enhanced landing page groups and meetings template guidelines

(1)

enhanced landing page groups and meetings template

guidelines

(2)

groups templates

These templates are for promoting the categories within the sales revolution groups;

including corporate groups, government, leisure, social gatherings, sports groups and

travel agents. As well, hotels are encouraged to use these templates to promote their

individual meeting spaces.

TEMPLATE 1: groups

(4)

writing for enhanced landing pages

EXAMPLE (SEO keywords shown in blue)

[HEADLINE H1]

Meetings done well

-[SUBHEAD ]

At the Hampton Dallas

[BODY COPY]

One of the largest Dallas conference centersin the area, the Hampton Inn & Suites Mesquite at Rodeo Center welcomes a variety of Dallas meetings, banquets and social affairs. The hotel offers more than 54,000 square feet of function space, including an Exhibition Hall and impressive Grand Ballroom. Smaller rooms and executive boardrooms are also available for more intimate gatherings.

[BODY COPY CONT]

Book your next business meeting, banquet or family reunion with us. Find out more about planning your event on our website.

[CALL TO ACTION]

Book your group online.

[CALL TO ACTION]

Request pricing. PRIMARY CONTENT AREA

[HEADLINE H1]

• Copy length: 22 ch. including spaces

[SUBHEAD H1]

• Copy length: 25 ch. including spaces

[BODY COPY]

• Copy length: 515 ch. including space • Try to include:

- (City) Business Hotels

- (City) Groups OR(City) Group Hotel Rates - (City) Meetings

- (City) Conferences - (City) Conference Centers

NOTES

Use the primary content area to promote group offerings and include one or two instances of the recommended SEO keywords in the body copy.

Sample META Description (250 ch. max) One of the largest Dallas conference centers in the area, the Hampton Inn & Suites Mesquite at Rodeo Center welcomes a wide variety of Dallas meetings, banquets and social affairs. Learn more about this Dallas business hotel.

PHOTOGRAPHY (3-4 PHOTOS MAX.) CONSIDERATIONS:

Types of recommended photography: • Show a variety of images of different types of meetings or events offerings

• You may use stock photography as long as it is owned and you have unlimited usage rights

• You may use images of your hotel’s meeting facilities

•Verify all images are approved for online use.

• Some logos or product images may require a release when using the image for

commercial use. Please Note: Definitions of technical terms can be found in the glossary of terms at the end of this document.

(5)

web best practices

Help your enhanced landing pages stand out and get noticed by search engines and potential

guests by following a few simple web best practices. This section covers:

• Writing for enhanced landing pages

• Search engine optimization (SEO)

• Photo selection

(6)

writing for enhanced landing pages

Each of the enhanced landing page templates are limited in the amount

of body copy that they can contain. These templates are designed to keep your copy brief and to the point – fundamental characteristics of good web writing.

When creating the copy for your enhanced landing pages, please take into account these web copywriting best practices:

STRUCTURE FOR SCANNING.

Put key words at the beginning of the sentence. Put the most important sentence at the beginning of the paragraph. And put the most important paragraph at the beginning of the page.

USE BULLETS.

Bullet points are easily scanned. BOLD KEY WORDS AND PHRASES.

Bolded words will stand out. But use sparingly to maximize impact. CREATE AN INTUITIVE CALL TO ACTION.

Guide the visitor through a seamless experience by providing a clear call to action.

ENHANCED LANDING PAGE COPY STYLE: • Headlines are all sentence case ending in a period • Subheads are all sentence case ending in a period

• Subheads may be a continuation of the sentence started in the headline

• Body copy is sentence case • Serial commas are not used

• Copy style should be simple and direct using as few words as possible

(7)

brand personality

Whether you’re promoting weddings, meetings or other group offerings, the tone of your landing

page copy should embody Hampton’s savvy and charismatic brand personality.

THE HAMPTON BRAND PERSONALITY IS:

• Positive

• Uplifting

(8)

search engine optimization (SEO)

SEO BEST PRACTICES:

• Create unique title and meta data using relevant high-volume keywords. The keywords used in the title need to be supported in the body content.

• Use relevant keywords and phrases toward the upper portion of the page and then sprinkle throughout to improve relevancy.

• Ideally, the keyword density of the page should be between 1-3%. • Focus on no more than 2-3 keywords per page.

•Every page should have one and only one H1 tag. The H1 should always be located toward the top of the page.

• Targeted phrases should be included within the header tags: H1/H2/H3.

• Write copy in an active voice, geared towards users and readability. • Break long paragraphs into shorter, more concise informational blurbs/bullets.

• The copy should sound natural; avoid repeating keywords unnecessarily (keyword stuffing).

ANCHOR TEXT FROM INTERNAL LINKING:

Anchor text keywords that link to internal pages create relevancy for that landing page.

ANCHOR TEXT FROM EXTERNAL LINKING:

Anchor text keywords that link to internal pages create relevancy for that landing page.

H1, H2 & H3 TAGS:

Place the primary keywords in the H1 tag and place secondary keywords in H2/H3 tags.

BODY COPY:

Pages need an adequate body of content that uses the page keywords to support the theme of the page.

ALT TEXT:

Include relevant alt text for the main images. META DESCRIPTIONS:

Create unique descriptions (between 160-250 characters) for each page using keywords from the page title, headers and body copy. META KEYWORDS:

Pages need unique, targeted meta keywords. Avoid ‘keyword stuffing’ by only using high value keywords relevant to the page content. Create unique keywords for each page using keywords from the page title, headers and body copy.

(9)

photo selection

Photography is customer-centric, allowing the meeting attendee to relate emotionally to the brand/messaging/amenity that is the focus of the landing page. We have selected examples of photography for you to reference so you can get a flavor of what will work best and help in your selection of photography for your landing page.

Here are a few guidelines to note when selecting your photography. STAY FOCUSED AND IN CONTEXT TO THE CONTENT.

Make sure your photos are not only ‘in focus’ but that they also have a focal point. If the photo is too busy or has too much going on it may be hard for the user to immediately understand what you are trying to communicate. Try and choose the composition that best enhances the idea of the page but keep it simple. If it takes you more than a few seconds to figure out what is going on in the photo then it’s probably not the best one to showcase.

USE COLOR.

The current brand standards do not allow for black and white photographs to be used.

SHOW VARIETY AND DIVERSITY.

Don’t show several pictures of the same thing from different angles. Also try and remember that your customers span many cultures and backgrounds so be sure to show diversity so that everyone can relate to the brand.

BE INTERESTING BUT STAY ON BRAND.

Staged shots usually look stiff or unnatural. People posing or playing to the camera are good examples of staged photography. Try to keep this type of group imagery to a minimum.

The Hampton brand has a library of approved proprietary, ownable photography with unlimited usage rights available on the Hampton Sales and Marketing Online Toolkit (HSMOT). You can also use the Hampton Focus camera kit to add supplemental photos. When taking your own photography, please make sure that the selected images meet the following requirements:

• The image should create an emotional response • Provide insight into the personality of the locale and/or people

(10)

glossary of terms

ALT IMAGE TAG -The alternate text associated with a web page graphic that gets displayed when the Internet user hovers the mouse over the graphic. Alt tags should convey what the graphic is for or about and contain good relevant keywords. Alt tags also make web pages more accessible to the disabled. For example, a vision-impaired user may have a web browser that reads aloud the text and alt tags on a page. (For those familiar with html, "alt" isn't actually a tag by itself but an attribute to the "img" tag.).

ANCHOR TEXT -This is the actual text part of a link. It can be used heavily by search engines as a ranking factor.

BODY COPY -The 'meaty' textual content of a web page. Body copy refers to text visible to users, doesn't include graphical content, navigation, or information hidden in the HTML source code. H1, H2, H3, HEADER (TAG) -An HTML tag that is often used to denote a page or section heading on a web page, such as H1 or H2. Search engines pay special attention to text that is marked with a header tag, as such text is set off from the rest of the page content as being more important.

HTML -Stands for HyperText Markup Language. The programming language used to mark up web content and display it in a formatted manner. It's up to the web browser software, e.g. Microsoft Internet Explorer or Firefox, to render HTML source.

KEYWORD -A word that a search engine user might use to find relevant web page(s). If a keyword doesn't appear anywhere in the text of your web page, it's highly unlikely your page will appear in the search results

KEYWORD DENSITY -Keyword density is the percentage of words on a web page that match a specified set of keywords. In the context of search engine optimization keyword density can be used as a factor in determining whether a web page is relevant to a specified keyword or keyword phrase. Due to the ease of managing keyword density, search engines usually implement other measures of relevancy to prevent unscrupulous webmasters from creating search spam through practices such as keyword stuffing.

KEYWORD POPULARITY -The number of occurrences of searches done by Internet users of a given keyword during a period of time. Both WordTracker.com and Overture's Search Term Popularity Tool (http://inventory.overture.com) provide keyword popularity numbers. KEYWORD PROMINENCE -The location (i.e placement) of a given keyword in the HTML source code of a web page. The higher up in the page a particular word is, the more prominent it is and thus the more weight that word is assigned by the search engine when that word matches a keyword search done by a search engine user.

Consequently, it's best to have your first paragraph be chock full of important keywords rather than superfluous marketing speak. This concept also applies to the location of important keywords within individual HTML tags, such as heading tags, title tags, or hyperlink text. So get in the habit of starting off your title tags with a good keyword rather than "Welcome to."

KEYWORD-RICH -When a given page or bit of text is chock full of good keywords rather than a bunch of meaningless words (e.g. "welcome", "click here") or irrelevant words (e.g. "solution").

LANDING PAGE -The page a visitor arrives at when clicking through to a site, typically from a paid advertisement. Similar to a doorway page, but a legitimate marketing function — it is used for counting and

(11)

glossary of terms cont.

LINKS -Text or graphics that, when clicked on, take the Internet user to another web page location. Links are expressed as URLs.

META DESCRIPTION -Contains up to a 250-character description of the page, which a search engine may consider or display at its discretion.

META KEYWORDS -Contains keywords for the page, which a search engine may consider at its discretion. Because this tag is often abused, many search engines ignore it.

META TAGS -Special HTML tags containing instructions for spiders or a user's browser. Many tags are available, specifying everything from copyright information to page refresh dates. In search engine marketing and search engine optimization, the most widely used meta tags contain the description, keywords, redirection instructions and instructions for robots.

RANK -How well a particular web page or web site is listed in a search engine results. For example, a web page about apples may be listed in response to a query for "apples." However, "rank" indicates where exactly it was listed -- be it on the first page of results, the second page or perhaps the 200th page. Alternatively, it might also be said to be ranked first among all results, or 12th, or 111th. Overall, saying a page is "listed" only means that it can be found within a search engine in response to a query, not that it necessarily ranks well for that query. SEARCH ENGINE -A web site that offers its visitors the ability to search the content of numerous web pages on the Internet. Search engines periodically explore all the pages of a website and add the text on those pages into a large database that users can then search. With a search engine, publishing web pages that incorporate relevant key phrases, prominently positioned in particular ways, is critical. Contrast

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO) -The act of altering a web site so that it does well in the organic, crawler-based listings of search engines. In the past, has also been used as a term for any type of search engine marketing activity, though now the term search engine marketing itself has taken over for this.

TITLE (TAG) -The text displayed in the blue bar at the very top of the browser window, above "Back," "Forward," "Refresh," "Print," etc. Although inconspicuous to the user, the title tag is the most important bit of text on a web page as far as the search engines are concerned. Search engines not only assign the words in the title tag more weight, they also typically display the title tag in the search results, making the title tag an important potential call-to-action as well.

enhanced landing page groups and meetings template guidelines