Hosting Company Frustration

Q: I have been working with a small web site hosting/marketing company in my hometown for several years now. In the beginning they seemed to be helpful to me in terms of design and marketing. Now it seems that I'm falling through the cracks. My phone is just not ringing like it used to. Would you advise me to change companies?

A: It sounds like there are two issues here which are 1) you feel like you’re falling through the cracks and 2) your phone isn’t ringing. On the first point I’ll simply say this, "the squeaky wheel gets the grease." Your relationship with your marketing company is a two way street and I would highly recommend you pick up the phone once a month simply to ask them what you need to be doing to fill your rooms. On the second point we first need to separate out the words "Hosting" and "Marketing" as they are two distinctly separate services. Years ago back in the early days of the internet most hosting companies included SEO (search engine optimization) in their packages. However, the search engines have changed the way they work and now SEO is of limited value and should be considered only a secondary marketing tool. If your phone isn’t ringing it’s generally because you’re not paying for placement in the search engines which we call "pay-per-click." Let me say this again as it’s probably the most important point I would like to get across to all innkeepers. If you are not paying Google, Yahoo and Overture to be placed at the top of the search engines you are NOT marketing your inn appropriately and effectively and missing out on tons of revenue. The days of the free search engines are over and now you get what you pay for. While my tone here may sound overly forceful it is because every day I hear innkeepers talk about low occupancy and wonder why their rooms sit empty when the solution is so simple. Marketing is the art of spending a dime to make a dollar. If you’re not spending money on pay-per-click marketing, you’re not using the single most effective marketing tool there is. So while it would be simple to point the finger at your marketing company and change companies, this won’t solve your problem. You either need to take on pay-per-click marketing yourself or hire a company to handle it for you. If your marketing company doesn’t provide this type of service, by all means go looking for one. Hoever, this doesn’t mean you have to change hosting companies as this is a totally separate service.