The internet is rapidly taking over every Orlando hospitality marketing venue in terms of spending. The importance of being visible online is crucial to the success of any hotelier, no matter where your hotel property is located. Any online marketer worth their paycheck knows being at the top of Google search is their top priority. The difference between being at position #1 and #11, in many cases, means the difference between a profitable Orlando hotel and a hotel barely scraping by.
Today an increasing number of Orlando hotel have become overly dependent on pay per click. You can clearly see the evidence over the last few years the PPC categories prices have climbed dramatically. How dramatically depends on your market and the competition. Keyword costs have been increasing at least 20% per year and it appears it's just going to get worse.
As larger Orlando Hotel companies with huge budgets
continue to jump into the pay per click (PPC) arena,
costs will continue to rise. More large companies
will continue to join the fray and we're beginning
to see many of them throwing ROI out the window and
bidding higher and higher prices for desirable keywords
and key phrases for the sake of branding. It's becoming
obvious that it's an attempt to squeeze out many of
the current advertisers.
So, the question is how does a Orlando hotel survive or even thrive in such a market? The truth is you need both Pay Per Click and Organic Search Results to survive well in today's market. Due to competition it's unlikely even a major player will be able to indefinitely dominate the top pay per click positions. You'll see a constant jockeying for those top three positions as long as their budgets hold out.
Now, is there a better way?
Start thinking more strategically! What about those positions 4 through 10? (The organic search results) The question is, do you need to be seen in the first three positions all the time or can you keep heads in beds for a lot less money by utilizing positions 4 through 10 and use PPC just when you need a boost at certain times of the year.
Just think about this, according to Google 1000 impressions on average will net 10 clicks on a top spot in their Adwords scheme. The big G also acknowledges that a top position in organic results will net you 20 clicks for that same 1000 impressions.
So the question begs, why don't you see more hoteliers focusing on more organic search? The answer is a simple one, organic search takes time and a lot more work than pay per click.
Remember this saying? If it was easy everyone would be doing it. Yes! It's easy and sometimes seems like everyone's doing it. A pay per click campaign is relatively simple and requires almost no skills and it can literally be up and running in a few days. But it's definitely not cheap!
On the other hand organic search campaign takes about six months to a year and it's considered one of the most profitable areas of internet marketing.
From a marketing perspective the questions that really beg to be answered are: Do you want to continue paying for PPC traffic and ultimately conversions if you could appear organically in a top position where the sale would occur without you repeatedly paying for it? Are you tired of your competitors taking your paid search position just by outbidding you? Do you want to maintain one of the position 4 through 10 month after month no matter how high PPC goes?
It's possible, it's doable, but it takes time and commitment. I suggest you start with baby steps. Commit just a tiny fraction of your budget at first to see if it works for you.
I'll let you in on a little secret, one qualified person in your organization or hired part-time online can take you a long ways towards breaking through the clutter in achieving organic results and this is true even for the largest organizations.
Good luck with your online marketing and if you have any further questions please feel free to contact me by e-mail
