Free advice for internet advertising - 10 things you need to know before spending your hard earned money!

Find out why online promotion works for some and not for others.

Consider these facts:

Many UK accommodation providers now receive more than half of their bookings from online sources and this is increasing.
Travel and tourism is the biggest spending sector on the internet so the opportunities are great - if you get it right.
It is just as easy to waste your advertising budget online as it ever was off line!

You have a full time business to run so how can you be expected to know how to get the best out of your hard earned marketing budget through cost effective online internet advertising and marketing

Here are ten key things you need to know to help make money through your online presence.

1 - 5 Your own web presence

1. Don't spend too much on your own website!

Do you want to see your website at the top of searches in Google? Of course you do but so do all your competitors as well as the multitude of specialist directory sites like ours. Unless you are prepared to spend large sums of money or can dedicate large chunks of time to this task you may as well not bother.

The answer? Think carefully what you want your website to realistically achieve. Think of it as an online brochure and a source of reference for people once they have found out about you. The two golden rules are: a) It must be clean and simple - no spinning globes, links to casinos, strange fonts or music! b) It must have great photos. If you can't take them yourself then pay someone to do it. On your site they should be a decent size but well optimised to small files do they don't take too long to download. A photo gallery with clickable thumbnails is the neatest solution.

When thinking about the file size for photos remember that no photo on any iknow-uk website is more than 15k.

2. Make sure you get and use your webs stats

All websites produce a log of information about every visitor to the site. All you need is the software that can make sense of the log to tell you where your visitors came from, what search terms they used, what pages they visited, what pages they left the site from and much more besides.

Such information is vital in order for you to make good decisions about your site. It also lets you know which sites your website is listed on are producing a good number of visitors for you.

3. DIY search engine visibility

Like building a house you must get the foundations of your website right in order to get anywhere in search engines. Google provides comprehensive information about the do's and don'ts of websites and it is amazing how many sites do not conform to these basic standards. http://www.google.co.uk/webmasters/

A great source of helpful hints for improving your search engine presence is www.janklin.com.

4. Use Google Adwords

Google Adwords are an excellent way of quickly boosting the number of visitors to your website. Using Adwords enables you to publish a small ad on page one of Google for a variety of relevant search terms. You pay a small fee each time someone visits your site from the ad - this is known as 'Pay per Click'.

The big advantage of Pay per Click is that it costs nothing to set up and you pay for results. However, the result is someone landing on your site rather than making a booking or an enquiry so it is important for you to have an attractive, easy to use site. It is very important to limit your budget with Adwords until you get used to the way it works. Otherwise you can end up with a very large bill.

The disadvantage of Pay per Click is that it is an ongoing cost. The more visitors you want on your site the more you pay. It is important to budget for this ongoing cost in just the same way that you would budget for other regular advertising.

5. Email marketing

Collect email addresses of all who stay with you; with their permission of course! Assuming that the quality of your establishment and service means that they will want to come back and stay again you can email information on special offers or events at virtually no cost.

Make sure that you also include instructions for someone to remove their details from your mailings in order to comply with regulations.

6 - 10 Using Directories

6. Don't spend anything without a trial or recommendation!

Accommodation directories can be an excellent source of enquiries and bookings. In theory they should work much better than your own site at attracting new business because of the much greater audience they claim to attract. However, in practice most web directories do not work!

When deciding which ones are worth signing up to you should consider the following GOLDEN RULES:

Have a free trial on the site to see if it works for you. If there is no free trial on offer then ask yourself why not?
Ask other accommodation owners near you what works for them.
Check out claims of great performance from various directories on www.alexa.com. This is a great site that lets you see where any site stands in the over 'league table' of websites. Any decent site should be well inside the top 500,000 especially if the site covers the entire country or many countries. www.iknow-yorkshire.co.uk is ranked well inside the top 200,000 websites in the world for visitors even though it is dedicated only to properties in Yorkshire. See: http://www.alexa.com/data/details/?url=www.iknow-yorkshire.co.uk

7. Is your published information correct?

Your property could well be listed on more than 100 web directories without you knowing. Do a Google search for your property including its location. Check every site and make sure that your basic details are correct, such as price, description details and contact details. Where you find any errors simply contact the site and ask them to make the corrections. If they can't correct your details then ask to be removed.

The only problem with being listing on numerous web directories is keeping them all up to date. There is nothing worse than receiving an enquiry from someone expecting to pay your rates from five years ago. You must weigh up the pro's and con's of wider exposure verses the effort of updating your details.

8. Carefully monitor what sites work for you

As with any advertising expenditure it is vital that you know how cost effective your online advertising outlets are. Be sure to ask all your guests where they found out about you. If they say 'the internet' then prompt them about the site you know you are listed on to see if they know which one they used.

The key figure is what return you make on your investment. A site that costs £50 per year only has to make a few bookings compared to a £400 site. But if the £50 site generates no bookings then it is £50 wasted!

9. Booking enquiries or online booking?

There is no doubt that online booking is the way of the future for most types of accommodation providers. For large hotels catering for the business market online booking has already become an essential part of their marketing. But for smaller properties the jury is still out.

The biggest problem with online booking for smaller properties is the requirement to keep your online availability up to date. No one wants to be tied to their computer all day but failing to log all bookings creates the prospect of double booking a room. For large hotels this is much less of an issue as they have many more rooms to play with and can dedicate resources to keeping their published availability up to date.

Other issues faced by smaller properties are the complexities of many systems, especially when trying to specify one room as a having a number of different configurations, such as single, twin and double. Rules also have to be set up to prevent bookings being taken that may cause disruption, like single night weekend bookings for example.

The big advantage of online booking is payment on results. No booking = no fees. However you must bear in mind your time and resources in this cost equation. Also the fees per booking can be quite high depending upon the company and what other services they provide. Commission fees typically range from 15-25%. Also check to see if the card transaction fee is included in the commission or as an extra charge.

10. Online advertising is not passive!

When you subscribe to a directory don't just sit back and wait for the bookings to flood in. To get the most out of it you must actively manage your listing. The top tips for successful directory listings (assuming you are on a good one!) are:

Supply great photos. Who wants to stay somewhere that doesn't look great?
Make you unique selling points stand out. Don't make someone find references to you most attractive features buried in long paragraphs.
Utilise an availability calendar to attract enquiries when you have rooms available and to restrict enquiries when you are full.
Make it clear what you don't want! If you don't accept single night weekend bookings then say so. It'll save you and an enquirer a lot of time.
Publish up to date special offers, last minute availability and other items of interest that add value to a potential customer.
Respond quickly to all enquiries. The average enquirer will approach at least one other establishment and if they respond before you they are much more likely to get the booking.