Imagine you’re a looking for somewhere to stay and you stumble upon your website. What do you see? Evaluate, how your website looks, what feelings do the descriptions create, what are the colours saying to you? These are the first things your customers see, is it painting the image you have in your own mind about your property?
Simply put, is it telling the story you want to tell? Those first impressions are personal and emotional and getting them right will help increase bookings, so here are 5 tips to ensure you make the right impact.
1. Use colour psychology – Although, the language is important visuals are the first thing people see when they open a web page. It is proven that our brains process visuals 60,000 times faster than text! Thus, choosing the right colours for your website is pivotal. So, here comes the colour psychology. If you haven’t heard about colour psychology before, the basic idea is that different colours convey certain meanings and feelings. For example, brown gives the sense of security, it is a colour some people associate with home and quietness. You have to think about the general atmosphere of your property, where it’s situated (by the sea or up in the mountains), then decide what colours to use.
Have a look at a couple of examples:
House on the point B&B, located on the coast by Ullapool. Along with great photos, they have used blue and white as key colours on their website, suggesting that the property is located near water.
Another good example is The Caledon Guest House, Isle of Wight, which have used back and white as their background colours, suggesting sophistication and glamour. This is also a good complement to their amazing photographs.
For more information, you can check the Psychological Properties of Colours.
2. Add a welcoming video on your website – Adding a short video to your website, helps to establish authenticity and show the atmosphere. It is critical to keep it short, as 60 percent of viewers will drop off within two minutes of a promotional video. Moreover, by adding a video to your website you will increase the traffic to your website, as a recent marketing study showed in 2017, video content will represent 74 percent of all internet traffic.
3. Language – Using the right language is a key. “A great photo can only benefit from an amazing description. If you have already utilised our suggestions on accommodation photography, now you can have a go at improving the language of your website.”Here you have the chance to use those creative writing skills you never knew you had! You may have heard of the saying “Don’t sell rooms, sell character”. Well, here is your chance to get creative. Look at these examples: “enchanting rooms”; “attractive décor”; “sumptuous mattress toppers”. So, grab your notepads and start writing. If you are short on ideas spend 30 minutes online looking around, it’s all there.
4. Get reviews from your guests to show on your website – Word of mouth is one of the most influential marketing techniques. As we well know people are easily influenced by reading a great review or by friends sharing their great experiences. Therefore, adding reviews to your website is one of the best ways to increase direct bookings.
5. Share stories – Write your personal story of how your property came to be or find a funny story to tell. Working with people all the time, you might have a lot of fun experiences, so share them. Think about something that has made you laugh, a strange request or an incident which turned out well in the end and share it on your website. Customers will see a more personal side of you, like this blog of The Hive at 52 B&B, in which the owner records their everyday life as a B&B owner.
So, why don’t you try some of those tips? Going the extra mile towards increasing your direct bookings is that simple.
Got to be really careful though. Some pictures of rooms can be edited with rich colour & bright light, not giving a true picture, guest wonder if they are in the same building. Landscape photos should be marked with location and distance from the property. Several properties near us are marked as “Keswick” when they are actually 17 miles away. Bit of a sickener if your expecting a night out in town.
All great thoughts. Money spent on a professional photographer can only reap benefits and I like the comments about creative writing if only we all had that skill. There is a fine line between great descriptions and selective truthfulness 🙂 We have been thinking about video for some time but the costs of doing it professionally are very high at the moment and doing yourself can look DIY which may not give the impression you want. We had experimented with a drone and I have done some work in iMovie but the quality really isn’t there yet. We keep trying. Keep up the good work and keep the ideas coming. They are very helpful.