends and family, casually tossing out the idea of sometime heading to the Aloha state in the next year.  The seed has been planted...and it won't take long for that palm tree to grow.

Why is this stage important?

• In 2011, 49% of leisure travelers reported researching online after viewing an online ad.  Start that spark early and get potential guests moving through these 5 stages of travel.  The dream is what starts the potential customer through the buying cycle.

So how does a hotel reach this dreamer in stage 1?

• Email marketing: Reach out to your past guests with a well-timed email campaign.  Hopefully you've made good use of your email collection form on your website or have been diligently collecting emails at your front desk and now have a solid list of interested travelers just waiting for that perfect vacation idea.  Put an idea in their head.
• Social media: Encourage past guests to share their experiences on your social media channels.  The end of their trip can be the spark that ignites the start of a future traveler's trip.  Expand your word-of-mouth reach by encouraging your guests to share and interact with your communities online.  The social media component should be present at all stages and helps to tie the hotel to the user throughout the process.  However, it's more critical as a word-of-mouth marketing opportunity when people start dreaming about and researching their potential trip.
• Blog about it: After a while websites for big brand hotels can get a little stale.  There's only so much new content than can be run through the limited pages within the official brand site.  Standalone websites allow for a little more flexibility but can still run into the same problem.  Creating a blog allows you to open the floodgates of possibilities for new and exciting content.  With a blog you are not bound by the confines of an accommodations page, a dining page, a services page and so on.  Blog about top things to do in your city; write about the amazing new restaurant that just opened up near your hotel; or, inform readers of the Star Wars convention that's coming to town and what to do if you encounter a Jawa.  The blog allows you to generate plenty of new content on a regular basis, and best of all, search engines crawl this new content quickly, giving you plenty of opportunities to rank for new niche keywords.

Why is this stage important?

• The average traveler visits over 20 different travel websites before making a booking
• 62% of leisure travelers use the internet for researching their trip

So how does a hotel reach this planner in stage 2?

• Diversify: Did you read that? Consumers research at least 20 different travel websites! Yikes! This means that travelers are going to be checking all kinds of channels to compile their research about their vacation: TripAdvisor, OTAs, hotel websites, Google searches, blogs, social media channels and more.  It's true that you probably can't be everywhere online at once (particularly with a modest budget), but the key is to create enough of a presence on these sites to at least have a fighting chance.  Just be careful not to spread yourself too thin!
• Search engine optimize your website: Hopefully you didn't wait until now to realize that your website should be optimized.  Stage 2 and 3 are where your SEO efforts should start to pay off. Make sure you've conducted thorough keyword research to determine what your customers are searching for.  Did you optimize the content on your official hotel website?  What about any independent websites you own?
• Optimize your local listings: Nothing helps a traveler orient themselves like local mapping sites such as Google Maps or Bing Maps.  Make sure your hotel's listing in the local search results is claimed and fully optimized so travelers can find you as they investigate their potential destinations.
• Clean up your OTA listings: I know.  You don't like the OTAs.  They don't always rank your hotel first in your city and they eat away at your rates with their ever-growing commissions.  Still, if you opt out of OTAs or don't optimize your listings, you're missing out at likely one of the first opportunities your hotel will have at getting in front of the customer.  Let's face it, whether you like it or not, people love to comparison shop.  Hotels are no exception to this online shopping trend.  And sites like Expedia make it so dang easy to compare you and all your competitors it should be criminal!  ...if it wasn't so helpful for the consumer.  And when it comes down to it the OTAs aren't all bad for hotels.  You may have to play the game, but you don't have to like it.
• Manage your online reputation: Sign up for Google Alerts to monitor online buzz about your hotel, respond to TripAdvisor reviews (good and bad), address comments on your social media channels and just be aware of what users are saying about your hotel online in general.  If you don't speak up for your property then the public will have the final say in your reputation.  If you don't communicate you let the most vocal consumers determine your fate.  Don't sit on the sidelines.

Stage 3: No Reservations About Making A BOOKING

By now the research stage is just about over and Johnny McHotelguest is ready to lay down some clams for what he hopes will be a vacation that lives up to his dreams from stage 1.  How easy is it for this consumer to find your website now that he knows he wants to book?  Will he find you though your official brand website?  An OTA?  Groupon?  Ideally, you'd like him to book through your official brand site, but what have you done to ensure that your site is found first.

Why is this stage important?

• 37% of travelers said the internet was the primary source prompting them to book (word-of-mouth was the second most important factor to influence bookings, coming in at 16%)

So how does a hotel reach this booker in stage 3?

• Don't make people think: Make your website easy navigate and easy for users to reach their goal.  Usability is crucial to getting users on your site to convert to booking guests.  If you make the booking process too cumbersome or make it difficult for users to navigate your site, potential guests will look elsewhere to book their vacation.  Include a reservation widget on every page of your site; don't call the link in your main navigation bar "Your Special Day" instead of "Weddings;" and don't clutter pages with unnecessary bells and whistles that overshadow the main site content.  Precious seconds lost to these usability disasters can mean the difference between a booking guest and just another free-loadin' website visitor.
• Optimize for your brand - In the previous stage, users were researching their travel plans and were likely searching for more generic keywords such as "downtown Chicago hotels" instead of "Hilton Chicago."  Now that they have narrowed down their search and are ready to book, make darn sure that your site appears for its brand keywords.  It seems like a simple thing that should be common sense, and most websites should already be ranking well for their brand terms, but this is key and isn't always guaranteed to be the case by default.  Some smaller brands may need to work to optimize for their brand name.  Also, travelers may not know your domain name, so they'll likely run a search using some variation of your brand name.  Make sure that your site appears in natural, local and PPC search for brand-related terms.  They're in the home stretch of the buying funnel and it would be awful to work so hard to drive qualified website traffic, only to lose the customer right before they cross the finish line.

Stage 4: It's About The EXPERIENCE

At this point you've got the customer right where you want them...at your hotel! While online marketing can still help to some degree, for the most part, it is up to the hotel staff to create a memorable experience for the guest on site.  Do you provide good service? Is your property remarkable in any way? Have you exceeded the customer's expectations?  The greatest impact to a guest's experience happens on property and will influence their decision to return to your hotel in the future and share their experience with friends in Stage 5.

Why is this stage important?

• 53% of travelers have used a mobile device to find travel-related information

So how does a hotel impact a traveler's experiences in stage 4?

• Presentation is everything - You're only as good as the product you're selling.  If your hotel is dated, dilapidated and disgusting then no amount of friendly, attentive customer service is going to win your guest over.  Take care of your product.
• Service with a smile - Make sure that the friendly, accommodating attitude conveyed through your website and social media channels is reflected in the service the customer receives at the actual hotel.  Keep a consistent voice online and offline.
• Tie offline marketing with online marketing - Speaking of keeping consistency from the last point, make sure that you are promoting your social media channels in the offline world at your property as well.  Whether it's Facebook and Twitter decals at your front desk, readerboards that flash "Like our Facebook Page," or Foursquare checkins at your restaurant, you have people at your hotel that like your product enough to give you money.  Why not remind them to participate in your social media communities as well?

Stage 5: SHARING The Moments

This is the point at which the traveler who just experienced their dream vacation can help plant the seeds for someone else to start their journey down the 5 stages of travel.  Whether it's a well-written user review, a great photo of the hotel's pool deck, or a quick tweet about all the great restaurants right next to the hotel, harnessing this word-of-mouth marketing is the key to a successful social media marketing campaign, and perpetuating the 5 stages of travel for others.

Why is this stage important?

• 53% of leisure travelers say they share pictures of their vacations online
• 49% of leisure travelers enjoy reading about others' online experiences, reviews, opinions and general travel information

So how does a hotel encourage travelers to share their experiences in stage 5?

• Tell them where to share: Similar to the final bullet in the previous stage, let guests know where they can share their experiences.  Hotels should have Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, TripAdvisor and other icons present at the front desk, to alert guests that they can engage with your property and share their opinions through those participating channels.  Make it even easier for guests by providing a friendly URL or a QR code that takes guests directly to those sites.  You may even want to have a card in the room near the high speed internet instructions that mentions your presence on these social media channels.
• All you have to do is ask: Front desk agents should encourage satisfied guests to share their opinions on the various channels mentioned above.  While bribing or forcing the customer to leave good reviews is against many sites' terms of service--not to mention a generally bad approach--it doesn't hurt to remind guests to share positive experiences with others.
• Reward creative user-generated content: Host a contest at your hotel that seeks to reward the guest who posts the funniest/wackiest/most entertaining photos/story/experience about the hotel or the city on a social media channel of your choice.  This not only gets guests to interact with your brand, but it also encourages them to spread the word about the contest and consequently your hotel.  Better prizes can lead to better reach, but sometimes just the satisfaction of winning the competition can go a long way towards spreading the love.
• Collect contact info: Be sure to collect info from customers who may be interested in dreaming about traveling to your hotel in the future.  Have front desk agents ask for their email address or Twitter handle so that you can plant the seeds of travel in their head and start the cycle all over again.

Over the past few years, we’ve seen an explosion in the amount of revenue hotels receive from online bookings. Let’s face it, E-commerce is here to stay and any way you can use tools to leverage yourself against your competitors and maximize profits, you should – let me rephrase that, you MUST!

Consumers (you and I included) live for convenience. When we have gathered all the information we need to make a purchase decision, we want to easily complete our transaction and continue on with our lives. As a business, making the reservation process as simple as possible will benefit not only the consumer’s perception of your company but also increase conversions – a win-win, if you ask me!

How To Utilize Social Media To Increase Online Travel Bookings

Facebook is more than just a site to reconnect with your friends, it is an excellent customer relationship tool that should be used to connect you directly with customers, answer questions, engage in conversation about your property and most importantly, get people to book at your hotel. According to an article from Hotel News Now, Facebook conversions are rapidly growing. In fact, the conversion rate for Facebook is 2% higher than it is for TripAdvisor and other travel review sites!

To make the reservation process as easy as possible, simply add a booking widget to your hotel's Facebook page. This goes back to convenience.  Why make a customer navigate away from your page in order to book, when you can add a widget allowing them to book directly from Facebook. Do you really want to risk having them return to Google, run a search for your hotel and possibly stumble upon one of your competitors and choose to reserve with them instead. Had they been able to book directly from Facebook, you would have captured them before they could find another hotel.

Most branded hotels like Hilton and Marriott have already done the grunt work to set up these widgets for your hotel and these can easily be added to your page in less than 5 minutes.  If you’re a boutique hotel, a developer can create this for you at a minimal cost – an excellent investment.

Where Else Can I Use A Booking Widget?

If you have a standalone site without a booking widget embedded into every page of that site, you have been losing out on reservations – guaranteed! By simply adding a reservation widget that lives on every page of your standalone, you are making it easier for customers to check room availability, rates and reserve their stay with your hotel. Here at Blue Magnet, we have recorded a drastic increase in the number of reservations regarding standalone sites in which we have implemented this strategy.

Remember, it's all about convenience! If your customers have to navigate through numerous pages in order to book their stay, you've made it too complicated and risk losing them! Remember the KISS principle - Keep is simple silly!

So you’ve compiled your list of top keywords and intricately woven them into your site copy. You’ve optimized your meta titles and written keyword-friendly H1 and H2 tags. You’ve reached out to several bloggers, relevant directories, product review sites and popular local attractions to acquire inbound links and increase your referral traffic. You’ve claimed and optimized your Google Places listing. You are confident that your site’s SEO deserves an A+. You check your Google Analytics and, yep, you are truly an SEO mastermind. You’re site’s traffic is skyrocketing!

But, something’s fishy… you’re recent sales don’t seem to reflect this recent traffic growth. You shake your head in confusion—that just doesn’t make any sense! You have the keywords, you have the inbound links and you have the traffic. Hello website visitors, why are you not purchasing my awesome product!?

Here’s the catch: having a fabulously optimized website is only half the battle. Once you’ve hooked the line and feel the tug, you have less than 5 seconds reel them in.

Here are some key web design elements to help convert your website traffic:

Usability: Keep it Simple

There is no denying it; the instantaneous nature of the World Wide Web has provoked us internet-dependent creatures to become greedy. We want what we want when we want it. Nobody has the time to be bothered. Keep this in mind as you (re)design your website to maximize your conversion rate.

• Have your contact information displayed very clearly near the top of every page. As a visitor absentmindedly clicks through your pages, he or she will be more likely to call or email the company if the information is visibly displayed than if he or she has to go digging and scrolling through clutter.
• Provide a comprehensive contact form on your contact page and/or a “Get in touch” widget on your home page to collect valuable contact information from interested visitors. If you have the ability to customize the fields on your form, ask as many relevant and specific questions as possible so you can address the issue and have a well-prepared response. Make sure your site states a realistic timeframe for when you plan to get back in touch.
• Think like a customer, navigate like a customer. How does a customer search for your product or service? Do they search through various product categories? Are the searches typically brand-specific? Whether you’re B2B or B2C, keep the customer in mind as you’re creating your menu bar navigation layout. Establish your set of main categories and branch each of them off into more specific categories, ensuring there is a smooth navigational flow. If a website has poor navigation, it might as well hold a sign that reads: "get lost and don’t come back." Your visitor will revert back to Google and find the information elsewhere.

Trust: Keep it Real

A person's trust is hard to earn and even harder to maintain. Nobody wants to be misled. Adding some little design elements can boost your website’s credibility and ultimately improve your conversion rate.

• This may seem like an obvious one, but slap on your company logo to prove that you are a reputable and professional company or brand.
• Do you work closely with an outside vendor or partner? Do you carry or use a particular brand? Are you a member of a professional affiliation? Don’t be shy! There’s a time and a place to brag—and your website is the perfect medium. Designate a place on your website for your affiliation logos and badges to earn the trust of those cautious visitors!

Content: Keep it Fresh

• A customer clicks through your site and excitedly reads a page about the coolest new product. As his or her eyes eagerly wander to the bottom, the bold text reads: “Coming soon—July 2010!” Newsflash, it’s not 2010 and you’ve just lost a potential customer. It’s a domino effect. Once a customer finds outdated information, he or she is inevitably going to be skeptical about how recently the company updated any of the other content. Check your dates, times and facts and make sure your content is always up-to-date.
• Broken links are a dead end, and no one likes a dead end. The customer may get frustrated and click the back button a few too many times until he or she is safely out of that daunting error page and the company just lost an ideal chance to convert an interested visitor. It’s a lose-lose situation that can be easily avoided. Perform a site audit every month or so to ensure that your links are, in fact, linking.

In the digital age, people have become accustomed to performing minimal work while still expecting to receive maximum satisfaction. So, if you want your company to stay afloat in the competitive e-commerce world, your website has to provide your customers with speed, ease and trust. How long does it take you to make a first impression of a website? How do you decide if you’re going to keep clicking or find the nearest exit? Factor in how an average customer searches as you design your website to enhance your website conversion!

Would you replace your website's .COM extension with your own brand name?  Should we change from www.bluemagnetinteractive.COM to bluemagnetinteractive.BLUEMAGNET?  I know, it's likely to cause carpal tunnel syndrome simply trying to type that all in, but now we could do just that thanks to ICANN!

What exactly are generic top-level domains?

On June 19, the Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)--the non-profit group responsible for approving new top-level domains (TLDs) such as the recent .TRAVEL, .MOBI, and the contriversial .XXX for "adult" sites--made the announcement that they would be approving new generic TLDs.  Even though they're called "generic" this just means that they can be just about anything: .HONDA or .CAR.  For instance, instead of going to hilton.COM/hhonors, if Hilton Worldwide chose to purchase their brand name as a TLD, they could essentially have a URL such as hhonors.HILTON.  Or a specific hotel could purchase .HOTEL and have something like hiltonchicago.HOTEL instead of hiltonchicago.com.

How's .TRAVEL working out for you?

Every so often, in what has been described as an ICANN pure money-grab by may industry experts, new-top level domains are released into the wild for the public to purchase.  Remember when the .TRAVEL TLD was announced?  When was the last time you saw marriott.travel ranking above marriott.com in the search engines?  Yet, because of this "what happens if we don't buy it" mentality, those in the travel industry quickly scrambled to scoop up the .TRAVEL TLD...and then had no idea what they were actually going to do with it.

How about .MOBI?

Similarly, when .MOBI was released, many companies jumped on the .mobile bandwagon because they were afraid of what would happen if they didn't purchase it. There was this fear that someday in the distant future if the company wanted to launch a mobile site, they would need the .MOBI TLD in order to do so.  Unfortunately, those who are not familiar with the TLD system don't understand that it's perfectly acceptable to have a mobile website hosted at www.radisson.com/mobile/ instead of purchasing www.radisson.mobi.  And chances are, consumers are already more likely to type in radisson.com than radisson.mobi anyways.

Why individual hotels should NOT purchase brand-specific TLDs

• They are expensive!
  This isn't like purchasing a .BIZ version of your domain. Start saving those hondos, because you'll need to shell out a whopping $185,000 per TDL.  You want to purchase .HILTON and .HHONORS?  That'll be $370,000 please.  This may be fine for the big brands like Apple or Microsoft who have plans for strengthening brand awareness, but don't expect many small businesses or organizations to fill out an application just yet.  Blue Magnet will do just fine without .BLUEMAGNET; we've got better ways to invest in our company's future.

• Consumers may get confused
  Let's face it.  People just understand .COM.  They know it and trust it.  Think of the last time you clicked on a .BIZ, .NET, .TRAVEL or .MOBI top-level domain.  You probably can't remember many times if any.  The dot-COMs are the tried and true standbys of the commercial world.  It's familiar, it's accepted, and it's what people default to.  Purchasing and using your brand name as a replacement for .COM--unless for branding purposes--really only serves to confuse your customers.  We'll be sticking with bluemagnetinteractive.com/blog instead of blog.bluemagnetinteractive, thank you!

• No extra SEO benefit
  You may think that purchasing .HOTEL for your hotel will help you rank above your competitors for keyword searches like the ultra-competitive "New York hotels."  Not the case, says SEO expert Danny Sullivan:

"...the new names will almost certainly mean nothing special to search engines. They won’t have any super ranking powers. If you managed to get .money, that doesn’t mean you’ll rank tops for money-related terms any more than people with the existing .travel domains do well for travel — because they don’t."

• Trademark headaches
  If you are Monster Mini Golf of Lafayette, IN, and you purchase .MONSTER to promote your website, will the Monster Cable company raise a stink about trademark infringement?  Expect some big trademark battles between major companies with similar names all grabbing for the same TLDs.  For unique brand names this may not be as much of a problem; however, consider if Paris Hilton were to purchase .HILTON as her TLD?  Who decides the winner?  After all, only one entity can own that particular TLD.  And I'm pretty sure Paris and Hilton Worldwide probably won't be too keen on sharing a single website together, unless the hotel company is looking to drastically revamp its image.  In the end, it's likely that ICANN will have the final say in awarding specific TLDs to various applicants.  Just think of how many companies in our industry would love to get their hands on .HOTEL or .SEO.

With all that in mind, there is one reason a large brand may benefit from the new generic top-level domains: branding.  If you are Hilton or Marriott or Pepsi or Nintendo, you may find benefit in the branding opportunities that come with the TLDs .hilton, .marriott, .pepsi and .nintendo.  For the rest of us though, stick by your .COMs!