Has agency digital marketing improved in Ireland in the last 5 years?

I’m not sure it did. 

Most sites are based on the same or similar design as the ones in 2018.

The thing that has improved is the mobile design of sites with call-to-action buttons. 

Let's take a look at the second most searched phrase on Google related to hotels: "hotels with swimming pools". For example  “hotels with swimming pool in Galway”. OTAs are still dominating with ads on top and in organic search results. The ads I have seen from hotel sites don’t mention the pool at all. They probably go to the homepage along with all hotels in Galway keywords the campaign targets.

I worked on hotel landing pages much more in 2018 and the design and content are very similar to them:

One or two pool images and a text. If you want to know one thing for hotel digital marketing in 2023 that is to focus on video content creation and social media. Not just an old school 2 times a-year hired hotel photoshoot, but daily filming with a phone inside a hotel.

For example the Galmont's pool page , heh I used to work on their old Radisson page in 2018. Clayton Hotel's pool page, the same thing, Galway Bay Hotel's pool page is the same. Out of these The Connacht has the best pool page that has 2+ images, solid text content, and special offers that follow after the content. Special mention to the Dean Hotel that has one small image of the pool, that looks shy, but the headline "stay with pool" is kinda creative, not sure if I would use it though :)

Content that looks more authentic performs better on social media than professional shoots. Are people on your site different people to those on social media? 

People want to see what it's really like being there in that swimming pool, a photo of a giant swimming pool with no one there is not that. I’m not saying put a crowded photo but put a video of someone actually swimming there. 

One trend that is good compared to 2018 is the less heavily "photoshopped" hotel images on the site. 

Vertical photos and videos on the phone make the mobile view of the page so much better because they cover the whole mobile screen.

Want to target families searching for hotels with swimming pools? Well make a dedicated landing page for ads for married demographics and have them go to the version of the pool page that has family content on it.

A Hotel is not a static place, why is your site filled with static images like a catalog? 

#hotels #hoteldigitalmarketing