How to Promote Your Hotel Online

The tourism industry in the Philippines is continuously booming. Tourists around the world are always searching for our country’s beautiful spots and looking for guides on how to get there. If you own or manage a hotel, this industry boom is a great opportunity to make your business grow or continue growing. However, the competition in the hotel and accommodation industry can be tough, as new hotels are emerging to seize the opportunity.

For this reason, you may need to intensify your marketing efforts. And one of the most effective and efficient marketing strategies right now is building your brand online. Here are 10 ways to promote your hotel online and attract more guests to your place.

1. Build a website.
A secure website with a booking engine to manage your guests’ bookings and reservation online is a must for hotels. It should also showcase your rooms, amenities, rates, services and people. Your website will be your major starting point for marketing your business on the Internet. It is your gateway to other online marketing strategies and tactics, such as search engine optimization, content marketing and social media marketing.

If you still don’t have a website for your hotel, Optixor can build a premium, responsive and blog-ready website with a booking engine for your hotel at an affordable price.

2. Optimize your brand for the search engines.
Top hoteliers are hiring SEO agencies or specialists to make sure that their hotels will be on the top of Google’s search engine results pages for keywords that are relevant to their services. If you’re wondering why their hotels are always topping the search engine results and not your hotel, it is probably because of their SEO activities.

Tourists around the globe use Google to search for tourist destinations and hotels where they can stay. If your hotel is not visible on Google but your competitors are, you might lose a lot of potential guests or customers.

Therefore, find a SEO professional who can improve the SEO structure of your website, increase the usefulness of your content, boost your search engine rankings, increase your search engine visibility, and drive guests to your hotel.

3. Do PPC marketing.
Search engine optimization or SEO can take time to generate results. It may take 3 to 6 months of SEO implementation, depending on the level of competition, before anyone can see their business ranking on the search engines. But there’s a quick way to make your hotel more visible on Google, and that is by using AdWords.

Adwords or PPC advertising enables you to create sponsored ads on relevant Google search results pages. These ads are usually shown on top of the organic search results. Although they are labelled as “sponsored ads” or simply “Ad”, they are visible on Google results, and can encourage clicks and leads to your hotel in a very efficient way.

4. Promote your hotel on social media.
People nowadays are lurking on social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. Facebook, alone, attracts a billion users per month. All types of content, from articles, photos to videos can be promoted on this social media giant. Facebook also serves as a search engine, where people can search for businesses or products they need. Thus, it’s like a mortal sin for hotels to not build a Facebook Page.

Getting followers on social media can be tricky. But as long as you consistently share interesting and useful content, such as articles from your website, engaging photos, viral videos and other stuff, people can be your loyal and happy followers.

5. Boost your social media marketing with paid ads.
If your competition is tough or your hotel is new and you want to get more results, investing in paid ads like Facebook Ad can be a practical move. You can do social media or Facebook marketing for free, but if you really want to win your competition, you might want to consider increasing your social media reach thru advertising.

Facebook page ads can help you get more page likes and post engagements (i.e., likes, comments, shares and website visits). If you believe that your Facebook posts are interesting, boost your post with Facebook Ad to reach more audience and make your posts viral.

6. Start travel blogging.
Promoting the tourist destinations in your province or region is like promoting your hotel. If you’re operating a hotel, then why not start travel blogging? You don’t need to travel around the world or around the country. You just need to travel to all the tourist attractions in the region where your hotel is located.

A travel blog can be built within your hotel website. By publishing useful and interesting blog posts about your region, your content can rank on Google and even become viral on social media. Consequently, this can drive more guests to your hotel since tourists who are planning to visit your region will probably land on your blog posts.

If you don’t have the time for blogging, you may hire a blogger or content marketer to do the travel blogging for you. You may contact us if you need one.

7. Connect with other travel bloggers.
Bloggers are the new media people. What’s great with professional bloggers is that they write more comprehensive and engaging articles than the usual press releases. This is also the reason why the articles written and published by travel bloggers are ranked higher on search engines and become viral on social media.

To increase more brand awareness and attract more guests, consider inviting travel bloggers to your hotel or resort. You can pay them for their services or you can just sponsor their travel and accommodation expenses. Of course, do a quality review first before inviting bloggers to make sure that their blogging style will suit your needs.

8. Manage your online reputation.
Manage your hotel on TripAdvisor, Google Review and other related sites. Monitor the comments and feedback of your guests about your hotel. If there are negative feedback or reviews, ask the reasons and give assurance to resolve the issues. If there are positive reviews, thank the reviewers. Your Facebook Page also receives comments, ratings and reviews from your guests. Hence, always interact to manage your hotel’s integrity.

9. Add your hotel to online directories.
Online directories are one of the most visible websites on Google results. Adding your hotel to an online directory can also increase its search engine visibility. It will also give you an opportunity to showcase the details of your hotel, such as its address, contact information, picture and map location.

You may add your hotel at BusinessDirectory.PH for free. If it’s already listed, you can claim the listing by creating a free account.

10. Give the best service and experience to your guests.
Last but not the least and I think the most important of all, make your guests happy. Although giving your guests a happy and wonderful experience may not be an online practice, your guest will bring their smiles online. They will share their great experience in their Facebook timeline, TripAdvisor review, blog posts, and anywhere on the Internet.

Do you like to attract more guests to your hotel or resort in the Philippines? We can help you at Optixor, Inc. We provide full digital marketing solutions for hotels and resorts in the country. Our services include website development, SEO, social media marketing, content marketing and professional blogging. For your inquiries, feel free to send a message to mail@optixor.com.