April 2009 Newsletter

Booking Trends in 2008:

• According to a report by J.D. Power and Associates, out of the 70% of travelers who booked their travel online in 2008, only 16% of those people made reservations through independent travel websites. While the rate of travelers booking online is increasing (from 53% in 2007 to 70% in 2008), the number of reservations made through independent travel sites is on the decline.
• Why are independent booking sites losing out? A Dec., 2008 article in Yahoo Travel News reveals customer dissatisfaction of booking through independent travel websites is linked to the following factors: pricing, problems with content, pop-ups and having to download new software in order to book.
• An article on Travel Industry Wire lists six factors that are used to measure customer satisfaction in order of importance: “price, how easy it is to book, usefulness of the information on the site, availability of booking options, appearance/design of Website, and ease of navigation.” These reasons are similar, and businesses: take heed.

If 70% of travelers are booking travel on the Internet, how are you going to get travelers to your site (and to book through your booking engine)?

For one, this is where SEO and well-written content become vital to your site. A report and survey conducted by J.D. Power and Associates revealed that in 2008, customers who are very satisfied with their booking experience online are 50% more likely to return to the same website to book their next trip. Retention is important, so let’s return to the six factors that measure customer satisfaction starting with number one.

1. Price — this is something that your business must determine internally, but don’t become set in your ways. Engage your customers through promotions, deals, family rates etc. to make travel more accessible to them and to draw them in to choose your business first.
2. How easy it is to book travel on your site — directive site content is extremely important as is an easily-navigable booking system. Fine tune your booking system to avoid unnecessary flash and pop-up images that force potential customers to download new programs before being able to work through your booking system. Limit the pop-ups and advertisements that you allow as to not frustrate your customers who simply want to get tickets or reservations through your site. Choose 10BestSolutions, who has the technological capabilities and knowledge to make your site more user-friendly and search-engine-friendly.
3. Usefulness of Site information — this is where your site can significantly benefit from Search Engine Optimization and custom content. Search Engine Optimization done right will use the most popular keywords and integrate them into well-written, user-friendly content that will make your site rank high on search engines, outshining your competition. This is extremely necessary because you need to make your site visible online before you can expect people to reserve tickets or a room with your business. If travelers can’t find you on the internet, you are setting yourself up for failure. SEO is crucial for making your site stand out online. 10Best Solutions tackles the demand for useful site information through SEO, but also through engaging destination content and custom content requested from our clients. Our results show that well-written destination content drives traffic to sites and increases site popularity by engaging users with helpful and interesting information. If your users enjoy your site; if your site information is helpful—the more likely you are to get business, increase rankings, and encourage people to use your online booking system (driving up ROI).
4. Availability of booking options – again, make sure your website clearly directs people with different needs where to go. People want to know if they have to give their credit card to make a reservation, how secure it is if they give out their credit card number, if they need to cancel their reservation/ how and what are the penalties, what to do if they have children, how to make group reservations and so on. Make sure your site has clear directions. Make sure that your booking system is intuitive, but also utilize your SEO/ content writers to draw up a list of frequently asked questions to make the booking options very clear to your users. Meeting your customers varying needs and questions upfront will make them more likely to return to your website.
5. Appearance/Design of Website — Design is important for your website, this can pertain to graphics, layout and placement of content. If your site is not visually appealing, consider hiring a designer to re-organize and give you fresh graphics—it could be worth it. Also, if your site does not load quickly, you will lose users due to impatience.
6. Ease of navigation — ease of navigation can be accomplished through a well-written and designed site that gives direction to users on how to get to the sections of the site they want to read. Have some people outside your company try to navigate your site and give you feedback. Good site architecture and well-written, directive content is something that an SEO firm like 10Best Solutions uses to improve user experience and site traffic.

Pleasing customers, making your site visible online, having informative content and an easily navigable site are all crucial to drive customer satisfaction and online booking. As you can see, your business may need to outsource to construct the best site possible.

Hotels strive to offer the best to exceed in their niche. What, then, is the best? Depending on the targeted clientele and brand identity, the best can be anything from a heated indoor pool to triple sheeted beds. A family friendly property may offer discounts for children, free meals, special promotions with local amusement parks and free cookies. Boutique hotels provide personalized, even quirky accommodations. Looking to lodge in a tree or curl up under the Australian desert? There’s a hotel for you. Luxury properties offer, well, luxury — the best of the best, from concierge service and sophisticated dining to triple-sheeted beds and freshly cut flowers.

Bells and whistles, right? It’s an effective way of ensuring the guest enjoys (and more importantly, remembers) his stay enough to book again and tell a friend. Whatever a hotel’s niche, a meticulous hotel team puts much thought and effort into providing guests with the precisely what they paid for. Whether it’s a perfectly made Belgian waffle at a deluxe continental breakfast or a personalized spa menu with herbal body wraps, all hotels are working hard to provide the best.

That said, if a hotel delivers the goods but can’t be found online, sales will obviously suffer. Seventy percent of travelers book online, and websites are virtual shop windows, a place to shine and inspire travelers to save their pennies for the perfect accommodations. Have the largest indoor pool in town? If no one knows that, it’s not a selling point. Hotel sites should be easily searchable. Once found, the site should sell the brand well with relevant, informational and freshly designed content.

Hotels take the time to ensure rooms are flawless, with not a sheet out of place and the mint perfectly placed on the pillow. But if the hotel’s online presence is negligible, if no sees your Miami hotel when they search for “Miami hotel,” – well, your mint has gone moldy. For potential clients to book a visit, they first need to be able to find what they’re looking for and then be hooked by a fresh, attractive and informative website.

Ensure your site is just as detail-oriented as your hotel service though effective SEO (search engine optimization) and content management. Google is a place for the best to shine. It’s an unprecedented opportunity to enhance brand awareness and build a reputation. Your online presence should be immaculate, just like your rooms, right down to the mint on the pillow.

Technology Trends

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a cost-effective way to get your website to rank in the top pages on Google and other major search engines so it can be found by potential customers and recognized by others in your niche. For hotel and other hospitality-related websites, SEO is a must for your marketing budget to attract travelers looking for hotels, vacation packages and more to your website and to encourage them to book through your company. SEO is relatively inexpensive compared to other search engine marketing initiatives. While pay per click and link-building campaigns can complement SEO, SEO is proven to drive 75% of all search traffic. (link: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-disconnect-in-ppc-vs-seo-spending) Therefore, SEO is a top priority for your website as a tactic that brings ROI to your business.

1. Combine SEO with well-written, interesting content
   Having well-written content will make Search Engines look more favorably on your site. For example, it makes a huge difference to users and search engines if your hotel simply has “swimming pool” under amenities or if it has a robust list of items associated with the hotel amenities—giving a more detailed description of your services. Well-written, interesting content will also engage your readers and compel them to return to your site. We live in an information-rich age—give helpful, useful information and you will build trust for your brand, increasing your sales.
2. Subtly integrate keywords into site; don’t stuff keywords
   SEO is crucial to ranking in the top pages on Google and other major search engines. Optimizing is a process of integrating the most important and well-searched keywords in your niche into your website. However, overstuffing keywords can affect the quality of your site content and disinterest your readers. A good SEO firm will understand your target readers and optimize based on the best search terms for your audience.
3. Limit use of flash technology
   Use minimal flash technology so that search engines can crawl your site more easily. Try to keep your page size under 100KB.
4. Gain inbound links and quality directory listings
   A great way to get search engines to crawl your site is to get listed in a directory or have a direct link from another site.
5. Rework site to have logical site architecture
   Potential customers are more likely to return to a website that is easy to navigate and access necessary information from. If there are clear directions and a simple process for online booking, the more likely you are to increase sales online.
6. Optimize image text to contain relevant keywords
   Alt tags on your site images are read by search engines; photo captions are read by both search engines and site users. Therefore, your alt tags and photo captions should include descriptive keywords as to not miss out on an important, yet subtle way to drive more traffic to your site.
7. Link pages to XML site maps so spiders can crawl all available pages
   
8. Use to your advantage H1-H6 tags, alt tags, and title tags
   Proper use of these tags will help communicate to a Search Engine what you deem as “important.”
9. Reduce the file size of the rendered html page
   Reducing file size of your webpage will help search engines to “digest” the entire page. This can be done by using XHTML and CSS to make your site code readable for search engine spiders. It is also important to have well-written, understandable code on your website that does not outweigh the content on your site.
10. Optimize Meta data and header tags
    Using header tags to your advantage and understanding how to optimize those phrases for search is key to a well-written, well-optimized website. The header tag text tells search engines the ‘key’ information on every page. The meta data on your site should also be keyword rich and optimized for search.

SEO Technical Tips to get your website visible online:
Your site can be well-written and optimized with all the best keywords, but if you do not have the capabilities to implement SEO practices from the technical side, your site may not be reaping the full benefits of search engine optimization. If your site has any of the following technical issues, search engines will not be able to effectively crawl and rank your site—thus affecting your SEO rankings.

Robots.txt
robots.txt is a file that indicates to search engine spiders “what” and “where” they can spider, therefore an improperly set up robots.txt file can stop search engine spiders from crawling pages of your site. To read more, visit http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/

302 Redirects
Both 302’s and Meta refresh redirects are not search engine friendly. If the site redirects are not implemented correctly, then they will waste the search power they provide. To read more, visit http://www.hmtweb.com/blog/2008/12/critical-last-mile-for-seo-your.html

301 Redirects
If your site does not have a domain beginning with www, you will need a “301” server site redirect so spiders do not see your site as having two separate domains and thus split the success results. To read more, visit http://www.hmtweb.com/blog/2008/12/critical-last-mile-for-seo-your.html

XML sitemap Guidelines
XML sitemap files cannot exceed 50,000 URL’s or 10MB in uncompressed file-size. If files exceeding those limits are released on a website, the engines will not process the files. Again, to read more, visit http://www.hmtweb.com/blog/2008/12/critical-last-mile-for-seo-your.html

Rel=nofollow
rel=”nofollow” code will tell search engines not to follow these pages i.e. the search engine will not count nofollow pages toward SEO. To read more, visit http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Nofollow

Planning to attend? Please contact us or find us on twitter to schedule a meeting to learn about 10Best’s market-leading solutions.

April

Travel Trade Forum: Travel Distribution Latin America Summit 2009 — Mexico City, Mexico HEDNA Spring Meeting — Budapest, Hungary

May

The Global Travel & Tourism Summit/ WTTC — Florianopolis, Brazil

June

HITEC — Anaheim, California