Monitoring web performance has become a vital component of hotel operations. Website analytics helps hoteliers to understand user behavior and to find what type of content is engaging for their customers. Below are some challenges and tips that we should be aware of.
Too many metrics
There are many metrics you can monitor through website analytics tools, such as the number of visitors, page views, top pages, click-through rates, and conversion rates. There are so many metrics that information overload is warranted without proper goals and clear guidelines on which data to analyze and what to do with the results. Complex reports with a bunch of tables and visualizations look fancy, but do they provide actionable insights? Don’t monitor all that you can. Prioritize your efforts, and start measuring the most actionable metrics, such as clicks on the Book Now or Check Availability button. It is vital to set measurable goals.
Why don’t lookers become bookers?
Are you losing customers before or after they click on the Book Now button? The problem might be your website, or your booking engine, or both. Maybe the registration form asking for personal data is too long or too intrusive, or the assurance that the transaction is secured is not visible enough. It is not sufficient just to measure abandonment. You need to find out where in the booking process people are abandoning, to improve the booking process and convert lookers to bookers.
Improving website content
Heatmaps and Google Analytics are a powerful combination for analyzing user behavior and identifying website problems. Heatmaps show where users spend time when on the website by analyzing their scrolling behavior and clicks. These insights can help you keep visitors more engaged, better understand what attracts their attention, and what distracts them from the main content.
Website analytics also enable monitoring of where your visitors go when they leave your website. This may help you understand what information they search for, and whether your website content can be adjusted to visitors’ needs. You should also analyze your own content to see which one drives the most interest from your visitors.
Understanding how to leverage the data
Website analytics tools are really powerful, but that is all for nothing if your marketing team doesn’t understand how to interpret the data to improve the digital marketing strategy. Any analytics system is only as good as the people using it.
Data consistency
Setting up web analytics to track data accurately is not a walk in the park. Google Analytics automatically collects a lot of information, but there are many instances when customization of data collection is necessary to get the data you are after. Garbage in is always garbage out, so be sure that you are measuring what you want to measure.
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