It is not easy to be on many places at the same time. But that’s what Internet makes us to do – to be everywhere, anytime, always available to our clients when they need us. Maintaining a good online presence is a challenge especially for small hoteliers who have to deal with many things simultaneously.
In order to keep our online presence effective and to attract more hotel guests through Internet, we should avoid the following 3 common online mistakes of small hoteliers.
MISTAKE #1: The customer can’t find you
As a manager of small hotel we can’t expect our clients to find us if we are not where they are looking for. First, we must link our business in the main online directories for local searches such as Google Local and Facebook, too.
Second, our hotel should be on at least the most popular online travel agencies (such as Booking.com) and meta-search engines (such as TripAdvisor). This not only gives authority to our hotel but is a huge place to reach travellers who spend hours searching the best deal on those websites.
MISTAKE #2: You are not active online
The only bigger mistake than not being online is to be online but not actively – i.e. not to update our accounts or answer to user’s questions and queries. It is really important to be active and post regularly new information for our hotel online.
The regular update of the strategy for online marketing of our small hotel is crucial for our success. We should monitor our competitors strategies and to be better than them, to post on schedule and to update the hotel’s information on the web.
MISTAKE #3: You don’t manage your online reputation
Many online platforms let our guests to leave an honest feedback and reviews. It is important to monitor those online opinions and to show our guests that we care what they think of us by responding fast and appropriately.
When we have a positive feedback we should thank the user, appreciate his or her opinion and time and invite them over again. When we have a negative feedback we should stay calm, apologize for the inconvenience and to compensate the guest if needed. Our answers will show how we treat our guests and they can be seen by future potential customers anytime.
The strong online presence will increase the brand awareness of your small hotel and will bring many new reservations. We know how busy can be a hotelier but investing in your web presence you invest in the future of your hotel business.
Travel Mind can help you create and maintain social media profiles, listing your small hotel in online directories, optimize your website for search engines and everything else you need for an effective online presence! Get in touch!
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