Recently Usabilla did a study on just what visitors look for on a hotel’s website to create trust. Top of the list was the hotel’s logo and brand awareness. Some of the other major factors included affiliations, guarantees, pro design, etc.

Apart from the hotel’s logo and brand awareness, affiliations with others help support trust when a visitor comes to your site. Such affiliations should be highly visible on the home page with logos of the affiliations.

The professional design of a hotel’s website is also extremely important. A beautiful picture of the hotel’s property and features can greatly enhance trust in the visitor and entice them to want to stay there.

Having simple, secure and accessible forms on the website also creates trust amongst your visitors.

Also highly rated is offering guarantees to your visitors such as best rate guarantees and no booking fees.

Social media is another avenue for building brand and creating trust with visitors to your website. Create a YouTube video showcasing what your hotel has to offer and maybe even interview guests that have stayed in the past for their comments and review. Connections help to inspire trust.

FAQ’s and help sections on your website makes it easier for visitors to get answers to some of the more common questions quickly and aside from good customer service also helps to build trust.

The infographic shows more of the 7 elements of trust from Usabilla’s study. What do you look for in a hotel’s website to build trust? Are they one or more the 7 elements below or some other?

More on Usabilla’s study into the travel sector can be found here. For a closer look at the infographic just click and zoom in on the new webpage.

Well, you wondered what Google would do in the travel space – Here it is… Google Hotel Finder.  According to Google, “is a new experimental product that makes it easier to compare and book hotels that are found across the web.”

Albeit experimental, the basic premise is that you have a multitude of ways to search for your ideal place to rest your head at night.

So, I hear you asking some questions:

Where are they sending bookings?

Not surprisingly, they are continuing with their alliances for the following in-direct distribution channels;

• Priceline
• Hotels.com
• Expedia
• Property website is an option though.

“[..]available booking options for the hotel, which may include both the hotel owner and resale vendors. You can choose to book the room through any of these channels, including the hotel owner.”

Reviews?

The other day we (seemingly) broke the news about the changes made in dumping 3rd party reviews. Seems to ring true here too in the fact that they apparently are only pulling from Google User reviews.  (Hint #2, get your staff to come up with ways to engage guests to generate Google Reviews).

What we like:

We do like the Edit Shape function which allows you to set a specific sector on a map for the results in the UI to reflect.

What we don’t like:

Look, we’re biased here.  We are paid to generate direct distribution for our hospitality clients, so any time a heavyweight throws in options other than booking direct to a client’s website, we’re never too happy. (We’re not saying there isn’t a place for in-direct channels, just not here). So, the fact that Google are obviously incentivised to send a stream of traffic to (and have been for a while, this isn’t anything new) will have some dampening effect on what effect, if any, a public roll out will have.

I’ve talked for years about how Google will make their move further into the travel sector. This is their boldest move yet but don’t forget – all Google will do for the foreseeable future is to stream traffic to other websites in the most profitable way they can. I dare say we’ll see options in AdWords soon for premium placements in these results. Chances are they will start off with the Display Network integration but the travels space is a huge segment for Google and some something more robust will come down the line should this experiment hit the open market. On the fullfilment side, Google will never get into the transactional side of this business.  They aren’t a customer support kinda company – period. So, they will generate revenus from traffic streaming in their normal ways.

Your thoughts?

2 blog posts in one day! No we haven’t gone mad… yet. We just thought that you all should see this news as soon as possible.

In the last few hours Google has changed their algorithm that pulls in review numbers. Previously when you searched for a hotel, let’s say in Chattanooga TN, you were shown a count of reviews box to the right of each search result that numbered in the hundreds or even thousands for 1st page GP results. This was because Google pulled the reviews from a number of different sources to build the cumulative count of reviews. However, now Google shows an extremely low number. Why?

The review number for this hotel is now, just 15. Previously for the Chattanoogan this figure was in excess of  200 reviews ( Tripadvisor + hotels.com + yahoo etc. etc.). This change may have a close correlation with the gaining traction of Google +1. Google wants its active members to get involved and have the main say behind review results.

So what is the impact hotel and other industry local SEO effort? The number of Google Places reviews (and their quality) will likely have a huge say in future SERP rankings. For instance my search above ranks the hotels almost perfectly in review number order – 32, 15, 4 & 5.

So what’s your follow up question to that? Hands up please… That’s right… How do we get more Google reviews? Thats something that agencies and clients need to think about and resolve before Google leaves them behind.

So, the most recent data on who’s winning between Apple and Google on the operating system front is brought to surface by recent Nielson research. To summarize – 37 percent of mobile consumers in the U.S. now have a smartphone. Google’s Android operating system (aOS) is proving to be the most popular.  According to Nielsen’s April survey of mobile consumers, 36 percent of smartphone consumers now have an Android device, compared to 26 percent for Apple iOS smartphones (iPhones) and 23 percent for RIM Blackberry.

It used to be the case that even though Android OS device owners were gaining market share, it was shown that they weren’t as engaged in web activities and app hunting/usage but this recent research shows the lines between those iPhone users, who were always heavy data and app users, blurring a lot more. In fact, it’s nearly balanced out and the Nielson data suggests the consumption levels of data by aOS and iOS are showing signs of aligning with each other and even similarities in the type of data usage (i.e. app downloads, online gaming usage etc etc).

What does this all mean?  Well, for those of you thinking that mobile only means Apple iPhone, it’s time to think again.  We’ve always looked at what to develop for by looking at the market the site and/or app is to serve and what makes sense for the product/service pitched against project budgets. But, in the age of the “web app”, this data definitely provides some strategic thinking shifts when talking about mobile plays and what to develop for. For us, it’s never ever just been about the iPhone. Having been in the mobile marketing space for over 10 years, development x-device / x-OS was always scope for any projects. But if you were in the court that thought mobile just meant iPhone, then gone are those days.

For higher market penetration levels, you need to factor in aOS devices also and if you have existing mobile propositions, how does this new data affect your thinking. If you think it doesn’t – it should. First question, if you’ve developed a web-app or mobile site only designed for an iPhone, then how does your site look/feel/interact on Android devices.  Hint: There are numerous different screen sizes on aOS devices versus one for the iPhone. How does your mobile proposition look on smart-phones other than the iPhone?

There’s really no easy answer to this question and, if you ask 10 different SEO professionals, you’re likely to get 11 different answers.
I’ll define it the easiest way and the way I always define it for our clients: SEM involves PPC and SEO doesn’t.

In a sense, SEM and SEO are one in the same. With SEM, you pull out all of the stops to get your site(s) ranking, including paying for instant results by using ads of somes ort, be it AdWords, banner advertisements or other PPC campaigns. With SEO, you’re not paying for placement for your keywords, therefore it takes some time to achieve the results you want.

Naturally, the next question is, “which is better?”. As with everything, there’s pros and cons to each. With SEM, you can get nearly instantaneous results which ofcourse means, instant traffic. You decide which spot you want to appear in foryour chosen keyword. And, with that decision comes a, sometimes, hefty price. The advantage is you get to choose to be first or second or third place (how often do youget THAT choice in life?) The downside is once your money runs out, you vanishfrom the search results.

Although SEO does take time along with an investment of resources (time, money,etc.), the results can, literally, last for years. While you don’t necessarily get tochoose your exact position within the search engines, there’s ways to make certain you get pretty close to your chosen spot (#1, presumably!). The only true downside to SEO, in my estimation, is the time it takes to see results (traffic to your website).
Some may think that SEM exists without SEO. In fact, SEO is a crucial portion of SEM; I consider SEO a subset of SEM.

Whether or not you choose SEO or SEM approaches for traffic generation yourwebsite, you must be mindful of your reader. Design a site for your reader and your visitors will stick. Design your site for the search engines and your visitors won’t stick. And, non-sticky visitors = loss of revenue. Choose wisely. And use lots of duct tape, err… design your site for your visitor for maximum stickiness!