It’s that time again. A new year, and with it lots of good intentionsresolutions to improve business for the new year. This is the time to go back over some statistics from last year to try to genuinely understand how you did last year, especially compared with the prior year, and to see what worked, and should be kept, and what didn’t. I’ve written previously about year-end reviews, so, instead of re-inventing the wheel, I’ve revised and updated the three posts for 2014/2015, along with the spreadsheet for checking on room performance, which you can download from the posts.

At the recent Hospitality Marketing Summit Conferencein Denver, I gave three presentations on Google Analytics. This is the third of those three, Google Analytics: Tracking the Money. The earlier Google Analytics presentations were Google Analytics: Follow the Moneyand Beginning Google Analytics.Google Analytics tracking using Ecommerce tracking can be a very effective way to evaluate paid listings. However, it is necessary to use a booking engine that supports Ecommerce tracking, and then set up Ecommerce tracking properly.

The second session I presented at the Hospitality Marketing Summitin Denver was entitled Beginning Google Analytics, and was an overview of how to find your way around the Google Analytics screens, and how to find just the information you need. In other words, to get those who are beginning to use Google Analytics started without all the clutter of a complex product. A few minutes into the session the hotel had a power cut – and everything went dark!

At last week’s Hospitality Marketing Summit Conferencein Denver, Colorado, I presented several sessions on Google Analytics for Innkeepers. The first of those sessions, entitled Follow the Money, gave an overview of how Google Analytics can help innkeepers evaluate their paid marketing to see if they are getting good value for the investment, that is, to see if they get an adequate return on investment. The slideshow is below. Beneath it is a description based on my HMS Conference session.

Where have we been? Apologies for not posting for quite some time (though I continue to share on Twitterand Facebookthe posts of others that I find useful or interesting). I have two “excuses” for not posting. Neither is perfect. One is that since we sold our B&B in May of 2013, we “tuned out” a bit. Sorry. The other is that I’ve been doing a bit of consulting that creates a bit of a conflict of interest for some types of posts.

It seems that whenever I speak at a conference or give a webinar on Google Analytics, someone asks a good question, that prompts a blog post. That happened again recently, when the question was about the high measure of Direct traffic to the property’s website, asking about high direct traffic sessions. Direct traffic has been increasing for many (perhaps most) sites. Here are some steps to take to look into the reasons your site may have high direct traffic numbers.

“Please don’t look at my website,” said no B&B owner, ever. But if you take a stroll through the garden of delights found by searching on B&B’s, you wouldn’t think that was the case. Some look like they were built by the neighbor’s child back in the 1990’s, while others have been updated, but have only made it to the 2005 era. But looking around you will find that there appears to be a correlation between the most successful properties and the professionalism and quality of their websites.

Who sends guests? That was the question innkeepers wanted to know when Scott spoke recently at the Bed & Breakfast Association of Virginia 2014 annual conference. In two Google Analytics sessions, Scott began by asking what the innkeepers wanted to know. Answers ranged from “How long people stay on my site” to “What do people do on the site” but the number one question was “Who is sending me guests?”

Recently Scott was interviewed about getting results from Google for a podcast by hospitality consultant, Ken Burgin, of Profitable Hospitality. While Ken Burgin’s emphasis is on restaurants and hotels, the discussion is based on small business approaches to online marketing that apply across nearly any hospitality area. Ken has very kindly supplied the embedded version of the recording, which is below. Enjoy!

It’s the classic conundrum, isn’t it? We know we need to market to raise awareness of our brand, or to simply be found by those searching for lodging in your area. But resources are very limited, so you need to get the maximum return on limited marketing resources. Time and Money Then there is social media. You have a Facebook page and you post frequently and interact with guests (if anyone ever responds!