Top Tactics for Getting More Direct Bookings for Your Accommodation Establishment

We’ve already highlighted some tips for choosing the best direct booking engine for your accommodation establishment and hinted at some of the benefits you stand to gain from this necessary booking tool.

In a nutshell, having a good direct booking engine on your website helps boost profits since you don’t pay commission. It also helps you to nurture better client relationships through direct interactions with your guests.

A direct booking engine also gives you access to more of your clients’ details and demographics, so you can better accommodate their needs and target advertising towards them.

Now, let’s get into the finer details of how to get more direct bookings in this two-part article.

Optimize Your Website for the Right Exposure

Nowadays, your website is a vital business tool since most potential customers begin their purchase journey with an online search query. Unless you optimize your website for the best relevant keywords, the search engines like Google can’t present it to prospective clients.

Search engine optimization helps the search engines to identify what your site’s about. In that way, they can best suggest the most relevant websites for each internet search.  

So, you should conduct extensive research into what type of search terms your targeted customers use when they’re looking for accommodation in your area. It’s best to get expert help with this complex task, but there are ways you can get an idea of which words to use on your own.

For instance, you could type ‘accommodation in your area’ into Google and look at the ‘People also ask’ and ‘Related Searches’ on your results page. These are common searches that relate to what you’ve typed into the search engine.

The best websites can also integrate with personalization software to ensure customized search results refined to the customer’s exact need.

For instance, you should optimize your website so that people searching for specific unit sizes will find exactly what they want. If someone wants a 5-sleeper unit in your area, your page featuring that size accommodation should appear when they search online.

It’s vital that your website is responsive, i.e. it’s compatible with mobile phones.

Another way to ensure your website stays front and centre for clients searching in your area is updating it regularly. One of the best ways to do this is with blogging.

A Blog Helps Optimize Your Accommodation Website

A blog is an excellent way to get regular hits on search engines. It also keeps your website content fresh and current.

When you feature blogs on your website, you increase the number of keywords you can rank for. For instance, if people are searching for activities in your area, a blog on that topic will lead them directly to your website.

For the ultimate success with your blogs, you should stay up to date with trending topics and popular search queries, so you need to become an expert on tourism in your locality if you want more bookings.

Of course, you can write your blogs yourself, but it’s best to get a professional SEO copywriter to do the work for you. You’ll get many more rewards for your efforts and expense that way.

A well-written blog will get potential customers coming back to your website over and over for more information, so when they’re looking for accommodation, your establishment’s top of mind.

Get the Best Online Direct Booking Engine

I cannot overstate the importance of getting the best booking engine you can find. It might cost more at the outset, but it will pay for itself in no time at all.

The more integrated your booking engine is with your site, the more personalization and options you can offer your clients. That means you can tailor your offering to potential clients and get more bookings.

Set Up Preferential Rates for Direct Bookings

Make sure your direct booking rates offer better value than those advertised with OTA’s. For instance, you could offer refundable and non-refundable rates, country-specific rates, and even mobile-friendly rates.

You can also set up discounts for direct bookings, making it cheaper for guests to book directly with you.

Spread The Word About Direct Booking Savings

An easy way to place these preferential rates in front of potential customers is by pushing them out to the metasearch platforms like Google, Trivago, and TripAdvisor.

That way, when a website displays a rate comparison, your cheaper direct booking rate will always appear alongside all the others.

Advertising Always Attracts More Direct Bookings

Apart from showing off your direct bookings savings on the meta search engines, you should also brag about them at every opportunity.

Advertise them on your paid google ads, display adverts, and on your social media pages.

You can also use remarketing to target potential customers with attractive rates. If a potential guest visits your site and leaves without making a booking, go after them.

Target these clients with new ads broadcasting your direct bookings rates. You can do this using either Google or Facebook ads but the best way to do it is by creating a custom ad for each service or campaign on your website and remarketing your business only to those people who’ve visited that page before.

Don’t neglect your existing customers either. For instance, you can start advertising to these guests a few weeks or months before their last visit to your accommodation establishment and remind them that it’s time for their annual holiday.

Advertising and marketing your business is almost a full-time job. To make things easier for you, you should consider using a platform like D-Edge’s Media Genius that allows you to manage it all from one handy portal.

Keeping Track of It All

Unless you set benchmarks for yourself, you’ll never know if you’re succeeding in your marketing and strategic efforts to attract more direct bookings.

You’ll also never know if your competitors are beating you at the game.

Fortunately, you can keep track of your performance, and theirs, with easy-to-use tools like Benchdirect from the Hotels Network. This free tool helps you see how your efforts compare with others in your area and helps you keep tabs on your own progress too.

Do You Need Help Maximizing Your Accommodation Business?

With decades of experience in the accommodation marketing business, my team and I are passionate about helping you make the most of your tourism offering.

Bookmark my site for regular updates on everything to do with marketing your accommodation establishment and getting more direct bookings, browse our blog, or get in touch for assistance.

Click Here To Read Part 2 Of This Article.