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

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

Thesis 2012 – A Direct Booking Strategy for Independent Hotels

Article copied from my personal blog

Generating revenue has become a real challenge for independent hoteliers, since OTAs’ online visibility has increased, and since they have raised the commissions requested to hotels.

The solution for hotels would be to limit dependence on OTAs, and increase direct bookings. However, independent hoteliers have limited marketing and communication budgets. In addition, they have trouble remaining visible on the Internet. Google indeed seems to favor 3rd parties’ presence, and recently changed its criteria to rank websites in its search engine.

Independent hoteliers feel helpless, in a compromising situation for their business, which raises the following question: “How Independent Hoteliers can increase direct bookings and therefore revenue, through a strategic use of Google, while limiting dependence on Online Travel Agencies?”

This paper was conducted with the collaboration of Liz Craig, CEO of Oneglobe Network (a web-marketing agency for independent hotels).
The strategy being more efficient if well adapted and personalized to independent hotels' needs and requirements, feel free to contact Oneglobe Network or me directly for more details about the strategy.

Thesis - A Direct Booking Strategy for Independent Hotels from emmalba

How Independent Hoteliers can Increase Direct Bookings and therefore Revenue, through a Strategic Use of Google, while Limiting Dependence on Online Travel Agencies? by Emilie Alba is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.