Many business owners who have struggled directly with the vagaries that artificial intelligence has placed on getting the best results out of your web site, ads, and social media campaigns as demanded by Google have felt the urge to blame Google for their loss in direct booking revenue.
The blame game will not improve your placement in search results or increase your bookings even if the blame is deserved. The good news for those who struggle to get the most out of their direct booking efforts on the internet is that the head of Google’s travel segment has spilled what works best.
Your confusion is justified. Google now offers 95 different paths that will help your direct booking efforts succeed. Satyan Joshi, who works directly with hotel and motel chains to improve their direct booking results, concedes that the game has gotten much more complex.
She shares the following tips to make your sites work better for you.
- Forget using keywords only.
- Embrace the complexity that Google offers selectively. Fit the beast to your business model and defined goals for profit and increased bookings.
- Use data to drive your results. This means that you analyze each segment of your present clientele and the clientele that you want to attract. Age, race, sex, and preferences are all important. If you do not collect the data then you must start. Learn as much as you can about your customers.
- Use what you learn about your target audience in remarketing lists. The lists can be made by you or can be supplied by Google. The idea is to grab every client possible because competition is fierce and will get more competitive as people learn these new ways to make Google work for them.
She provides this list of tools to optimize your efforts to improve your visibility.
1) Google Analytics
This free source is what Google uses itself to set rates for paid ads. It simply makes sense to use the data that the wealthiest companies use to analyze their present efforts at improving their return on advertising.
Audience data and data from your web sites are available from Google Analytics. You learn what is working and what needs improvement or scraping.
2) Marketing Lists
Create your own and use it in your sites and in a manner that fits Google’s present search criteria. Avoid repetition at all costs.
3) Branding
This is up to you. You must use words and concepts that set you apart from your competition. The idea is to create a need for your product in a client’s mind. If you cannot do this then hire help that can.
4) Dynamic Search
Use the dynamic search ads like Google wants you to. You get a higher rate of response and more traffic. The simple idea is to match the relevancy of search words to your offering. You must buy the words that will match the phrases on your web sites. This sends searchers to you faster.
5) Google is launching a trial of a mobile app that will target your niche if you do as they ask. It works in English now. Prices are included in the functions so you can outbid your competition. The app fits the client behavior that has become searches in small time intervals.
Conversion rates of as much as 45 percent are claimed to be the result if you do what the expert from Google tells you to. Another bit of good news is that Google does not play favorites with companies like Expedia that you may opt to use. Joshi also claims that smaller hotels are actually more adept at complying with what Google wants and reaping the benefits than large chains are.
