One of the areas that we must work to improve the conversion rate, effectiveness and profitability of marketing campaigns in digital media is to create optimized landing pages.
Convincing guests that our hotel is the optimal choice is not an easy task, but not impossible. This process starts with the visualization and the first step is the landing page, therefore, its optimization is very important.
What is a landing page?
A landing page is a digital marketing tool whose sole purpose is to generate action.
Whether it is a direct sales landing page or a lead generation landing page, the action must be performed by a user who becomes from a visitor to our website in a client or lead, which completes a predetermined conversion event.
For a hotel, in most cases, the landing page is a direct sale one and is created for users to make a booking.
In this article we will review the 6 steps that will help us to create a landing page of success and achieve in this way to fulfill the objective for which we have created it; increase conversion and bookings.
1. Design
2. Usability
3. Messages and call to action
4. Loading speed
5. Traffic
6. Measure and Optimize
1. Design
An important aspect to take into account when creating a landing page is the design. Through a striking and clear design we will arouse the interest of the users to present our hotel and our value proposition, services, etc. In a landing page of a hotel the images must have a lot of weight in the design.
2. Usability
Apart from an attractive design we have to look for the functionality of our page to enhance usability. The arrangement of each element has to pursue the clarity for the action that the user has to perform and highlight the added value (in the text and images).
The page must be well structured inviting the user in each step to make a reservation or to continue reading. We must pay attention to that the structure of navigation can be followed correctly in all type of devices: mobile, tablets and computers.
It is advisable that the first step of the booking process (selection of dates, number of guests, etc.) is integrated into the landing itself so that the user can make the reservation directly without additional clicks.
3. Messages and call to action
The copys / texts of a landing page should be more concise and summarized than those of a website and at the same time offer all the information that a user may need to decide to book in our hotel: general information about rooms, services, location, opinions, etc.
A highly recommended practice is to offer an exclusive benefit by booking through the landing page / site either in the form of additional service or discount on the price.
Each block of text should end with a call to action inviting the user to make the purchase through our booking engine.
4. Loading Speed
An aspect that we must take special care in a landing page is the loading speed, as it will help in a remarkable way to improve the conversion rates, for this we must take care of the way in which the source code is loaded (styles CSS, javascript, etc.). ), optimize the weight of the images to the maximum (preserving good quality), have a good server and additionally with a CDN network, etc.
In the case of mobile phones we can offer an optimized version following the AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) standard in which usability and charging times are optimized and specifically designed for these devices. In addition to improving the conversion rates will help improve the positioning of the landing page in the natural search engine results (SEO).
5. Traffic
Following the creation of our attractive landing page, the first step is the generation of quality traffic to make our hotel known through the landing. For this we have different channels available:
With cost:
• SEM (sponsored links in search engines)
• Search engines
• Retargeting
• Affiliate Networks
• Display and Marketing Automation
• Advertising on offline media (TV, press, etc.)
No direct costs:
• SEO (natural positioning, will take some time)
• The hotel’s own website
• Social networks
• Emailing / Newsletter
For the creation of the messages it is very important to take into account the benefits that our hotel offers to users and to highlight them through clear proposals. It must include an offer and call to action, which has to be attractive and accompanied by quality images, which convey the advantages that the user has when booking rooms on our landing page.
6. Measure and Optimize
To achieve the best possible conversion rate, it is necessary to test and measure. The A / B test in our landing page is essential to continuously improve the conversion rate.
Testing allows us, apart from improving our landing page, to improve our strategy in digital media. We should not assume that content, images, call to action and our value proposition that we have used in creating our landing page are the best, but we must continually test and make decisions based on results.
To decide which aspects we need to test on a priority basis, we will analyze how users navigate the landing page through Analytics data, Heat maps, Click maps, Scrollmaps to help us identify the areas with the highest potential of improvement.
