If your business is motels, then having a successful website should be on your list of ‘must haves’. So let’s start by defining just what makes a motel website successful.

A successful motel website:

1. Presents your motel in the best light but is never misleading
2. Answers the top three questions visitors to your website have:
   1. Where exactly is the motel and what is it close to?
   2. What kind of rooms are available and what is the configuration of beds (single, double)
   3. How much do the rooms cost?
3. Anticipates and answers lots of other little questions that even the visitor may not realise that they want to know
4. Makes it easy for people to contact you by phone or email
5. Makes it easy for people to book online
6. Can be found online in the search engines
7. Can be found online in national and local tourism and accommodation web directories

1. Presenting your motel in the best light

The place to start is with high quality well framed and well lit photos. Anyone who has tried to photograph a small room in poor light will know just how hard this is. You either need a very good lens on your camera, soft natural light, or supplemental lighting, and know how to expose properly. It’s easy to end up with a photo that is overexposed in one place (usually by the windows) and too dark in others. Your photos are a huge part of the first impression your motel will make online, so we highly recommend you invest in a professional photographer. Sure, Photoshop can fix up photos to a certain extent; but it can’t work miracles. The type of photos to take include; the rooms with the bed/s as the central focus, night shots of your building façade with all the lights on, reception areas, facilities, playgrounds, the swimming pool, the bathrooms and so forth. Essentially you want to give visitors to your website a very good feel for the standard of accommodation you provide.

Ratings, Reviews & Testimonials: Positive reviews from third party sites like Trip Advisor should be added to the site. You can even go one step further and link directly to your listing on Trip Advisor (make sure you have an account with Trip Advisor so you can be notified of new reviews). If you have a guestbook, put recent comments onto the site as well. If you are Qualmark rated, add your Qualmark logo(s) to the site.

2a. Where is the motel and what major landmarks or facilities are within its immediate vicinity?

Mmany of your guests will be unfamiliar with your town/city but they will know of major landmarks. So if you are a Dunedin motel and only 5 minutes walk from the Octagon, that should get a lot of emphasis (we recommend putting a statement like that directly under your logo). People also like to be close to; beaches, airports, stadiums and venues. Have a Google map on your site that has a pin showing your exact location. Provide easy to understand driving instructions (especially if your city has a lot of one way streets and you’re on one of them). Be fair in your estimates of walking and driving times, as stating you are just a 5 minute walk to the CBD when it’s more like a brisk 15 minute walk will only serve to annoy your guests (and they will inevitably end up as a comment on Trip Advisor).

2b. Rooms and Bed Configurations

Make it as easy as possible for your visitors to understand your room types, the bed configurations, and what’s in the rooms. Many motel websites are horribly confusing because rooms are so poorly described. Standardising your room names also helps considerably – most people will know that a deluxe room is going to be that bit nicer than a ‘standard’, but it’s much harder to tell the difference between a Tui room and a Bellbird one. Make sure you have at least one image of each room type.

2c. How much do rooms cost?

Pput your tariffs online in a prominent place, on a tariffs page, or on your room page listed under each room type.

3. Anticipate questions

When browsing sites online it’s very easy to forget about the small details that can actually make a big difference to your accommodation experience. These types of questions include things like; is it quiet, are there bus stops handy, heated towel rails in the bathrooms, hairdryers supplied, is there a dairy nearby, check in and out times, cancellation policy, are there any savings for multi-night stays, off-street parking, internet (wireless broadband in room), wheelchair access, sound proofing, restaurant on site or continental breakfasts, etc.

4. Easy to contact

Put your phone number at the top of your website on every page, have it in your footer of every page, and have it on your contact and bookings pages.

5. Easy to book online

Don’t try and do this yourself if you are taking credit cards, use one of the reservations systems as usually it’s as easy as having your web designer drop a small piece of code onto your site.

6. Can be found online in the search engines

This comes with a caveat – as it’s tough out there with hundreds of motels competing for the first 10 spots for ‘your-city motel’ and large tourism directory sites nabbing the first few spots. But you’ve got to at least try for those phrases. Ranking for your motel name is pretty easy to do, but getting those very generic rankings can be a challenge. Go for them, but also think about what other phrases your site could be optimised for (if you’re a beach side Christchurch motel, then that’s one of your phrases). Optimising a website for search is all about making them more relevant, and this is done by using the right mix of words on each page, within links and what is called the Meta data of your site (HTML code). Specialist optimisers can assist you with this. Note that all TML Web Design sites are optimised by our in-house SEO specialist.

7. Found online in national and local tourism and accommodation web directories

Tourism portals will often rank well in the search engines for the phrases you want to rank for, so it’s important to get a listing on these types of sites as the link can help with your rankings, and it also gives you more exposure online. So you may like to consider adding your motel to our sister site www.destination-nz.com for starters.

If you’d like more assistance with your motel website, complete our online enquiry form and we’ll be in touch with you as soon as possible, or email us on info@tmlwebdesign.co.nz.

As a bed and breakfast owner your website efforts are going to be a vital part of your overall success. What you’re looking for is the magic combination of an attractive, informative and persuasive website that ranks highly in the search engines.

Your website must paint a picture of your bed and breakfast and satisfy all of the questions a potential guest will require answering before they can feel confident about making a booking.

Start by clearly defining the ‘guest experience’

Make it very clear what kind of experience your guests will have at your B & B. Do you leave guests alone to get on with things, or do you have a lot of interaction with your guests? How obliging are you with your guests? Do you do airport pickups? Do you help them plan their activities and onward journey? If you are very hands on with your guests then add your photo and biography to the website.

How private are the guest’s rooms? Do they have an external door to their room? Is there a guest lounge for the sole use of the guests? What about your pets? Many of your guests will be love the cute pictures of Fluffy and Fido on your website, but remember that not everyone is an animal lover.

Be very specific about the in-room facilities without stating the obvious, and make sure to emphasise any competitive advantage you may have over other B & B’s in your area.

Location, Location, Location!

Help your guests to understand the location of your bed and breakfast and the unique features of the surrounding area. Start with your immediate location and then broaden it to your city and region. Are you right in the heart of your city and within walking distance to most attractions or are you in an out-lying leafy suburb? Are you five minutes from the airport? Is there a bus stop nearby? What restaurants, bars and eateries are in the area? What special qualities does your immediate area have? Are you close to parks and nature walks? Highlight the major attractions in your region, including scenic spots and must-do activities.

A picture really does paint a thousand words online

First impressions are everything online, so don’t try and do your own photos unless you are very good at it. We strongly advise you get in a professional or at least an extremely good amateur photographer. Photographing the inside of any room is tricky and the lighting has to be just right. It’s also very easy to get small distracting items into a shot that detract from the overall effect. Get images of all of your rooms, as people really need to know exactly what their room is going to look like.  And do get photos of Fido and Fluffy – people love this on websites.

Give them an easy way to book online

One of the most frustrating things for people researching accommodation options online is having no obvious booking options offered. With the number of online reservations systems that are available today there’s really no excuse not to have a real time booking system. Many of these booking systems are free to sign up with, and just take a commission for each booking. With some of the systems, your listing will also be syndicated on other travel websites giving your site even greater exposure.

The pages on your website

Most bed and breakfasts are small operations, so you can probably do with just 6 pages for your website. These could be homepage, ‘about’ page, ‘facilities’ page, ‘rooms’ page, ‘local attractions’ page, ‘contact’ & ‘location’ page. We highly recommend you add your contact details to the bottom of every page, as travellers frequently print out the pages from your site, so make it easy for them to contact you when they are on the move.

If you’d like help promoting your website or if you’d like to re-develop your website, please give us a call on 03 366 3340 or email info@tmlwebdesign.co.nz. We are happy to discuss your requirements with you.

If you own a bed and breakfast, then this guide to online marketing and website promotion is just for you. We’ve put together a list of our top 10 tips and ideas on how to make the most out of your web presence and get those phones ringing.

Tip 1: Get listed on the Bed and Breakfast Directories

List your bed and breakfast with the national and regional bed and breakfast web directories, as these sites often rank highly in the search engines. Most printed bed and breakfast guidebooks will also have an online version that you’ll be added to. If it’s a web-only bed and breakfast guide, then you may have to pay a small annual fee to be listed on the website.

A listing on these types of directories has the dual benefit of exposure on a niche travel website (with highly ‘qualified’ website visitors) and a link to your website, which will help with your search engine rankings in Google.

Tip 2: Get listed on the National and Regional Travel Directories

Take advantage of a free listing on the official New Zealand tourism website, and get onto your local RTO website. Also get listed on New Zealand travel guide websites such as www.destination-nz.com.

Tip 3: Make the most out of Traveladvisor.com

If you’re in the travel business you’ll eventually end up on Travel Advisor even if you haven’t registered your property. We highly recommend that you do register your bed & breakfast as you can add more content to your listing and get the latest reviews sent directly to your email. You can also respond to reviews and add a TripAdvisor badge to your site.

Tip 4: Keep track of your Google rankings

Every few weeks, run a Google search for bed and breakfasts in your area. If you are in a main centre, it’s not going to be easy to get a top 10 ranking for a phrase like ‘Wellington bed and breakfast’. Often the first ten results in Google will be dominated by large tourism directory websites as well as the specialist B & B guide websites. But you should still make an effort to rank for your main keyword phrases and think about other phrases that apply to your situation. For example, if your bed and breakfast is by the sea then you’ll want to optimise for terms like ‘Christchurch seaside bed and breakfast’ as this will greatly increase your chances of attracting the right type of visitors via search.

Tip 5. Optimise your Google map listing

Most searches in Google.co.nz now show Google map results. The image below is a Google search showing the results for ‘Wellington bed and breakfast’.

To get into Google Maps go to http://maps.google.co.nz/maps and click on the ‘your business on Google maps’ link at the side of the screen. You will need to sign up for a Google account to do this. But once you’ve got a Google account you can also take advantage of other Google web services such as Google Analytics and Google Webmaster tools. When you create your listing, add in as much content as permitted, as it’s quite likely that the words you write in this listing will help to determine if you show up for a particular keyword search.

Tip 6. Pay Per Click advertising in Google

If top rankings in the search engines are proving elusive, you can sign up to Google AdWords and pay to be listed in Google (with the results shown on the right side of Google). You specify how much you are prepared to pay for each click, setting a daily budget for a total spend. The more you pay for a click the higher your campaign advert will be displayed in Google.

See http://adwords.google.com/ for more information.

Tip 7. Start blogging

American inn keepers have taken to blogging in a big way. They’ve realised that it is a great way to ‘soft sell’ their bed and breakfast. Blogs also rank very well in the search engines so are an excellent way of driving more traffic to your website.  Blogging is simply writing articles about something you know about. It’s not for everyone, as you really need to like writing and be disciplined about it (publishing at least one blog post a week). But if you think you could come up with new and interesting content, then we highly recommend you start a blog. Write about things that have some longevity, such as annual festivals and events that are happening in your city and great places to shop and dine out, and be sure to put your personality into your writing.

Tip 8. Link out to other websites to get links back

If you have a local attractions page on your website, add links to relevant businesses in your area such as cafes, restaurants and tourism operators. Let them know you’ve added the link and provide them with a short description to use if they would like to link back to you. It’s always best to get your link up first as people will be more inclined to reciprocate.

Tip 9. Consider using Social Media and Micro Blogging

Micro blogging is publishing short status updates on sites like Twitter (www.twitter.com). Twitter is very popular at the moment, but like blogging it requires a commitment to actually updating your account. The power in Twitter is that Twitterers can link to your profile in their ‘tweets’ so people following them may click on the link and read your updates. It’s essentially an online word of mouth marketing channel. Social media marketing is also a form of word of mouth marketing, but instead of someone telling two people about the great bed and breakfast they stayed at, they announce it to all of their ‘friends’ via their status update, and this could mean hundreds of people learning about your business.

Tip 10. How to put it all together!

Be proactive and check your rankings in Google. If you find B & B guides are ranking well for your phrase, request a listing on their site. Get as many free listings as you can on travel directories. Swap links with other businesses in your area. Make sure you can be found in Google maps and add in as many images and text as you can (using relevant keywords). Consider paying for clicks if you can’t rank for your phrases (but the ultimate goal is to get your site ranking without having to pay). Get a blog so visitors can subscribe to your most recent posts via RSS. Set up Twitter and have your blog send updates to Twitter about your latest blog posts. Create a Facebook page and link it to your blog so your blog posts are displayed as ‘notes’ on Facebook. You may also like to set up a Facebook group so you can email all of your group members (a nice and inexpensive way to do email marketing!).

If you’d like help promoting your website or if you’d like to re-develop your website, please give us a call on 03 366 33 40 or email info@tmlwebdesign.co.nz. We are happy to discuss your requirements with you.