Top Bed and Breakfast Website Mistakes

In our line of work we visit many websites, ranging from successful hotels to very small independent Bed and Breakfasts and we come across fundamental mistakes constantly.

Bed & Breakfasts, Guesthouses and Hotel owners are none the wiser that their website is not functioning to its full capability. “Its working fine for me thanks” or “we are busy so its working” are things we hear often when speaking to clients who are unaware of of these fatal mistakes.

This list could have easily been a top 100 of Bed & Breakfasts website mistakes, however we have narrowed it down to an all important 7.

1. No Call to action!

If the aim of your website is to get bookings from customers, it’s imperative to have a call to action which stands out on the page amongst the other content on your website. We have come across countless Bed & Breakfasts, Guesthouses and Hotel websites have an unclear call to action button or no call to action button at all.

Without a clear call to action your website has no direction or focus. You also lose an opportunity to measure your websites success.

While some websites do have a call to action, we have seen examples where a Book Now button has no link or a Call Now image has no phone number or e-mail (yes there are many websites guilty of this).

Tips:

Make sure your design or theme is clean and concise.
Make sure the page is not full with unnecessary clutter.
Have a highly distinguishable call to action with a different or stand out shape, colour to the rest of the website.

2. Non responsive website

In the UK smartphones are the number one way for people to browse the web*, if your website is not responsive you are immediately limiting your audience.

Have you ever tried to visit a website via smartphone and quickly become irritated when its too small for viewing? The need to scroll back forth across the screen to view all of information, is an example of a poor user experience. Your potential customer will go to a competitor whose website is optimised for all devices.

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3. Poor quality or no imagery

In a competitive industry, where its imperative to have clear, high quality images of your property and rooms, not having high quality imagery, is a huge fundamental error. Images can be the main deciding factor for customers looking to book a stay. Not having imagery, can lead the customer to think you have something to hide or they will pass due to lack of visual information and go to a competitor with clear high quality images.

Your website should reflect your business, by not having images or having small poor quality images you are missing a huge opportunity to gain a potential customer. It’s cliche but an image is worth a 1000 words so you should be letting your gallery and homepage do the talking.

Tips:

Choose a design or theme, which showcases your properties best features trough imagery.
Its better to have images than none at all.
Invest in a photographer or deal with an agency which can offer this service as the quality of the images are what make a difference to your competitors websites.
Have a separate gallery which display full screen images.

4. Outdated information

Having engaging content, can increase your SEO rankings and also help bringing traffic to your website. As you can guess, having outdated information will have the opposite effect.

You will find that by having outdated information such as old special offers or Christmas menus at the wrong time of the year will increase the bounce rate on your website. Visitors will also be less likely to return. If the last blog post was a year ago, visitors are likely to think that the website has been abandoned and will not return. Having relevant engaging information can be a real advantage in a competitive market.

Tips:

Include a blog in your website even if its updated quarterly it will engage your current customer base.
Make sure all special offers and time limited information is up to date.
Have recent imagery and review your website regularly.

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