The reason for this is it's been requested by several of our club members to dilute some of that material down into more digestible chunks. Think of the previous course as the complete works of Shakespeare, and this as the crib notes. I know which one I'd rather be reading before my final exam. Your final exam is every day until 80% of your bookings are coming to you directly.

So if you're not there yet, follow these steps in this course and consider them the first on your journey to success. So to start with the obvious. The purpose of having a good website is to get direct bookings. Ideally, it should act like a digital funnel, guiding consumers towards the book button in order to make a purchase. Many of you out there will have built your own website, while some others will have hired people to do it for you.

You're probably so familiar with your website you're oblivious to its faults, which is the exact reason you should inspect it, as I direct you to in this course. A good exercise for any hotelier to do is to sleep in their own rooms from time to time, so as to experience them as a consumer would. Same with the website, which is what we're going to do today.

The analogy I'll adopt is that of a shop. Here are the five attributes that a well-run and highly functioning shop should share with a hotel website on the top of its game. Secure, well-located, attractive, organized and seamless. These are all the things I'd like to be true of any shop I go into. And now I'll show you how to analyze your site and make sure it's true of it.

Slightly out of logical order, but the quickest to explain is security. So let's start with that. We'd all like to think our websites are secure, but the only way to truly establish this is in an official capacity. You need to have it SSL certified. This is like your website's passport. It says you are who you are and that you're not up to no good.

Now I know what you're thinking. If it's so important, then how come I've never seen one? Because they're not displayed like regular physical certificates. It's in the domain name. All websites have a HTP at the start of their URL. A secure one has https. The S stands for secure. Once again, I know what you're thinking. You've never heard of this and neither has anyone else.

So who cares what browsers have heard of this? They exist because web browsers wanted a way to protect citizens from nefarious entities online, such as identity thieves, or poorly put together hotel websites like this. SSL certificates were born to check on yours. You need to do two things. Firstly, look at your URL. Does it have a s? So far so good.

And secondly, attempt to enter your website on a Firefox browser. If it opens, then terrific. We're in business. If it doesn't, then either your certificate is out of date or you've been flagged. The most common way for hotel websites to get flagged is consumers backing out of transactions. Midway through, which is an issue we'll look at in detail later.

For now, go away and perform those two tasks. Firefox is free to download, and SSL certificates are typically provided by a good website host. If yours doesn't do that, Google will find you one who can see you in the next module where it will talk about location.

In the case of a shop this means on a good street with plenty of pedestrian traffic. For a website it means that when people search for it they find it very quickly.

First obvious thing to take care of - does your domain name and URL match the name of your property on your OTA listings? It should.

Secondly - get yourself a favicon that truly represents you. The favicon is the little graphic that adorns every tab you have open on your browser.

Thirdly - Punchy meta title - which is this one - and a meta-description that concisely describes what the consumer would have seen on the OTA entry.

These three factors working together combine to adequately indicate that the guest has arrived at the digital destination that they seek.

Go now and check your OTA entries. Time how long it takes you to find your website afterward and check your favicon and meta description. If they’re not as I’ve described them then you’ve work to do.

The other stress test in terms of location is with regards to SEO or search engine optimisation.

The best way to test this is to write down as many words as you can think of that describe your property in a positive way that you would agree with. Next write down the names of any landmarks, stadia, concert venues, etc near you. Now, google combinations of those words combined with the word ‘hotel’. For example ‘cozy hotel near sagrada familia’.

Now - in this scenario you will always have to scroll down to get past OTAs and blogs. That’s fine - do it. If you appear on the first few entries after those - brilliant. If not, you’ve got work to do.

You’re going to need to fill your website up with the kinds of words people type into Google when they’re searching for a hotel in your area for whatever reason. Or not. There’s only one way to find out and that’s to write down the words and get searching. See you in the next module where we’ll talk about display.

First thing to note - more than half of the reservations in the world now are made via phone. OTAs are phone compatible to their very marrow so make sure you are too.

Everything I say here is just as if not more important in the context of a smartphone screen so get your phone out when you’re checking your site.

How long does it take to load? If it takes longer than 5 seconds you’ve got problems. It doesn’t matter if the rest of the site takes longer but the display window needs to be ready as fast as possible.

A lot of this will depend on where or with whom you host your website. If you’re in a situation where you cannot afford to host your website somewhere which will facilitate it loading quicker then consider having a single image as opposed to a video or slideshow, which brings me to my next point.

Any video or photo that you choose to display up top - have it in such a way that it is not cut off by the edges of the screen.
See here this beautiful photo but it’s been nudged out by a menu and a logo that are too large. This brings me to my next point - spatial economics.

A logo does not need to be big but rather memorable. Similarly, menus and buttons and copy need to be legible. Except for the ‘book’ CTA - that’s ‘call to action’ they do not need to jump out at you. See here on either side of this menu is what you call ‘dead space’ it’s just hanging out there doing nothing.

Someone who knows anything about web design will say ‘if they don’t know how to design a website I’m sure they know less about how to process payments securely, so I’m out.’ Someone who knows less or nothing at all will have a similar feeling but they’ll articulate it with action alone and that action will be booking with Booking rather than with you.

After that there’s aesthetic choices - namely colours and photos. In terms of colours different colours indicate different things. While I’m sure there are none of you out there who have selected distinctly disgusting colours you must remember that your colours should speak to the kinds of people you wish to book at your hotel.
Unsurprisingly, environmentally concerned people gravitate towards green. Those seeking luxury will feel more resonance with black or charcoal.

Google your website and open a colour dictionary on the next tab and double-check that your colours are saying what you wish them to be. Otherwise, it might be time for a paint-job.

Where photos or videos are concerned, if you see one that you took and you are not a professional photographer or videographer then get it gone ASAP. It screams amateur hour and while it won’t be the conscious reason anyone decides to not scroll down it might well be the subconscious reason they decide not to book. Have professionally recorded photos or videos and make sure that they all feature people. This is the first time I’ll say this - though not the last - but your website is the start of the customer’s experience and they should be able to project themselves into the story you’re telling with it.

With pictures of your property alone you could be confused with a realtor, a furniture salesman or an interior designer. Pop some people in and you’re selling experiences.

Lastly - CTA. I’ve mentioned this already and it’s becoming more common in this day and age but it’s still worth saying.

There should be a visible option to book the moment they enter the site. It should stand out from the rest of the site, with contrasting colours between the button and the text and ideally it should appear in the top left and follow the site visitor as they scroll.

And what about when they scroll down? Well - that's the layout and that’s next. Check out of here now and go and analyse your display window using the criteria I’ve just laid out here. See you in the next module.

This is when the concept of storytelling really comes into play. As a guest scrolls they should be able to begin to see themselves staying at your hotel. The order in which you put things highly depends on you and what way you wish to tell your story but plenty of pictures is a must. Not even people who read are there to see the descriptions of your property. Accompanying texts are important for SEO reasons and to give context to images and sections of the website.

Firstly, as mentioned in the previous module, when they scroll the book button ought to follow them. Right below the display a nice option is to put a calendar and number of guests input option, because some people will want to know the price up front and if they’re pleased enough with that then they’ll continue to scroll through the site.

Next, it’s a good idea to represent any special features of your hotel you’d like to show off by way of photos. So by this I mean - gym, restaurant, pool, bar. They should be displayed in a way that matches the symmetry of the website in a manner that guides them to keep scrolling.

This means that the display image should take the whole screen, while the features section is then divided in two, with text on one side and the photo on the other.

Next essential section is testimonials, which will ideally be videos of people who have stayed at your hotel. Even if they’re just writing they’re essential.

Next comes rooms - the one kind of photo that maybe shouldn’t feature people - and after that a ‘things to do locally’ section maybe but that’s up to you.

I haven’t laid out the way that every hotel website should be but rather the way lots and lots of them are. If yours is another way and you know of heaps of others that are that way too and get loads of direct bookings then more power to you - do it your way.

On the analysis side however you do need to get out your pen and paper. Come up with three broad categories of tourist you run into. Let’s say mine are foreigners seeking to get in touch with their local heritage, business people in town for some event at the nearby conference centre and women travelling solo hoping to relax for a day or two in peace.

Let’s look at the business people, for argument's sake. Someone in their twenties or thirties.

They’ll like the look of someone who looks like them checking in, in the display, then working out in the gym, then putting the co-working space to good use with a fresh cup of coffee.

Again, I’ve just outlined a very basic and ideal scenario. Real life is always more complicated. You know the types of people you get good business out of - one’s that are sure to enjoy their stay with you. As you scroll through your website, is it merely telling them what’s for sale or is it telling them a story where they’re the main character and everything is going very well indeed?

Take a scroll down through your website with that in mind. It’s either a reputable clothes shop or an outlet store - both are acceptable to consumers but if you’re here watching this video then I’m pretty sure I know which you’d rather be. See you for the fifth and final module, where we’ll talk about the checkout counter and cash register in your shop.

The hotel website version of this is all down to the piece of software known as the booking engine. The function of most of the pages of any website you can think of is to display images and texts and to host videos and this is absolutely true of everything you’ve inspected of your website so far, barring the SSL certificate.

The function of a booking engine, without getting too deep on it, is to securely accept payments. With regards to the word ‘securely’ here appearances are everything.

To return to the shop analogy, if you were to select your purchases and be directed to another building to pay you’d think it strange, or sinister even. The same is exactly true for visitors to your website of course.

If when someone chooses to pay another tab or window opens with a different colour scheme there is a decent percentage of people out there who will simply back out and return to the more convenient payment options available at OTA websites. It is the online version of a shop who has a minimum amount rule when it comes to accepting card payments - you’ll do it if you have to but you’ll avoid it if you can.

The ideal thing is for the booking engine to appear as just another page of your website - same colour scheme, font, etc. The fact is that it is a separate piece of software, even though there are options on the market to buy one integrated with your website.

What you need to do now is try to book a room on your own website. If something like this appears you might want to reconsider your choice of booking engine. If, however, you simply slide into the booking space like this, and have the option to pay within three clicks, then you need no help from me.

And there you have it. You now have the ability to inspect your website from top to bottom to ensure that it’s functioning optimally as a machine to make sales happen. There’ll be a brief test to follow but the real homework will happen when you inspect your own website along the parameters I’ve provided you with. Have a great day, and good luck!