Hotel Website Makeover: Apple Tree Inn

For our first hotel website makeover, we’re going to analyze the Apple Tree Inn in Petoskey, Michigan. As outlined in the series guidelines, I don’t know the owners of this hotel, but I chose them to begin because they are near my summer home and their site is typical of smaller independent hotels of their class.

First, a screenshot of their homepage:

AppleTreeInn.com Homepage

Now some changes I would like to see:

My suggestions (click for full image)

(Side note: I just got my Bamboo Pen Tablet, and am still working on my hand/eye coordination. Apologies if you have trouble reading my writing!)

What needs work on this site

1. Less focus on them, more on the potential guest. It’s the #1 mistake hotel websites make: “Aren’t we beautiful?” Visitors don’t care – they want to find solutions to their needs & desires.
2. More external credibility by adding guest comments, media reviews & any awards won
3. The site lacks focus and a strong call to action: where should a visitor look when she first visits? What action should she take? There is no prominent visual element.
4. There needs to be a way to build relationships with their prospective & best guests – perhaps an email newsletter or blog?
5. The design looks circa 2000-2002 – a fresh design might help

Improving search visibility

As we looked at last week, on-page adjustments should only be one part of a search optimization strategy – but it’s a good place to start:

• Current homepage title: Apple Tree Inn – Petoskey Michigan
  • “Petoskey” and “Michigan” are keywords, but they should focus on showing up in broader searches
  • Current Google ranking for important keywords
    • “petoskey hotel” – [not in first 20 results pages]
    • “petoskey inn” – #12 (on page 2 of results)
    • “petoskey michigan hotels” – #30 (on page 3 of results)
    • “inn petoskey mi” – #3 (good!)
  • Recommended new homepage title: Petoskey Hotel: Apple Tree Inn in Northern Michigan
  • Also, each page on the website needs to have a unique, descriptive title. Right now, they’re all the same.
• Current META description: Apple Tree Inn Overlooking Beautiful Little Traverse Bay, Near Victories Casino
  • Analysis: Not a bad start, but it feels a little forced and over-optimized for search engines. Remember, this is the text people see in web searches. I recommend re-writing to sound more natural and focus on the hotel’s benefits.
• However, this site’s BIGGEST flaw is a lack of content. Most of the pages only have a couple of sentences of text. The Apple Tree Inn needs to publish a lot more useful content that both travel planners and search engines love.

Recommended next steps

1. Completely re-write the website, adding a lot more useful content. Perhaps develop an area guide for the Little Traverse Bay region?
2. Re-design website to focus on the #1 goal for visitors to the site
3. Launch a search visibility improvement campaign
4. Build their web presence in social media sites, starting with Flickr and YouTube

Tell me: how did I do with this review? Did it help you? I think this post concept has potential, but I need your candid feedback to make it good!