The Basics of Hotel Website Content. Check back with us every Tuesday for more fun hotel marketing tips and tricks, and watch on Fridays as we unload new info about how to build website content for your hotel.
Hotel website images: why do they matter?
Good content may get people to your site, but great images sell your property. Images with proper lighting that showcase the lovely features of your hotel make potential guests want to go there. Blurry images, dimly-lit photos, and images of toilets aren’t inviting and have no place on your website.
What makes an image good or bad?
Generally speaking, great hotel website images follow a few major principles:
- Warm, bright lighting – the type of lighting that makes a room inviting.
- Relevant content in the image – otherwise known as “framing the image”.
- Sharp, crisp image detail - no blurry images or camera phone pics.
Here’s a few examples of the bad versus the good:
Examples of bad hotel images.
Examples of good hotel images.
Decent hotel website images don’t require a professional photographer or a fancy camera (check out this article on shooting better photography). What it does require is good lighting and image framing. Professional photographers often refer to the “golden hour“ of photo-taking. This is known as the hour after sunrise and the hour before sunset where everything is bathed in golden light (roughly an hour, sometimes longer depending on your location. Use this Golden Hour Calculator to calculate the best time to photograph your hotel). This lighting is ideal for taking picturesque photos of your hotel.
Equipment for photographing your hotel
You can achieve great results on your own with a basic digital camera. Choose a digital camera capable of shooting 10 megapixels and above for the best results. If your camera gives you the option for White Balance adjustment, you’ll need to change it depending on the type of lighting that exists when you’re shooting, i.e. incandescent versus fluorescent versus outdoor lighting. You’ll also want to shoot on the highest quality setting available on the camera. Remember, it is easy to take high-quality photos and make them smaller; it is impossible to take low-quality photos and make them higher-quality. Also, never use a camera phone to photograph your hotel. They don’t have the image quality you need to take effective photos.
Shooting the outside of your hotel
Schedule a photo shoot when weather is good and during the golden hour I previously discussed. Generally you want to shoot your hotel in the springtime when landscaping is vibrant, unless you’re located in regions known for fall colors or ski weather. Instead of snapping a shot of your hotel’s entrance straight-on, try a few shots at a 45 degree angle to the front door. Most importantly, include any signage in the shot (if you can) and always keep your signage in good shape.
Shooting the inside of your hotel
The interior of your hotel can have different types of lighting so adjust your White Balance settings according to the type of light. Capture all areas of interest to a potential guest: front desk area, breakfast area, hotel gym, laundry area, pool, all room types, etc. Framing the subject of your image is very important here. As you’re photographing different room types, stand back far enough to show the room’s interior. As you’re photographing the front desk area, don’t stand so far back that you can’t really tell what it is. I feel it’s also important to mention that you don’t have to photograph the toilets in your rooms. It is a pretty safe assumption that your rooms are equipped with bathrooms, so unless your bathrooms are stellar they aren’t worth including on your website or your hotel’s profile on the OTAs.
Room lighting tip: In rooms where you have dim lighting, try changing out the lamp bulbs to 100-watt soft white lighting. If there is still not enough light, try setting up extra lamps without the lampshades around the room, out of the frame of the picture.
That’s it for this blog. If you have any questions regarding hotel marketing you can email our Marketing department at InnLinkMarketing@gmail.com.