If you are running the marketing efforts of your hotel, it is highly likely that Google ads are a part of that advertising. Running ads online, however, is far different than creating print ads. For instance, there is no need to worry about keywords when you create a print ad. When creating online ads, however, keywords not only impact how many people will see the ad, but they will also impact the overall costs of the ads.
Using Keywords Properly
The biggest mistake I have seen throughout the industry is marketing managers all trying to get a bite of the same piece of the pie. For instance, marketing managers will spend significant money marketing to keywords like “hotels in Dallas” or “Center City Philadelphia hotels.” These terms will have a large search volume, but they will also have significant competition. That being the case, the cost per click will be much higher, giving you less exposure for your daily budget.
The way to offset this is by using longtail keywords and more specific keywords. Doing this will enable you to dial into very specific markets that are not as competitive. Yes, there is a much smaller market, but there is also less competition and these keywords will cost you much less.
As an example, when researching keywords, the term “downtown Dallas hotels” gets roughly 18,100 searches per month and will have a cost per click of $2.77. In comparison, the term “best hotels in downtown Dallas” has a search volume of 720 but only costs $1.56 per click. We can dial that down even further using the term “fun hotels in Dallas” that has a search of 210 and a cost of $.77, with far less competition. Yes, the volume is far less, but the cost of marketing is much less and you are likely to get far more conversions on these two keywords than you would on the one common keyword.
To research these terms, you would need to use a keyword tool. There are free tools in Google Webmaster tools or you could use a paid tool, such as LongTail Pro, that gives you the availability to dial into these keywords a bit more. By using these tools, you can do searches very specific to your hotel to develop a better advertising strategy and maximize your budget. You have to ask yourself, would you rather be a very small fish in a huge pond fighting for one piece of food or would you rather be a shark in a tub gathering up every piece of food dropped into the water?
Are you getting little to no results from your online advertising? Is your marketing team going after the same keywords as every other hotel or are they dialing into keywords very specific to your market? If you are ready to make a change and want the top talent in the hotel industry, it is time to call JDI. Joseph David International is regularly ranked among the top hospitality recruiters in the country because we find the ideal manager to fit your specific needs. For more information about our recruiting services, please click here.