No Visitors To My Web Site

By Scott Crumpton of INNtelligent.com Q: I hired a company to host my web site, but no one is coming to my web site (... and my phone is not ringing!). Do I need to change hosting companies? A: Thank you for your question as understanding this answer will be vital to the success of your inn. There is a common misunderstanding in the industry that the promotion and marketing of a web site is directly linked to the hosting of your web site. In fact, hosting has absolutely nothing to do with promotion and marketing. The reason for the misunderstanding is that many hosting companies include verbiage about "submitting your web site to the search engines" as part of their hosting packages. While there was a time when simply submitting your web site to the search engines was effective, those days are coming to a close if not completely gone. So let’s review what you’re paying for. Hosting is the storage of your web pages and graphics on a computer server which has a full-time reliable connection to the internet. This allows potential guests "who know your web address" to pull up your web site. So unless a potential guest knows your web address, hosting alone does nothing for you. When someone doesn’t know your web address they generally find it in the search engines - or at least try to. So the big question of the day is, can they find your web site in the search engines and the answer is, probably not. Even if your hosting company submitted your web site to the search engines this does not mean the search engines have chosen to list it. There was a time when this simple practice worked but today everything with the search engines is based on a "you get what you pay for basis." The search engines now charge on a pay-per-click (PPC) basis. You bid on keyword phrases that you think potential guests might search on such as, "Seattle Bed and Breakfast" and then you pay every time someone chooses to click on the link to your web site. I’ll try to sum it up this way. Every B&B needs a web site, a hosting company and "paid" listings in the search engines. These PPC listings are never a part of hosting so you’ll need to purchase them separately. This is something you can get as an add-on package through many hosting companies, purchase separately or handle yourself. Regardless of how you go about it, I encourage you to get on it quickly. At a recent B&B conference I consulted with fifty different innkeepers and tried to find their inns in the search engines like a potential guest would. Out of the fifty, only one could be found and only because they were using PPC. If you’re wondering why your occupancy is down it’s generally because you misunderstood that marketing and promotion has nothing to do with hosting. The good news is it’s a simple problem to solve and for only $20/month you can instantly increase your web site visitors and thus your reservations. Good luck!