Why WordPress Websites Are the Go-To for Savvy Hoteliers
It’s hard to overstate the importance of a good hotel website.
These days, of course, a lot of attention’s paid to the wild world of social media, and certainly platforms such as Facebook and Twitter should play fundamental roles in your marketing. But if your fun and engaging social-media posts aren’t backed up by an effective website, you’re undoubtedly missing out on revenue.
Consider this: Data from Skift suggests travelers doing online research for an upcoming trip typically browse 38 different websites before booking a reservation. If your property’s site fails to grab their attention or proves hard to navigate, those shoppers have plenty of competitors eager to better engage them.
The Wonders of WordPress for Hotels
Here at O’Rourke, we develop WordPress websites for our hotel clients. One of the signal advantages of the WordPress CMS is that it’s open-source. That means that while we put together your site based on the most effective marketing practices (we’ll spell some of those out shortly), you have full control over it: You can modify or expand it as you see fit.
The WordPress platform makes it a breeze to log in and update your site yourself, whether it’s adding new content or tweaking the design. A good website, after all, is always a dynamic work-in-progress that evolves with your company and your needs, and our WordPress creations give you an awesome foundation to build upon without having to master a bunch of technical knowledge. Another major plus of WordPress? The sheer variety of great-looking themes, whether elegantly spare or downright ornate. As we design the perfect site for you, we can customize the layout to match your vision—and then of course you’ve got the power to reconfigure and transform the site’s appearance as you see fit!
Design Elements of a Good Website
So, what are some of the design elements that guide us as we put together top-shelf WordPress websites for hotels?
First and foremost, it’s important that any website be simple to use and easy to navigate. Too much copy, unclear menus, hard-to-find info: a cluttered or confusing interface will almost assuredly turn away would-be guests. Few customers have the time to invest in exploring such a website—and, remember, they’re also looking at many competing businesses before deciding where they’re going to stay. You want to make a good first impression, to say the least.
Attractive photos of your property and its amenities and attractions are also essential. Besides offering an aesthetic experience that subliminally draws a person to your website, these pictures also allow potential guests to easily visualize themselves on vacation at your hotel or resort—one clear step in the road to booking.
And speaking of booking, it’s important to have prominent calls-to-action on your site: a “book now” button in either the top left- or right-hand corner of your webpage, for example.
SEO and Analytics
The performance of the WordPress websites for hotels we offer at O’Rourke goes well beyond their superficial visuals, though. Our SEO best practices ensure your site muscles its way to prominence through the slew of search-engine results confronting a potential customer doing online trip planning.
And website analytics offer heaps of valuable information—more, we should point out, than mere social-media analytics. The data they collect can help you learn more about your prospective guests, how they’re interacting with your website, and the return on investment of your current marketing campaigns.
Mobile-Friendly Websites
These days, nearly three-quarters of the online travel research Americans conduct happens on a mobile device, which, furthermore, is where more than half of guests actually book their rooms. This underscores the importance of having a responsive website that performs well on a smartphone or tablet; it’s no longer good enough simply to have a nice-looking, user-friendly traditional website for a desktop/laptop.
Standout WordPress Websites for Hotels from O’Rourke
Get in touch with us today to learn more about the website packages we offer here at O’Rourke. We’ll produce a first-rate WordPress site for your hospitality business: one that stands out from the pack, that effectively promotes you from desktop to mobile screens, and that you have full control over as a hotelier!
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