At one point, it was enough to be small to be considered a boutique hotel, but now you have to stand out with personal touches that really make you feel like you’re chosen by an individual and not by a committee. To tell your potential customers everything that differentiates you from the standardized experience of monolithic channels, you must know how to express your messages with a voice and use content that conveys this message. Hotel blogs are a great way for boutique hotels to take advantage of a media outlet that allows them to deepen their topics and attract like-minded readers who, with help, could become Defenders of the brand of your hotel.
In this post, I will explain:
Who should you think of when writing articles?
Creating blog posts is a game of order;
How to keep your eye on sales even when you blog; and finally
What are the keys to excellence for hotel blogs and how do you measure if you achieve these goals?
Once you’ve mastered the blogging techniques for your hotel, start filling out your content agenda with your hotel’s blog ideas, and then place your messages in front of an audience through our social networking sharing guide. hotel blogs.
Admittedly, this ticket will be a little longer than usual, so if at any time you feel that you are familiar with the basics but want to start a conversation with us at Otium Boutique on how we can help you bring ideas Advanced Hotel blogging to life for your brand, please do not hesitate to reach out.
Blogs are an essential tool for boutique hotels
Blogs have started at the beginning (sometimes better forgotten) of the Web as a digital output for those who are prone to over-sharing. They were usually large blocks of text that were very slightly modified and often difficult to read.
Oh, we are far away.
For boutique hotels, blogs are a particularly important tool for creating a committed community of followers.
For boutique hotels, blogs are a particularly important tool for creating a committed community of followers.
Today, companies like hotels maintain blogs on their website because of all the goals they help to achieve. For example, they can:
Increase the traffic generated for technical reasons.
Cultivate relationships in your community and with potential guests.
Improve your hotel image that is not just a set of rooms for rent.
Solve problems and answer questions from customers before or during their stay.
Positive impacts of a blog on search results
Search engines prefer to send their customers (for example, anyone who enters something in a search area) to a living and breathing website that updates regularly, rather than a static set of pages. It’s just more likely that the content of the ever-changing website will satisfy the reader.
By guiding readers to nearby activities, hotel blogs can often yield good results in search results.
By guiding readers to nearby activities, hotel blogs can often yield good results in search results.
A blog also offers the opportunity to have the depth and breadth to attract the attention of your business to many types of web searchers. For example, if you’re based in Austin, Texas, and you have a static website without a blog, you could (with a little luck and effort) capture those looking for “boutique hotels in Austin” . With a blog with relevant content, you can also capture traffic looking for content such as “Austin Theater Times” and “Austin’s New Trendy Restaurants”. It does not take much to see how these people could become paying customers for your business.
Blogs Build Relationships
If you stick to a consistent posting schedule, your readers will learn what to expect from your hotel’s blog and they will start appearing regularly, without any leniency. This is a great way to create the affinity that allows to fill the rooms of “stayers” in low season. A blog is a great way to reach this audience with a special offer.
To become a cultural center in the city of your hotel, you must also worry about the creators who live and work nearby. Blog posts that showcase their work or present a collaborative event that you have planned together are concrete ways to build these relationships.
Can a blog be
presented with a seemingly endless stream of options, relevancy is at the rendezvous with quality to decide how we will distribute our precious minutes. When you sit down to design a blog article or themes that span multiple installments, the people to keep in mind are:
Your target audience (to learn more about your audience’s understanding when creating a marketing strategy for a boutique hotel).
Your past, present and potential guests.
Nearby influencers that drive conversation around your hotel.
The team at your hotel who can be a vital ambassador, especially with the right equipment.
What do customers get from a hotel blog?
As my colleague Dan Harmon mentioned earlier this month, in his article on using data-driven personalization in your hotel’s marketing messages, visitors to the website can be categorized into different categories. their level of intent or “see, think, do, be careful”. “. There will be readers who are frequent travelers who are not willing to book a hotel stay, but if you hold their attention with a helpful blog – for example, The most efficient way to pack your bags for a vacation to 5-day skiing – that solves a problem for them that will often revive a relationship leading to a subsequent sale.
Those who are in the planning or planning stages of the holiday booking may find that one of your posts that describes in detail 8 unusual artistic outings in Miami is what turned the scales around and allowed them to to choose where to go because it is a richer and more enriching experience.
Sharing memorable culinary experiences is a way for most travelers to connect to a hotel blog.
Sharing memorable culinary experiences is a way for most travelers to connect to a hotel blog.
Almost everyone thrives on a good old travel message touting social media and previous guests might be inclined to share a wonderful meal. Our photos have been posted by our customers – even if their photo is not shown.
It is important to create these messages with planned intent. Searching for keywords (certainly something we can help you implement) is essential for judging whether search traffic will pay close attention to your posts. Determine if enough people ask the question you plan to answer (search volume) and if your voice will be relatively unique (research competition). It’s also important to plan how your content can be built based on variations in your keyword and whether long-tail keywords will be a fertile ground for drawing attention to your blog posts.
If research is not a top priority for a particular case, but you are looking for discussions about community building and social sharing, it is important that your messages are tailored to your hotel. The first example only works for hotels strongly related to skiing; do not write on Miami art galleries if you are not connected to this community; and if the culinary program is not one of your assets, leave the photos of culinary photos to someone else.
Spark Conversations that Build Teams
Hotel staff may change with the seasons, or because their employees tend to be in a certain age range, or for a number of other reasons. A well-written blog with high quality photos can reinforce your efforts to ensure that all team members are able to behave as knowledgeable brand ambassadors. Describe the great things your co-workers do and employees will be more motivated to spread your message – which is often more effective at reaching an engaged audience than you can do from your own corporate account.
When you plan special offers that stand out from the unmarked experience of major chains, artists, writers, guest conductors and other collaborators will be well positioned to become both subject and reader of your blog posts. Show them what you are doing with other creatives and they will find it easier to participate in joint projects.
How are hotel blog posts written?
The “who” of writing is often the decision to make before deciding “what”.
Marketing managers can be the ideal specialist to guide a series of persistent publications that occupy the jobs ,
Let the key members of your team show what they are passionate about. Maybe your chef is experimenting with a new charcuterie program or your bartender chef is ready to unveil a new oak barreled cocktail menu, so it might be a great idea to build a closer relationship with your readers.
If you have a veteran employee who has been part of the team for longer than most members of his team, he might very well be able to write blog posts that create a personality for your hotel’s blog. Give them the leeway (within reasonable limits) to tell compelling stories and help set the reader’s point of view on what sets your hotel apart.
Finally, it is often a good idea to work with an influencer or professional blogger as part of a formal arrangement that publishes a message that provides insight into your experience with your property. Be sure to disclose how they have been compensated (in many countries, the law requires it) and do not offer them experiences that are not accessible to all. With these reservations, potential guests often establish a real connection with this type of message based on the feeling that it is the right combination of external opinions and privileged access.
Examples of successful blogs in a hotel
Some boutique hotels and independent hotels seem to be so much in tune with their own brand that blogs seem to be second nature to their organization.
Many of the best hotel blogs connect to their larger, often creative community.
Many of the best hotel blogs connect to their larger, often creative community.
Useful examples include:
The Ace covers all the basics of crazy cat GIFs with interviews of cultural icons.
With over half a dozen locations, 21C Museum Hotels manages a wide variety of blog posts, ranging from news from restaurants to guest experiences.
The Drake Hotel in Toronto has a long-standing blog that describes its era as a hub of taste-making in the city.
The experiences of New York City are the subject of Row NYC’s newly renovated blog.
Similarly, the Montcalm Group in London is very successful in providing visitors with a steady stream of activities.
Practical aspects of hotel blogs
Some technical and creative details can have a noticeable effect on how your blog posts achieve the goals you set for yourself. Generally, these steps are supposed to have an impact on:
The amount of traffic that your messages generate from search engines.
Their ease of reading and searching for specific information.
The likelihood that readers will be inspired to share your messages with their networks.
Use a hierarchy to organize information
Human readers and computers that manage search engine results depend on certain signals to make it easier to read the information presented by a blog post. It is useful to use:
An appropriate hierarchy of titles, including title and title tags for your message, and a hierarchical system of titles and subtitles for the sections it contains.
Numbered and bulleted lists of critical information that you want to differentiate from the rest of the message for readers in a hurry.
Responsive website design for your blog pages to provide a user-friendly user experience for your hotel’s website.
Visual interest is critical
It’s not really subject to debate, is it? Blog articles must include images. Just in case, here is an article from HubSpot that details all the reasons why Nielsen is compatible with the data. It is important to note that publications with images generate 94% more traffic than non-image publications.
People doing something they are passionate about should be featured prominently in the pictures of your hotel blog.
People doing something they love must be featured prominently on your hotel’s blog post.
Other key tips include:
Do not use bad stock images to get images. Readers have a sixth sense for filling and their attention will go astray.
Photos with faces add a personal touch. In a way, this should be easy for hotels: get permission from your guests to use photos of them having fun in your hotel.
Do not store images only for introductions of your message; keep them as part of the call to action. In a hotel context, it could mean overlaying a rate offer