mobile booking - freetobook

Google Mobile Friendly deadline

Posted on March 13, 2015March 13, 2015 by craig

In a candid announcement a few months back Google let the world know that mobile friendliness has a deadline. From the 21^st April onwards Google will actively favour mobile-friendly websites in mobile searches. If your website is mobile-friendly it is likely that you will rise in Google search results for mobiles as those that aren’t slip down the ranks.

In their words “Starting April 21, we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results. Consequently, users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices.” The Google announcement can be found here

This makes total sense, Google is in the business of delivering high quality relevant searches to their customers. If a customer is using a mobile device they will want to see mobile-friendly websites above the websites that do not look good on mobile devices. As a useful guide Google has made free tool to check if your website is mobile-freindly click here to check your website.

Mobile-Friendly websites for hotels — Get a great mobile website

Accommodation businesses should look to be mobile-friendly before the 21^st April. There is help at hand with freetobook mobile website and mobile booking. Our mobile websites are continually updated for the latest mobile versions and they update when you change your details in your freetobook account.

For more information on Mobile websites on freetobook click here or watch the video below.

Google Mobile-Friendly websites

Posted on March 6, 2015March 6, 2015 by craig

If Google speaks we all have to listen and when the world’s search giant lets us know that it now labels websites as “mobile-friendly” the message is clear. (read Google announcement)

Labeling websites as mobile-friendly will help Google rank them higher for users on phones. The message from Google is loud and clear so any late arrivals need to get serious about mobile. Simply put there is now a penalty on Google for not having a mobile website.

Not Mobile Friendly — You don’t want to see this message ! It’s bad news.

Google says “Have you ever tapped on a Google Search result on your mobile phone, only to find yourself looking at a page where the text was too small, the links were tiny, and you had to scroll sideways to see all the content? This usually happens when the website has not been optimized to be viewed on a mobile phone. “

Google now offers a free tool to check if your website is mobile-friendly. Check your website here.

Frankly, it’s frustrating to visit a website with a phone and have to scroll to find things, read tiny print and wish that your fingers were the size of matchsticks as you try to click the correct link or back track from the wrong link.

Elegant, simple, mobile booking solutions have been part of freetobook from our birth. It’s easy and low cost to get your website and booking process mobile.

Mobile websites for accommodation providers need to designed specifically for accommodation, you need something that fits your business. All our mobile sites are automatically updated when you update your details in freetobook.

Mobile hotel bookings grow

Posted on November 27, 2013November 27, 2013 by craig

Mobile hotel bookings keep growing…

Mobile Hotel Websites — Mobile hotel booking

Here at freetobook we keep an eye on industry trends and an even closer watch on trends within our own booking systems.. with thousands of accommodation owners using freetobook we have an insight into trends and that can help you improve your direct bookings.

Freetobook is a highly advanced mobile friendly internet booking system which enables all our customers to maximise their mobile bookings.

7 Mobile Booking Trends you need to know about

1. Over 10% of all availability searches on property websites are using a mobile or tablet (freetobook)

2. Mobile traffic has (in the last year) grown over 10 times faster than desktop visits (freetobook)

3. In the last three months 61% of email opens in the USA were on a mobile or tablet.

4. 25% of smartphone owners booked hotels using their smartphone

5. More than half of all travellers researching their travel plans on their smartphone

6. This year over 1 Billion people bought smartphones

7. Over 50% of all phones sold are now smartphones

Most research is now showing that customers are using multiple devices to book and research travel its fair to say the touch points with customers are diverse in time, browser and device.

Mobile Hotel Bookings — Mobile Bookings for hotels

One of my favourite quotes is “Five minutes here, two minutes there, and I booked a trip without taking a huge, long chunk of time to plan everything.” (Google 2013 Traveler report)

Freetobook has the flexibility and advanced functionality across mobile platforms so your customers can book on any device, this means you won’t lose bookings as the world of mobile changes and customers habits morph, freetobook moves ahead.

Google has recently released their 2013 Traveler report which shows Mobile booking trends and broader traveller attitudes and behaviours. For anyone interested in how travellers are interacting with the internet Google’s report is a must read. I have enclosed a link to it at the bottom of the page. Find out more about a freetobook mobile website and mobile bookings

Watch the freetobook video below and see what mobile booking can look like for your customers.

Google research study on the 2013 Traveller – get your report on this link

3 Things You Need to Know About Mobile Bookings

Posted on June 19, 2013June 19, 2013 by craig

Every day, more and more people are using iPads, iPhones, Androids etc to book hotels and B&Bs.

Pretty soon more people will be booking travel via mobile than on old-fashioned desktop computers. Google – the (current) kings of all things search – regularly produce stats on the growth of mobile. Here are some of the most eye-catching latest figures:

(1) Almost half (47%) of all travellers now start their travel planning from a mobile device.

(2) Today, 40% of leisure travellers and 36% of business travellers use mobile search engines to find hotels and book overnight accommodation.

(3) By the second quarter of 2013, travel-related search queries will increase by 68% from smartphones and 180% from tablets. As you can see here…

google_mobile_2012

But perhaps most important of all is the news that far more last-minute bookings are made these days from mobile devices than desktop computers. Properties whose websites are not optimised for mobile are missing out these bookings, since, according to Google, 36% of last-minute travellers said that difficult mobile navigation is the main deterrent from booking…

google_mobile_2012_part3

So don’t put it off any longer. Get a mobile-optimised website and a mobile app today. You know it makes sense!