Is your Website your “Marketing Machine”?

You're listening to Get Fully Booked with Sarah Orchard. Are you ready to master your marketing so you can ditch your reliance on the online agents and grow your direct bookings?

I'll be sharing with you exactly what it takes to grow your direct bookings and the simple marketing steps to get more profit in your pocket. Hello again and welcome to another episode of the Get Fully Booked podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Orchard.

Well, today I'm diving into a super juicy topic and it's one of my favourite marketing subjects, which is how to turn your website into a marketing machine. Because let's be honest, your website is more than just a pretty online business card or brochure.

It's your secret sales fairy that should be working 24 7 for your business, but only if you know how to make it work hard for you. So I'm going to share with you today some ideas of how you can make your website work as hard as possible.

So why does your website matter more than you think? Your website isn't just there to exist. I think everyone now in business is probably very few, although there are some hospitality and short term rental businesses that do not have websites. But I think they're probably in the minority. But your website is there. It exists to actually convert for you.

Visitors land on your website with a question, is this the perfect place for us? And your job is make the answer a resounding yes. Yes. Yes. So I'll let you in on a little secret.

Over 70% of travellers visit a property's website before booking, even if they found it first on Airbnb or another online booking agent. A great website can save you from losing direct bookings as visitors bounce back to Airbnb and you have to then pay hefty agent commission fees.

So if your site isn't ready to charm and convert, it's leaving money on the table or putting money into someone else's pocket. So let's look at the key magic ingredients that your website needs.

Let's talk about turning that passive website into a marketing machine for your business. I help my club members implement these changes to their websites to make them a direct booking magnet. Here's what you need to consider.

These are just a few.

When I do a website audit, I look at about 25 points on my checklist, but I'm just going to run through a handful of them here for you today, just to give you some quick wins on making your website that direct booking magnet. So the first thing first, I think is a strong first impression. Your headline and your hero image or video really need to have that wow factor.

You need to convey the guest experience feeling in an absolute instant. You have only six seconds at most before they bounce back to Google.

And I don't want to see you using generic cliched headlines like a glamping cabin to relax and recharge. We see that a lot and unfortunately that doesn't make you stand out from the crowd.

If you need a bit more help with this, take a listen to episode 10, where I explore how to tell your brand story with Claire Robinson from Weekend Candy. And that should really help you. You need to enable the visitor to picture themselves actually in your accommodation.

And the job of this top section of your website is to invite them to scroll. Like I said, you only have six seconds before they decide, does this look what I'm looking for?

Does it look good or am I going to bounce back to Google? It needs to be sticky, it needs to make them stay and want to read more.

You need to tempt them to scroll and once they start to scroll, you've got a better chance that they're going to stay there and convert into a booking. The second key thing I think is you have to build trust fast. And you need to do this with what we call creating trust signals.

And if you think about it, it makes perfect sense.

Big brands like Airbnb, Booking.com, VRBO, Expedia, People Trust them, rightly or wrongly, they know that those companies are around, that they can contact them, how they can get in touch if there's a problem. Probably they're going to get their money back if there's a problem, so there's a great deal of trust around those brands.

You're an independent owner or property manager, they don't know you from Adam. They don't even know if your website is a real business. They might turn up and this has happened, people turn up to what they think is an Airbnb place, or they turn up at a glamping site and they find that they've been scammed and that that business doesn't exist. So you need to create those strong trust signals. And here's a few examples of what you can do.

Have real guest testimonials, have them on all pages, not just your reviews section, because let's face it, the visitor might not actually go to that section. And I think you need to have at least one show stopping review on your homepage. Have an about page with a real picture of you.

Tell your story, tell them why you love being a host actually, your about page is normally in the top three pages visited on most websites.

I look at a lot of website Google Analytics data and I can tell you that on literally every client website that I've looked at and I've done over 70 website audits even in the last couple of years. The about page is always super important.

You know, these people are booking with strangers, so you have to give them the confidence that you are genuine and that when they turn up a you're going to be a good host and they're going to have a good experience. And actually your business does really exist. If you've been in the press or you've won any awards, even TripAdvisor reviews, they all count.

And it all goes to show you your credibility and that you are someone to trust. Show your full address. So many businesses don't like to put their contact details on their website.

But again, if you don't have a privacy policy and you don't have sort of terms of booking and you don't have your address, you start to look like you're trying to hide something. And that obviously makes people feel nervous about booking direct with you.

And they're more likely, if in doubt, to go back to one of the big boys and finally have a secure website which is HTTPs.

So you've got Secure Socket Layer, which is SSL encryption, and that you offer secure payment like Stripe, Worldpay, PayPal, any of those big payment systems that gives people confidence that their money is being handled correctly and their credit card details, because that's really important in this day and age with fraud. The third thing I'd like you to think about is calls to action. And these really need to help.

This is what actually helps to convert into bookings and you need to make it easy for your guests to book. You need a Book Now button in the main menu that ideally is pinned to the top of the screen on desktop and visible on mobile at all times.

So many people have a Book Now button that is like doesn't exist or it's hidden in the main menu, it doesn't sort of stand out. And also when people scroll, particularly on desktop, and it actually disappears completely.

And then when you go down to the rest of the page of their website, there's no other calls to action. There's no like Book Now buttons. So people get a bit lost as to what you actually want them to do. You want them to book.

So use clear buttons like check availability, book your stay now, and use these at the end of key sections. You want at least two to three on every main booking related page. No one wants to have to hunt for it.

And I think the key thing is if you create booking friction on your website, that equals a lost booking. Number four, tell the experience story. So I mentioned this a little bit with your main hero image on your homepage.

Guests typically aren't just booking a bed for the night, they can pick a travel lodge or a motel for that. They're booking for an occasion, a long awaited family holiday, maybe some couple time, or to take part in a celebration.

Or maybe they're even looking for a sort of an adventure experience. So use words and images that evoke the best feelings around these occasions.

So relaxation, joy, adventure, togetherness, you know, really tell the story. You need to create feelings. Good marketing isn't about logic.

So when I see websites where people are just describing the real functional basics of what their accommodation offers, like it's got so many bedrooms and then there's a king size bed and there's a hair dryer and there's robes. Yeah, great. Everyone offers that. I want you to tell me how I'm going to feel when I'm staying with you. How does that feel different? How?

What do you create in that experience that makes me want to come and book and stay with you? Number five, make it mobile friendly.

This isn't a surprise, probably to most people, but over 60% or more of your guests will be browsing on their phones. So if your website isn't mobile friendly, they'll click away faster than you can say missed bookings. Number six, build your marketing gold mine.

This is my favourite one, which is why I've left it till last. It's email subscribers.

So if you use the analogy that your website is like having a brick and mortar shop on a high street, you wouldn't let your shoppers that have come into your shop, they open the door, they come in, they walk around. You wouldn't ignore them, you'd talk to them. You'd ask them if you could help them. You'd ask them what they were looking for.

Was it for a special occasion, a gift? You know, are they looking to treat themselves? What size are they? What colours are they looking for?

You'd engage in conversation because once they've left your shop, you've got no means of contacting them again. And if you've ignored them, you can't do any marketing to them.

So you can use Google Analytics to look at how many visitors you get to your website every year. Now our Hideout Treehouse website gets between 65 and 85,000 visits a year. Now we can only take 130 stays on average a year.

So if I can just gather up 1 to 5% of those visitors into email subscribers, that is so invaluable. And I've got those people on my list. Doesn't cost me anything to very little actually to send them regular communications.

And I'm not at the beck and call of Meta in terms of the social platforms. I can decide when I send them messages that actually meet my objectives and what I'm trying to achieve.

So another thing I want to talk to you about is let's talk about search engine optimization or SEO. But for me this is all about just how not to be invisible online. And I hear you saying Sarah, but SEO sounds techy.

It sounds complicated, but stick with me, it's not about techie jargon. I think you should think about it. It's like road signs okay, so if it's about creating meaningful signposts to Google so it can be super helpful and match you to the guests that are looking for exactly what you offer. So just a few SEO is like a massive topic and I'm probably going to do another episode just talking about search engine optimization.

And I do have an SEO course.

It's SEO Made Easy if you want to have a quick look at that and see if that can help you with your search engine optimisation. So if you haven't tackled this, this is something that is a massive quick win for your business.

So just a couple of sort of basic SEO tips you need to think about. Sprinkling keywords like romantic glamping break or luxury woodland cabin, cosy holiday cottage or mini moon getaway throughout your website copy especially in your headings and your page titles. Maybe think about starting a simple blog with topics like top things to do in your area, whatever your area is or near a certain attraction.

If that's like a thing that maybe it's a beach or there's some tourist attraction that brings people to your particular area, it's good to sort of link up with. You know that and your area. How to plan the perfect dog friendly weekend escape.

If you know that you're dog friendly and that a lot of your guests bring their dogs, obviously they are going to be searching on Google for dog friendly things to do in your particular area. They may not have booked their accommodation yet. So if you can come up in front of them, that's obviously going to be a Real quick win.

Google will love you for doing it and it will bring some ideal guest matches right to your doorstep. Okay, so I want to give you a little bit of a website action plan.

So here's your marketing homework and I promise if you put a little bit of effort into this, it will work wonders for your website traffic and your direct bookings. So visit your own website today as if you were a guest. Is it clear, inspiring and easy to book? Have you created friction?

And particularly and a lot of hosts don't do this, go and look at it on a mobile device. Because what looks amazing on a desktop or maybe even on your tablet, when you go onto a mobile, it can look totally different.

So go and check that out and be really constructive and think about actually how does it look from the guest point of view. And then just identify one improvement from my suggestions today that you'll make in the next week.

Maybe it's updating your homepage hero image, adding more calls to action buttons in a strong colour, or fixing your mobile layout because it looks awful. Remember that small website changes can lead to really big direct booking results. So that's it for today's episode. Thanks for listening.

I hope you're feeling fired up to transform your website into the marketing machine you need it to be. Don't forget to subscribe and share this podcast with your fellow hosts.

I will be back next week with a guest episode where I'll be joined by Nina Jervis Green, who is from Host Unusual, and we're looking to demystify the choice between using an advertising or directory listing versus online booking agents. We'll be looking at the pros and cons of each and how you make the decision of what's right for you.

And don't forget, if you enjoyed this episode, I'd love it if you could leave me a review. You know how much us hosts love those five star reviews. See you next time. Thank you for listening to Get Fully Booked with Sarah Orchard.

If you want to see if you are ready to ditch the likes of Airbnb and grow your direct bookings, put your business to the test with my free Direct Booking Roadmap quiz. Head to my website get-fully-booked.com/quiz and let's get you more direct bookings and more profit in your pocket.