Hotel Marketing e-Commerce Best Practices

Thank you for visiting our Best Practices page. While it would be nearly impossible to list all of our recommendations regarding e-Commerce, we are happy to provide the ones noted on this page. eMax appreciates your time and looks forward to hearing from you on how we can be your Hotel Internet Marketing Partner.

Brand.com Practices

• Specials – always make sure you have some type of special or package listed. No hotel should have the infamous ‘there are no specials at this time’.
• Feature Utilization – every brand is different but nearly every franchise group offers the ability to customize and enhance your pages on the brand.com site. Take full advantage of their tools. eMax is here to help you navigate the process.
• Imagery – with today’s ever changing hotel amenities, it is important to have updated images on your website. eMax strongly recommends against using brand stock as it does not represent your actual hotel.

Private Website Recommendations

• Imagery – just as on your franchise site, we recommend having the same updated photography and/or tours on your private site. Your websites should be at parity across the different channels with respect to imagery and content.
• Content – your private site should be loaded with content on the home page and not fancy flash animation that can’t be indexed by search engines.
• Differentiate – eMax believes in differentiating your private website to target a different market segment than your franchise site. Don’t use your private website as a replicated extension of your brand pages.

Other e-Commerce Points

• Count Room Nights – hotels with private websites should focus on the effectiveness of the website and measure productivity by counting actual room nights booked – not simply clicks and visitors. Of course, the number of visitors affects the number of room nights booked, but ultimately its about putting heads in beds. For franchised hotels, most brands report the source of bookings on the brand.com. Independent hotels should obtain these figures from their reservations booking engine. eMax can work with you to increase room nights booked from your private website.
• Pay-per-Click – PPC is a great way to jump-start the marketing of a new private site and augment existing sites. Be careful when preparing a campaign so as not to duplicate efforts by your franchise. An ineffective campaign can result in driving up the cost of your own name. Confused? eMax can help.
• Link Reciprocity – getting your site linked (your franchise and private site) on as many other sites as possible is good practice and increases search engine popularity.
• New and Under Construction Hotels – eMax recommends launching your private website as early as possible before the hotel opens. This gives the site time to get indexed and picked up by search engines. Click here for a pre-opening eMax site.
• Front Desk – the front desk staff of your hotel should be intimately familiar with your websites (assuming you have a private and brand site). A good practice is to refer callers to the website by letting the caller know more information may be found on-line. eMax recommends that the all associates know the website address just as they know the street address.

For more best practices and to start a discussion to find out how eMax can help your team, Contact Us today. We're ready to put our team of e-Commerce experts to work for you.