Call Today
}
Hours

Mon – Fri, 8am to 5pm

Taking Your Hospitality Business Online

by | Jan 29, 2015 | Articles, Web Design, Web Development | 0 comments

hospitality business online

A Hospitality Business Online?

Running an online hospitality business is like running another physical catering outfit. You need to treat the whole affair in the same way you would manage the opening of a new branch. This is because if you don’t invest in your online business, it won’t grow at all. For instance, you need to monitor your blogging analytics the way you monitor foot traffic to your physical business. Before we go deep into what you need to take your business online, we need to answer the following question:

Why Should You Be Online in the First Place?

Answers to this question will tell you the reasons why you need to take your catering business online. The reasons include:
•    Online is where the customers are, and more are heading to.
•    Going online is cost effective but yields high profits.
•    Online business is measurable and highly accountable.
•    You can see the progress in real time.

Here are the aspects that you need to consider when you plan on starting an online business.

1.    Go Responsive

Statistics show that 25 percent of web users run away when they realize the page loads for more than 4 seconds. A responsive website gives you a better loading speed whether you are browsing on the PC or a tablet. You need to understand responsive web design and incorporate it into your plan because it is the trend.

Going online using responsive web design saves you from purchasing another domain URL specifically for mobile. It also offers your customers and end users the best user experience. With responsive web design, you don’t have to upload or upgrade any special content.

Additionally, responsive websites uplift your SEO campaign because search engines prefer responsive websites to the other standard type.

2.    Focus on the 90 Percent

Most businesspeople feel that having a website and blogging on regular basis is all they need to make it big online. This is a lie. The design of the website and the way it feels represents just 10 percent of the online business. This means that you need to understand what forms the remaining 90 percent, which includes:
•    Order processing: accounting, order fulfillment, handling returns, customer service, reconciliation and accounting.
•    Inventory management.
•    Optimization of delivery.
•    Customer relations management.
•    Web hosting (uptime, backups, support, and speed).
Start working on the 90 percent as early as possible.

3.    Leverage Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

There are three types of searches that you need to be aware of before taking your hospitality business online – organic search, paid search, and local search.

Organic Search

72 percent of searches on the web are organic searches. How can you achieve this in your website? For one, you can post relevant, fresh, unique and quality content on your site. Secondly, you can get backlinks from other sites.

Another aspect of organic search is proper SEO copywriting. In this regard, you need to write for people and not search engines, use the keyword in the H1 tag and the body. Link between the pages on your site using your keyword as anchor text.

Paid Search

Nearly 28 percent of searches result from clicking on paid ads. For your ads to be successful, you need to know what exactly you are measuring. Additionally, segment the existing segments into smaller segments and come up with keywords targeting each segment. You will then have to write ads that are highly relevant to the keywords. Your landing page must also match the keyword.

Local Search

20 percent of all searches have a local intent, which requires you to go for a Google Places listing. Here, you will create a profile and add your contact details, photos, and video and get reviews from your customers.

So, when it comes to search metrics, you need to incorporate into your plan organic search, paid search and local search for you to stay relevant online.

Divi WordPress Theme