The Value of Having a Hotel Blog

If your hotel website features a blog section, which has remained dormant after an initial flurry of posts, then you’re not alone. Maintaining and adding new posts regularly to a blog is hard work – particularly when you’re the owner, manager or marketing head honcho for a busy hotel.Blogging remains, however, one of the most cost-effective methods to reach a wide audience – some of whom may eventually become paying guests. If these past 18 months have taught us anything, it's that it's important to keep your brand's voice out there and stay connected to your clientele, even when things slow down. A blog is an excellent way to build and maintain your brand's presence and stay in people's minds.The key lies in maintaining a consistent approach to this form of content marketing. You might need some convincing, however, so we’ve listed a few reasons here why a blog will provide your hotel with tremendous value.

It’ll enable you to tell your story

Hotels are fascinating environments in which to work and, therefore, often have equally compelling histories.Telling stories is an excellent type of content for any business or hotel blog, and, no doubt, your hotel has plenty. It could be a story about the property itself, the staff, your highly popular restaurant or your meaningful contribution to the local economy.Remember – you don’t have to be the only person who contributes to the hotel blog. Ask other staff members to write an occasional post; it’s a great opportunity to generate as much value from it as possible and be a consistent source of fresh new content. You can also ask the owners and/or managers of any local attractions with whom you have partnerships and even guests to contribute guest posts.

It’ll demonstrate you’re on the pulse

Hotel and traveler trends change like the wind, but with a blog you can show that you react quickly to the most interesting trends by simply writing about them.The brilliance of this approach is that you don’t necessarily have to buy into the trends to offer your opinion on them.Let’s consider the growing trend of the wellness traveler, for instance. You may not be able to cater fully to that market at the moment, but by penning a few thoughts on how you might in the future, you could put yourself in front of a much bigger audience.Trends are a hot online search topic, and you’ll want your hotel blog to appear in those Google search results if you’re to be seen as contemporary.

It’ll supplement your overall marketing strategy

Has your social media presence been similarly dormant as your blog since you first created those Facebook, Instagram and Twitter profiles?That’s little surprise when the two are so intrinsically linked.Blogging will always supplement your overall marketing strategy by feeding content to your various marketing channels, including social media. New posts can be distributed on social platforms, via email and even repurposed as podcasts or video marketing content.By tightly integrating your hotel blogging effort with the rest of your marketing plan, you’ll be able to measure its return on investment. For instance, the blog you wrote about the wellness traveler may become a popular retweet on Twitter and result in someone booking a room for a couple of nights. What a return (particularly when the only investment was your time)!

Great – but do I need to worry about SEO?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is vitally important if you want your Website to be found on Google, and it’s a big factor for blogging, too.By using smart placements of keywords (a keyword density of between 1.5% and 3% is considered good practice) and synonyms of the keywords, you’ll create content Google will love. Quality and quantity are of equal importance as Google loves fresh, relevant content. We suggest a well-written, unique blog published on your Website at least once a week is a very good habit to start.Whatever you do, don’t view blogging as wasted time – this is one of the most important hotel marketing efforts you’ll undertake and will result in Google recognizing your brand as an authority within relevant searches.___roommaster's hotel management software is a leading technology provider for the hospitality industry. For over 25 years, roommaster has combined hotelier experience with innovative technology to deliver an all-in-one solution that empowers hotels to attract guests, drive customer loyalty, and increase profits. Our flagship software, roommaster PMS, helps manage over 5,500 properties across 100 countries. roommaster develops scalable solutions ranging from a Hotel PMS, Cloud PMS, Channel Manager, Hotel CRM and helps properties enable guests to Book Direct. We believe that everyone deserves a great guest experience, whether they’re staying at a small B&B, a thousand-room resort, or anywhere in between.Call us today at 1.813.288.4900. We will be happy to walk you through roommaster’s solutions.