Several of our previous posts on analytics have dealt with the “how to” aspect of setting up various things you might want to track across your website and your booking engine. A recent online forum discussion among innkeepers about this topic prompts an overview of what things you can track, why you might want to track them, and some potential problem areas. 1. Is your site set up to use Google Analytics?

A recent post from Daniel Edward Craig on the 4 Hoteliers site(and re-posted in other places) has caused me to reflect a bit on the “business is business” side of things, as compared to the warmer, fuzzier, guest satisfaction side. The article from Daniel Craig was based on a question he had received, asking if your hotel ranks at the top on TripAdvisor, are you not charging enough? Daniel surveyed a number of lodging professionals (hoteliers and consultants), and received a variety of answers.

Last week’s post, examining whether or not BBOnline’s staff had been able to rectify the huge drop in referrals and bookings after their site redesign a year ago, observed that more information was desirable, reflecting the results of other properties. In the comments, Sarahprovided some information, indicating a similar drop of 61.4% in traffic, noting that others had increased, while some had dropped slightly, but BBOnline’s drop was the most significant – by a lot!

Last April we first posted our concerns about the sudden drop in traffic from BBOnline to our Bed & Breakfast in Freeport Maine. Our traffic had dropped 95% for the first several months of 2012 compared to the same time frame in 2011. Other innkeepers reported similar drops. We followed up that article with another, detailing concerns about an email response to our inquiriesabout the traffic drops, then a third article about a more encouraging telephone response from BBOnlinestaff.

Last week we talked about how goals in analytics are used in Multi-Channel Funnels to show you how referral sources can be sending value (including bookings), that doesn’t always show up in the standard analytics reports. This week we’ll take a different approach, and look at creating a Dashboard designed to give you, with only a quick glance, an easy way of comparing online directory listing performance. From the start, we want to emphasize a word of caution – we are not suggesting that this dashboard will replace a more in-depth comparison of online directory performance, or that it should be used instead of the Multi-Channel Funnel approach from last week’s post.

With all that is written about Google Analytics on a daily basis, it is hard to imagine the some businesses still question the need for tracking goals in Google Analytics. Yet they do just that. Recently we were asked to justify why a small bed and breakfast should bother setting up goals in Google Analytics. Our cynical side struggles to keep from answering that you don’t need them – so long as you don’t want to know which sources are sending website visitors who click certain things, visit certain pages, buy certain products, book their stay, or view certain videos.

A few weeks ago Google Analytics announceda new measurement (metric) called Page Value. Actually, it is an old metric, that had disappeared for a while, and was now reappearing, in a new and improved condition, but that really isn’t the point. What is Page Value? What does it mean? Does it tell innkeepers anything useful? The Google Analytics blog post on Page Value (linked above) details the history and calculations of Page Value, for those who are interested.

Last week we looked at a survey by BedAndBreakfast.com, apparently designed to help it determine new prices for its online booking software products. Depending on the number and kind of bookings you take, the proposals could be better, or significantly worse, for your property. This week we’ll look at other ways vendors set online booking software prices. One thing is for sure – no matter how the survey BedAndBreakfast.com is conducting turns out, the results will be very suspect.

A recent survey from a vendor considering changing the pricing for its online booking products raises the question, “How (and how much) should you pay for online booking software and property management software?” Since the prices of online booking software and and property management software can be considerable, this two part series will look at the online booking software prices suggested by this survey, as well as the way other vendors price their products.

Rules, rules rules. Our lives are filled with rules, and many of them are essential to an orderly civilization. Sometimes, though, it seems that even in a hospitality industry, innkeepers can become consumed with the idea that little signs (house rules) around the house can solve their problems. Rules, rules, rules! But I’m on vacation! Most of us have visited a B&B where there were little cards everywhere you turn. Each card has a rule on it.