Why a mobile site is essential for a hotel?

Latest news! Internet sites that are not mobile-friendly will get a lower ranking in Google search. With mobile exploding, you have to pay attention to mobile traffic and your site performance on mobile phones. Mobile phones will overtake PCs as the most common web access device worldwide by the end of 2014. About 40% of the people who have a mobile phone use it for going online, and half of them will go online at least once every day. This presents a huge opportunity for a hotel.

According to Oneglobe Network research, around 30 % of visitors access the site from a mobile (iPhone) or a Tablet (iPad). The research was based on data from Google Analytics for main clients' accounts, mostly 4* and 5* independents hotels. 

For example in case of Le General hotel in Paris, out of around 3500 visits a month, 730 visits come from mobile devices. If a hotel's site is not mobilized and / or online booking engine is not mobile-friendly, a hotel is losing potential online reservations.

It was recently estimated that mobile traffic will be as high as 36% of all Internet global traffic by 2016. And compared to this time last year, mobile traffic is up 131% in a single year. So how can we make the most out of mobile site? Here area the basic guidelines for mobile-optimized websites.  Based on usability testing of hundreds of sites, the main guidelines for mobile-optimized websites are clear. The basic ideas for mobile site are:

Cut features to eliminate things that are not core, Minimize text entry; Defer secondary information to secondary pages;

Design for touchscreen users: enlarge interface elements to accommodate the "fat finger" problem.

Single column layouts work best

Take advantage of inbuilt functionality and call to action, calls directly, maps, QR codes.





 According to MillWardBrown survey results, speed and display constitute the top criteria for what makes a good mobile website. The results are based on responses from more than 6,000 interviews across 18 different countries.

Nearly two-thirds (64 %) of survey respondents indicated site load time was the most important aspect of a mobile site. Clear display on the mobile device (53 %) and the site’s accessibility via mobile search (47%) were also cited as important factors.

Results show mobile’s advantages over regular desktop sites. In fact, 32 % of respondents desire mobile sites that are easier to use than desktop sites. Other factors that make a mobile site superior to desktop include offering different features (25%), visual appeal (24%), and location-based features (23%).

Just as mobile web users are different, most mobile-specific search engines (such as Google Mobile) are also built in different ways. Mobile SEO exists on a different plain to desktop SEO. Sure, keywords are critical - search engines will always operate on the stuff that's fed into them - but other, newer dimensions such as location, device types and content formats are more critical to and indicative of the mobile web experience, and search engines are beginning to figuring out how best to harness them. The table on the next slide illustrates some of these differences most mobile searches are GEO focused, that is why it is crucial to orient the SEO strategy around Location keywords.

Sources:
goo.gl/7G2oB
http://goo.gl/CA8wS

http://goo.gl/N51Uh
http://goo.gl/O5uhh

Using a Cool Tool to Help Your #SEO

You are probably increasingly hearing that SEO and social media go hand in hand together, which may have not been the case in the past. However the key for your business is to target people where they are and not just publish randomly. Having great content, which attracts they eye, which is easily shareable, which interconnects with your other platforms is part of the secret. Projeqt* is a great tool which may be just what you are looking for. The presentation below illustrates how you can use this platform to publish, create a buzz, and get people talking about your business.

*contact Projeqt directly for corporate use

View an example of a projeqt embeded in a blog by clicking here!

Mobile-Optimized Websites - An Investment to Be Considered by Independent Hotels

"Optimize for mobile or you will be left out by Google"... here is what was claimed in the conversation between Danny Sullivan (founding editor of Search Engine Land) and Matt Cutts (the head of Google's Webspam team) at SMX Advanced. Get the full story here.

This assertion replies to the question "My hotel (or whatever the business) already has a Mobile Application, shall I invest in a Mobile-Optimized Website?"

Since recently, Google indeed seems to index Mobile-Optimized Websites better than Standard-Optimized Websites on both Google Search and Maps results.

At Oneglobe Network we focused on the question, and analysed the results displayed with the terms "Boutique Hotel Paris":

- a large majority of Google Maps results are Mobile-Optimized Hotel Websites

- the search engine on the mobile phone tends to display Mobile-Optimized Hotel Websites

The analysis was carried out on Safari from both a laptop and a mobile phone.

On the laptop...

On the laptop, the search results were obtained while disconnected from all Google accounts, so as not to influence the results through personalized search. 

The results we got are the following:

- no hotel website were displayed among the search results, only third-party sites were listed

- hotel websites were displayed on Google Maps results

Among the Google Maps results, 9 hotels out of 10 had a Mobile-Optimized Website.

On the mobile phone...

On the mobile phone, the results were obtained while connected on Google accounts, personalized search was therefore activated.

The result is that we got a hotel website displayed as a personalized result. And the latter was Mobile-Optimized. So, among all the parisian hotels' websites visited in the past, the one displayed by Google is a Mobile-Optimized Website. The other results displayed were third-party sites.

As a result, it can be assumed that Google Maps seems to strongly favor Mobile-Optimized Websites. This is an important fact that independent hotels should consider, insofar as Google Maps is the only chance for them to compete (in terms of online visibility) with third-party sites.

Find more about this analysis and about mobile optimization in the presentation below:

Mobile Optimized Websites and Search Engine Optimization from Emilie Alba

Buzzness Mobile Conference in Paris - Your doggy bag of info

The Buzzness Conference, which was held in Paris on June 18, 2013 concentrated on the world of mobile. Issues on the best mobile practises in marketing, technology, and sales were discussed. New problems and questions were also raised such as the confidentiality of company information and data when employees walk away with their smartphones.

Instagram Video - Is it the end of young Vine?

When Vine was launched in the beginning of 2013, it caused a huge comotion among the social media lovers. Sharing videos of 6 seconds in Twitter and Facebook? Well, that's a new way of showing people that funny trick your cat does or how you can put a whole slice of pizza in your mouth at once. And we are not even starting on the potencial of this app for maketing. 6 full seconds of a brand video, looping non-stop while you scroll through your feed? Genius.

In a couple of months, Vine became the most used video-sharing application in the market. On April 2013, Vine became the number one most downloaded free app within the iOS App Store. In the end, it is nothing more than "make your own gif and share it". It is silly but lovable.

However, something happened in the Facebook HQ... They were getting jealous of all the attention Vine was getting and decided to launch Instagram Videos (remember Facebook bought Instagram last year?). You know when somebody takes a good idea and make it great? That's what they did.

Instagram Video - shoot, add filter and choose cover frame

Instagram Video has many features Vine lacks: 13 filters, delete last clip of edition, choice of cover frame, shareable by email, Flickr, Tumblr and image stabilization. With more than double time of Vine, 15 seconds of video, you can show how you fit the whole slice of pizza in your mouth AND your friends laughing at you. Not to mention that you didn't need to download another app, the new feature just appeared in everybody's Instagram in the last update. On the marketing side, many brands have millions of followers on Instagram, a short video might be the perfect way to introduce that new product or service. Or maybe a sneak-peak of the office?

On the other hand, Vine has the gif-looping-feeling that is very popular and it's embedabble. It also lets you mute the video (on desktop) and has no buffering, it is click and go. 

But the real question is: does de video fits Instagram? Is it going to make the famous app lose its identity? The show-off with thousands of followers love it sure, but some are complaining it makes Instagram something it is not and still prefere Vine to share videos in Twitter or Facebook only.

What do you think? Do you have a favorite?

@TaciOneGlobetaci

How Local Businesses Help Your Digital Strategy

Local Businesses can be great partners in achieving a good social digital strategy. An interesting local brand is good content in the first place. By mentioning  them and letting that business know of your article will probably convince them to share the article on their own websites, social networks, and other media. This gives you access to a wider audience AND perhaps untargetted network. Also, your social  image is benefitted as you put forward a local outlet. Below is a case study on Le Général Hôtel blogging about La Boutique des Saveurs.

How an Image can Help Your SEO

Thinglink is a platform which can amplify your hotel's visiblity on the internet in various ways. The following slides demonstrate an example of how it used in the context of Le Quartier Bery Square Hôtel's overall digital markeitng.

The platform allows the hotelier to select an image and link it to all types of other social media platforms such as classical accounts (i.e. Facebook, Google +Hotel Le Quartier Bercy - Square , Youtube etc...) to more unconventional media such as social playlists (eg. Spotify).

A big advantage to thinglink is that sharing the image is user-friendly, keywords can be easily integrated, and the interaction with the visual creates a memorable and fun user experience. 

Thinglink also has new feature; "touching the image" which resembles the traditional "Facebook like".