The short answer
Six points regularly cost hotel websites bookings: slow loading, a fragile mobile display, a hidden entry point to booking, missing markup for search engines, prominent portal links and outdated prices and times. Each can be checked on your own phone in a few minutes and fixed without a rebuild.
Key takeaways
- Check on your own phone over a mobile network, not on the Wi-Fi at the property and not on the office computer.
- According to web.dev, a good Largest Contentful Paint is 2.5 seconds or below, measured at the 75th percentile.
- The entry point to booking belongs on every room page, visible without scrolling.
- Portal logos on your own site send guests into the more expensive channel; quoting reviews is enough.
- Outdated prices and times trigger avoidable enquiries and are the cheapest to fix.
Six places regularly cost a hotel website with its own direct booking bookings: loading time, display on mobile, a hidden entry point to booking, missing markup of content for search engines, portal links on your own site, and outdated information. Each can be checked yourself in a few minutes, and none requires a rebuild.
Only the testing environment matters: your own phone, on a mobile network, not the Wi-Fi at the property and not the office computer with its cached page.
Loading time: how to measure it and what to change
How to check: open the home page and a room page on your phone over a mobile network, and count until the large image appears. In addition, measure the Largest Contentful Paint with a public testing tool. web.dev puts a good value at 2.5 seconds or below, measured at the 75th percentile of page views [Q1].
Remedy: usually the largest image is the cause, such as a panorama in full camera resolution. Deliver images at the displayed size and in a modern format, and give priority to the topmost image. Then go through the embedded scripts: booking widget, image slider and several analytics tools on the same page slow each other down. The article on loading time and direct booking goes into this in more depth.
For the websites HOHEIT operates, loading time is not measured once. It is measured after every update against these thresholds, and it appears every month in the report alongside direct share, abandonments and enquiries. A single good value says little if the next hero image breaks it again.
Mobile display: where pages break
How to check: on your phone, go through the home page, a room page, prices, directions and contact. Do you have to swipe sideways? Do notice bars or consent banners cover the content? Can you tap the buttons with a thumb?
Remedy: price tables need their own mobile layout, not a shrunken version. Consent banners belong at the bottom edge and must not block the page. Check the booking calendar separately: choose a date range across a weekend and one across a month change. If that cannot be done with a thumb, this point goes to the top of your list.
The entry point to booking must be visible
How to check: open a room page on your phone and look without scrolling. Can you see a way to check availability? If not, count how often you have to swipe.
Remedy: a visible entry point on every room page, with dates and number of guests, which carries the selection into the booking flow, plus a price range per season in plain text. How many steps are justifiable after that is covered in the booking flow without drop-offs. Also check what happens behind the button: an "Enquire" button that leads to a form answered only on the next working day is not a booking option for guests planning in the evening.
What this looks like for a property with 16 rooms
All percentages are assumptions; your own figures are in your analytics tool and booking system.
| Item (worked example based on assumptions) | Today | With a visible entry point |
|---|---|---|
| Visits per year | 36,000 | 36,000 |
| of which from mobile, assumed 65 percent | 23,400 | 23,400 |
| Click rate on the booking entry point | 1.5 percent | 2.0 percent |
| Entries into the booking flow | 351 | 468 |
| Bookings, assumed 20 percent | 70 | about 94 |
According to the worked example, the 24 additional bookings correspond to roughly 8,640 euros of revenue without portal commission, at three nights per stay and 120 euros per night. The point is the ratio: half a percentage point at the entry point moves more in this example than a new colour scheme.
Markup: what search engines can read
How to check: look in the source code of a room page for structured data, or use a testing tool. Are name, address, features and rooms described in a machine-readable way?
Remedy: the vocabulary for this is described by Schema.org, with its own types for the hotel [Q2] and for individual rooms [Q3]. First mark up what is already on the page: the property, address, contact details, room categories with occupancy and features. Google describes what matters for presentation in AI features [Q4]; the basis is the same, namely clear, visible details. How this relates to AI answers is shown in the article on visibility in AI search.
Portal links on your own site
How to check: search for logos and links to booking portals in the footer, the review section and the contact page, and click each one.
Remedy: a guest who arrived on your site through a search has already left the more expensive route, and a portal logo sends them back. Show reviews as a quote with source and date, without a link into the booking. If a link is necessary for contractual reasons, clarify the arrangement with a specialist.
Outdated information is the cheapest mistake to fix
How to check: go through the page with a list: prices, breakfast times, check-in window, pet rule, parking fee, phone number, years in offers. Anything older than one season gets checked.
Remedy: keep these details in a short list with the place where each one appears on the website, and go through it at every seasonal change. Each corrected detail is one enquiry fewer on the phone. From the guest's perspective, the recommended order for all six points is: booking entry point, mobile, loading time, up-to-date information, markup, portal links.
How implementation with HOHEIT works
HOHEIT offers the technical check free of charge: you send the address of your website and receive the result within three working days. What you commission afterwards is your decision. If a new hotel website is an option, it takes eight to fourteen weeks from approval of the concept. Whether your channel manager or PMS can be connected is checked by HOHEIT in the first meeting, based on the interface documentation.
When the check is not worth it
If the site has no booking option and is not meant to get one, because the property sells exclusively through portals, the check is busy work without a goal. If a relaunch is due in the next few weeks, the points are better built into the new site straight away. And with very few visits, the problem lies before the technology: a site without visitors books nothing.
Next, go through the five most important pages outside the property's Wi-Fi, note a yes or no for each of the six points, and send the list with your enquiry for the free technical check of your hotel website. We will discuss the result when you book an appointment.
Sources and further reading
Häufige Fragen
How often should I check these points?
Twice a year is enough for the full list, ideally before the main season and before the low season. Loading time and the booking entry point should also be checked after every major change to the website, because newly embedded tools and new images have their effect exactly there.
Do I need paid tools for the check?
Not for the six points above. A phone, a browser and the freely available tools for speed and structured data are enough. Paid tools only pay off once you monitor many pages or want to compare trends over months. The free tools are enough for the checks described in this article.
What do I do if the site is run by an agency that does not respond?
First secure your access: domain, hosting, content management, analytics tool and business profile, and make sure these are registered in your name. Without these accesses, every improvement depends on outside cooperation. Only then decide whether the existing site should be developed further or handed over.
Is a dedicated app worth it instead of a better website?
Rarely for the booking decision. An app has to be installed, and guests hardly ever do that before their first stay. It can make sense for returning guests and for the stay on site. The website remains the place where the decision is made, and it should therefore be right first.
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