Travelers will find, book, and trust your hotel

All Things Google:A Guide For Hotels

Travelers will find, book, and trust your hotel

TrustYou is on a mission to improve the travel experience, from finding the right hotel to having the perfect stay. We work with hotels, destinations, and travel websites to make that happen. TrustYou analyzes hundreds of millions of travel reviews scattered across a vast, fragmented market and transforms this content into actionable insights and visualizations that enable travelers to improve their trip planning and industry players to upgrade their offer-ings.

All Things Google:A Guide For Hotels

TRUSTYOU RESEARCH | THE GOOGLE E-BOOK

CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1 Why Google Reviews Matter and How You Can Influence Them

Chapter 2 Direct Bookings Aren’t Dead: A Strategy for Better Organic Rankings

Chapter 3 Google Hotel Ads: What Hotels Need to Know

Chapter 4 Meta-Reviews: Changing the Way Travelers See Hotels

Chapter 5 Mobile is the New Black: Google Trip Plan-ning

About TrustYou

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IntroductionIn the last year, Marriott purchased Starwood; Expedia acquired Travelocity, Orbitz, and HomeAway; Airbnb was valued at an astounding $25.5 billion; and TripAdvisor and Google dove headlong into the instant booking realm. While the latter may seem like the least noteworthy of the travel news, Google’s in-stant booking feature is, for hotels, among the most important. Here’s why.

Google owns the top 75% of the search engine market and has 78% of the mobile market share. The 2014 Traveler’s Road to Decision showed that 61% of traveler inspiration starts with search engines, with 57% of leisure travelers and 64% of busi-ness travelers reporting that they always begin their travel booking and shopping process with search. Meantime, brand sites and apps are less important to travelers than they once were when it comes to booking accommodations.

• 61% of traveler inspiration starts at search engines• 60% of leisure travelers site search engines as their top

source for travel planning• 57% of leisure & 64% of business report: “I always start my

travel booking and shopping process with search.”

Google was already a heavy weight in several areas of hotel marketing, but the addition of instant booking, called Book on Google combined with commission-based advertising as well

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as fresh travel planning interfaces is bringing together all as-pects of the travel planning journey. At some point, every travel-er will likely cross over to Google during the planning process.

Consider:1. Travelers, who begin searching on Google more often than

not, are presented with paid ads in the above-the-fold re-sults, followed by Google hotel listings, which click into Goo-gle Maps. (Google Hotel Finder has been phased out, but Google continues to host meta-search in the search results as well as in maps.)

2. Below-the-fold are the organic hotel results, which, even in their second-tier position, are increasingly challenging for hotels to achieve.

3. OTAs are paying Google for booking presence on their hotel interface; all the while Google is competing directly with the OTAs by offering instant booking to hotels.

4. While OTAs and big hotel brands have the budget and mar-keting power to appear prominently in any of the above sce-narios, for small and medium size hotels, a Book on Google presence may be the most direct way to reach the traveler.

5. And either way, a presence across all of these categories is quickly becoming essential, because traveler behavior is changing. Travelers are searching in hundreds of “micro-mo-ments” (as many as 400 for a single trip) on multiple de-vices across a variety of channels, according to Think With Google’s Four Mobile Moments Changing the Consumer Journey.

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Hotels must be empowered across categories and interfaces to boost visibility to drive the most profitable channel mix. At the end of the day, a substantial presence combined with excellent reviews will increase new guest acquisition in a market made increasingly more competitive by the entrance of peer-to-peer accommodations and vacation rental inroads (e.g., Fortune re-ported in February 2016 that only 40% of travelers who report-ed they had used Airbnb preferred traditional hotels versus 79% of travelers who had not used Airbnb or similar peer-to-peer lodging).

The following chapters explore all things Google for hotels, including strategies for boosting your presence and increasing direct and OTA bookings.

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Chapter 1Google Reviews: Why They Matter & How You Can Influence Them With the vast majority of travelers beginning their trip planning on Google and 95% of travelers reporting they use reviews to decide where to stay, a hotel’s image on Google is essential. Travelers are moving through hundreds of moments across desktop and mobile to locate the perfect destination with the ideal hotel and the flight with best price at the right time. A trav-eler’s first impression of a hotel will more often than not be the result of a Google search—possibly in PPC, possibly an organic listing, possibly through Google hotel results, and in all cases, reviews are now available. Prominently available to offer up a first impression. As philosopher John Locke said, “From the very first instances of perception, some things are grateful and others unwelcome to us; some things we incline to, and others we fly.”

Avoiding flight. Of travelers, that is. This is one among many reasons to reflect on and improve your hotel’s reviews on Goo-gle. Volume of reviews builds confidence among travelers (e.g., if a traveler is considering two similar properties and one has 2000 reviews while the other has only 40, this implies some-thing about traveler enthusiasm for the hotel as well as the volume of previous visitors). Excellent star ratings, especially relative to competition, sells your brand—and some studies show that better ratings may reap higher rates.

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In a 2014 study by Software Advice, 30% of respondents said they would pay a little more for a hotel with better reviews, 3% said they would pay a lot more, and 3% said they would pay twice as much or more. And sentiment scores, which break out ratings and comments based on different aspects of a property such as rooms or amenities or location, help travelers hone in on their particular needs, ultimately facilitating a match be-tween the right traveler and the right hotel.

Image: Travel Weekly

The benefits go beyond engaging travelers at the first impres-sion. According to Google, “Google review count and scores are also factored into local search ranking—more reviews and positive rankings will improve a business’s local ranking.”

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Greater Google visibility along with increased credibility among travelers is the Holy Grail of hotel marketing in an age where guest acquisition costs are climbing faster than revenue.

HOW TO INFLUENCE REVIEWS

When planning a strategy for visibility, few hoteliers will aim to drive more reviews. Most will consider reviews a project of maintenance, one in which the hotel monitors and responds to reviews as they arrive. However, with TrustYou Stars the op-tion now exists to influence the volume and quality of Google reviews, impacting visibility among travelers—and naturally increasing the opportunity for conversions.

TrustYou Stars empowers hotels to enhance their review con-tent and drive more reviews directly to Google. Better yet, these review details are summarized into a Meta-Review to make un-derstanding important hotel details simple for travelers. Using TrustYou Stars, hotels may opt to push survey reviews directly to Google. Reviews from TrustYou Stars are also displayed on Google as full text reviews below the Meta-Review summary. (Meta-Reviews are also displayed on other travel partner sites. See Chapter 4)

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Hotels have seen dramatic Google review volume increases right away, and many find their review score increases as a result of proactive outreach to guests.

• Meininger Hotels saw 200% more Google reviews than in all of 2014 after just a few months using TrustYou Stars.

• Ayres Hotels has seen a 4% increase in its TrustScore (TrustYou’s overall review score) alongside a 3000% in-crease in the volume of their Google reviews.

• B&B HOTELS saw a 2.5% increase in its Google score in just two months using TrustYou Stars and attributes increased conversion rates to these improved scores.

Anna-Karin Daute, eCommerce Consultant at B&B HOTELS, says, “Using TrustYou Stars, we have seen a 740% increase in Google reviews, which has helped our properties to grow their presence on Google and significantly increase click through rates.”

Hotels with the option to participate in Instant Booking, which features both TrustYou Meta-Reviews as well as Google re-views, which are powered by TrustYou Stars, benefit from com-mission-free bookings delivered directly to the property. Not only does this make the booking likely more profitable than that of an OTA, according to Oliver Heckmann, Google’s VP of Travel in an interview with Skift, “We want the… hotel, or the OTA to own the customer relationship. The difference is that conver-sion happens on a Google-hosted page… the advantage

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of that is it’s easier to convert.” Hotels that own guest relation-ship (and data) have long-term guest marketing in front of them and repeat guest revenue potential.

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Chapter 2Direct Bookings Aren’t Dead: A Strategy for Better Organic RankingsWhere are the organic rankings these days? Pay-per-click re-sults followed by Google’s hotel listings trump organic search results in most competitive markets. There are still 10 of them, but they are the least prominent real estate on Google.

Above the fold desktop results for Berlin hotels

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Above the fold mobile results for Berlin hotels

Despite the fact that the remaining results on a Berlin search were occupied by review sites and OTAs, 30-35% of hotel web-site revenue is as a direct result of organic search engine refer-rals to a hotel website. It goes without saying that direct online bookings continue to be widely regarded as a hotel’s most profitable.

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With Google implementing routine algorithm updates, including a Mobile-Friendly update that resulted in a marked decrease in non-mobile-friendly URLs appearing in the top 30 organic results, achieving an organic presence for mid-size and inde-pendent hotels has become an arcane goal. And the presence needs to be front and center on the first page. As a 2014 study showed, 71% of organic click-throughs occurred from the first page of results.Still, in order to thrive, hotels must drive as many of the highest revenue, highest value reservations as possible. Part and parcel to this is ensuring that wherever possible your hotel,

1. Appears for relevant keywords in your market2. Ranks for variations on your name3. Appeals to travelers and encourages click-throughs by an

attractive SERP listing

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OPTIMIZE LISTINGS: INCORPORATING RICH SNIPPETS

Rich Snippets Containing Data from TrustYou

What are rich snippets? They are the stars, ratings, and volumes of votes located just under the URL in a Google search for a hotel. Additionally, as Google notes, a hotel’s rich snippets when viewed in Google maps can include keywords considered valuable by travelers.

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“Review snippets are algorithmically selected quotes from Google users that provide information on the keywords most mentioned by reviewers… Some hotels have review summaries licensed from TrustYou, a third party. TrustYou creates review summaries and aggregates scores using reviews from across the web.” (Business descriptions on Google Maps)

TrustYou Meta-Review data, which can be included in rich snip-pets, improves a hotel’s SEO when incorporated on the proper-ty’s website, and TrustYou case studies have shown that when a hotel integrates rich snippets it is able to outrank competitive OTAs in the search engines.

Simply occupying a prominent organic result doesn’t guaran-tee a click-through. Far from it. Rich snippets—because they feature a property’s star rating and volume of reviews—are a branding tool. Like a persuasive note in SERP letting travel-ers know your hotel is worthy of taking a look at. With 90% of consumers reporting that their buying decisions are influenced by reviews, putting your rating-foot forward before the traveler ever needs to visit a review site makes nothing but sense.

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Chapter 3Google Hotel Ads: What Hotels Need to KnowTraditional search ads—also known as Pay-per-Click—have become almost entirely the domain of the Expedias and the Starwoods. The rest of the world’s hotels do still have an oppor-tunity for paid placement, however, through Google hotel ads.

Are hotel ads as effective as traditional search ads? Yes. First, most hotels can’t afford traditional search placement anymore. Further, Google notes that Hilton has seen a 45% conversion rate increase and a 12% increase in ROI with hotel ads (com-pared to their traditional search campaigns), according to an article by Think With Google.

There are two ad programs available to hotels. The more tra-ditional pay-to-play (cost-per-click) model still exists, but this is where OTAs price smaller properties out of the game. The newest model is the Google Hotel Ads Commission Program, which makes it “easier for hotels to list their properties directly on its [Google] site — and to collect leads seamlessly on mobile devices — while skipping middlemen like online travel agencies (OTAs) and other metasearch sites.”

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Ultimately, the commission model means hotels can pay for an actual reservation rather than for a click through, making it more cost effective. Commission rates have not been pub-lished; however, a notable upside is that Book on Google, the new instant booking program that sends direct bookings to the property, is available to all Hotel Ads partners.

You might wonder what the difference is between a commis-sion paid to Google and a commission paid to a traditional OTA. It lies in Google’s aim that hotels continue to own the guest re-lationship. Booking.com’s recent move to withhold guest emails from hotels illustrates the long-term importance of retaining the guest relationship. Doing so, for hotels, means establishing service levels with guests prior to check-in as well as creating long-term marketing potential with a valuable lifetime guest—all of which makes Google’s commission fees more palatable.

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Chapter 4Meta-Reviews: Changing the Way Travelers See HotelsGoogle knows how travelers want to read reviews. So do Hip-munk, Sabre, and Kayak, to name a few. Meta-Reviews are the new industry standard in travel reviews. In short, they are re-view summaries aggregated from verified travel reviews world-wide. They have a succinct and natural sentence structure based on traveler keywords along with a rating for particular sentiment categories, such as rooms, restaurant, comfort and cleanliness, vibe, and location. A Meta-Review might read:

“Excellent design hotel. Close to Las Vegas strip. Good shopping and sightseeing. Affordable parking. Popular among couples.”

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TrustYou Meta-Review Above Google Reviews on Google Search

TrustYou’s Meta-Reviews power the review summaries on Goo-gle’s hotel search, as well as those across an array of OTAs and meta-search engines. There is also a valuable crossover: many OTAs publish TrustYou-powered Meta-Review information in their Google search results, making travelers more likely to take notice of your property. (While most hotels consider themselves in competition with OTAs for bookings, widespread distribution is essential in today’s market and the importance of staying atop your competition on third-party sites can’t be over-rated.

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Between 2011 and 2014 OTAs market share increased 108% for economy and mid-size hotels, 52% for upper-midscale and upscale hotels, and 33% for upper-upscale and luxury proper-ties, according to a study by Kalibri Labs).

Why should Meta-Reviews matter to hotels? Hotels have the option to integrate Meta-Reviews to their own property web-site, enhancing the experience for users as well as influencing search results. Travelers prefer reading bite-size, visually inter-esting summaries of a hotel as opposed to reading paragraphs of text—especially when it comes to mobile devices.

Just as importantly, hotels can influence Meta-Reviews by de-livering surveys to guests through TrustYou Stars. Case stud-ies have shown that surveys delivered proactively to guests increase reviews scores. In the case of Ayres Hotels, surveys returned a 4% increase in TrustScore, TrustYou’s overall review score. When surveys are integrated with Meta-Reviews and Meta-Reviews are automatically distributed, this means that a hotel’s image improves on the brand site, on Google’s hotel listings, and across hundreds of different third-party sites.

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Chapter 5Mobile is the New Black: Google Trip PlanningThis year, mobile travel bookings are projected to outpace desk-top travel bookings for the first time. In 2014, mobile bookings increased by over 36% and mobile revenue increased by 114%, while nearly 21% of bookings, 17% of room nights, and 15% of revenue came from tablets and mobile, according to HeBS Digital.

The implications of travelers moving the planning and booking process to mobile are vast: traveler behavior is changing with what was once 6-12 websites per trip becoming hundreds of moments across multiple devices. Traveler desire for succinct information is growing. Decisions are based on collected bits and pieces of detail rather than reviewing a lengthy website.

In February, Google rolled out a fresh trip-planning interface specifically for mobile devices. According to Barry Schwartz, “the results of the change make it really hard to get to the organic web results” once you have gone down the Google trip-planning path. The new interface feels like a beautiful mo-bile guidebook, complete with the option to book at every step along the way.

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Hotels, take note. The importance of hotel listings in Google has just increased once again. From Book on Google (via the Hotel Ad Commission Program) to the presentation of Meta-Re-views, we anticipate that the move by Google to improve the entire trip planning process will expand the potential for hotels to generate revenue through the search giant.

PhocusWright estimates that in 2015, Google increased its influence in the US online travel market, generating $155 billion in revenue and accounting for 45% of U.S. travel spending. In 2016, Google’s travel restructuring process is clearly rolling out and coming together—and crossing virtually every aspect of the travel pathway, which will quite likely increase its share of the travel spend this year. Hotels with a broad, but strategic, vision for utilizing Google will capture some of the spend, too.

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About TrustYouTrustYou is on a mission to improve the travel experience, from finding the right hotel to having the perfect stay, and works with hotels, destinations and travel websites to make that happen. TrustYou analyzes hundreds of millions of travel reviews scat-tered across a vast, fragmented market and transforms this content into actionable insights and visualizations that enable travelers to improve their trip planning and industry players to improve their offerings. Products include:

TrustYou Stars: An advanced guest satisfaction survey tool that allows hotels to gain more reviews and enhance their content on Google. TrustYou Analytics: The world’s leading online reputation management tool that allows hotels to analyze and influence their online reputation. TrustYou Meta-Review: Global review summaries of all verified reviews written worldwide that are displayed on hundreds of sites like Google, Trivago, KAYAK, Skyscanner, Wego, Sabre GDS, as well as on hotel’s own brand websites. TrustYou Radar: A native mobile app available for iOS and Android that allows hotels to connect with guests directly from their mobile phone.

Hotels can register for a free 90-day trial of TrustYou Stars here.

TrustYou Meta-Reviews only contain verified reviews and do not include reviews from TripAdvisor.

service@trustyou.comwww.trustyou.com