How to Have a Great Property Listing on Select Registry

When travelers are on vacation, they want more in an accommodation than just an overnight stay.

They want a unique experience with warm ambiance, exceptional service, and genuine hospitality.

That is why thousands of travelers search for their perfect getaway on Select Registry.

This online portfolio acts as a guidebook to over 300 of North America’s best bed and breakfasts, inns, and boutique hotels. In addition, Select Registry holds the lodgings they list on their website to high standards. As such, Select Registry customers can expect to stay at only the best-of-the-best accommodations in locations across the country. They can search for properties using criteria such as location, price, and specific amenities, all the while knowing their options meet Select Registry’s caliber.

If you are a Select Registry member or are thinking about becoming one, there are important things to know about creating an effective business listing on their website. Following a few rules will make your accommodation look better in the eyes of your audience. It will also help you achieve your hospitality marketing strategy goals.

Tips for a Fantastic Select Registry Listing

Being a member of the Select Registry community is a great way to showcase your inn or bed and breakfast. But if your listing is missing key elements, you aren’t likely to receive the bookings you want. In other words, if you don’t feed your visitors well-thought-out reasons why they should stay with you, they won’t. Take these easy-to-follow tips into consideration when you create your listing. They will help you get travelers to click on the “Visit Our Website” button and lead them even closer to booking a stay with you.

Write Great Content

This part is crucial for visitor retention and SEO purposes. According to TripAdvisor, the world’s leading online booking website, 92% of travelers will choose an accommodation with detailed property descriptions. Something as simple as including well-written content in your listing significantly boosts the chances of a booking! What kind of content is going to keep visitors on your page? It’s easier than you think!

First, great content shouldn’t sound like a sales pitch. If you are using copy that sounds like it oozed its way out of a clichéd advertisement, you’ll send potential customers running the other way. Instead, try using a natural tone that describes the key features and benefits of your hotel. Emphasize the things that make you stand out from other accommodations in your area. Also, don’t be afraid to add other features outside of your accommodation such as nearby activities and attractions.

DO NOT Copy and Paste

Hear us out! Do not copy and paste any content describing your property directly from your website to the Select Registry listing. Your potential guests won’t like reading the same content twice, and more importantly, neither will Google. When Google detects two sites containing the same content, it immediately suspects that one has stolen from the other. As a penalty, Google will rank both sites lower in search engines which will only drag you further away from your original goal to increase website traffic.

It is perfectly safe to reinvent the content on your website for your Select Registry listing. However, we highly recommend creating brand new content that will give your visitors something fresh to read. Even writing your property’s benefits with different wording can be enough. If you’re not much of a writer or need a little help creating compelling copy, take a look at Q4Launch’s services.

Insert Keywords Throughout Your Copy

To help your Select Registry listing rank higher on Google, consider placing relevant keywords in your content. Tools such as Google Adwords will help you uncover what your potential customers are typing into their search engines. You can use this to your advantage by strategically inserting those words and phrases on your page. Be sure to be strategic when using this tip. Overstuffing your listing with keywords makes it difficult to read and even decreases your chances of ranking.

Use High-Quality Photos

Today’s audience is visually-driven. Besides, few travelers want to stay in an accommodation without seeing it first. Therefore, it is important to add high-quality photos of your property to your listing. Since you can’t post an entire photo album on Select Registry, make sure you are choosing images that showcase your location, lobby, rooms, etc. Avoid cheesy photos of rose petals on beds or couples looking dreamily into each other’s eyes. As sweet as those are, they have nothing to do with your property and will hardly drive any interest toward your website.

Also, make sure your photos match the content. You don’t want to post a picture of a guest room underneath the dining tab or vice versa.

Keep Your Information Up-to-Date

Did you change your phone number, address, or any other relevant details about your accommodation? Don’t forget to update that information on your Select Registry page! A recent investigation by Search Engine Journal reports that $10.3 billion worth of potential sales is lost each year due to innkeepers making this mistake.

One of the basic parts of SEO is ensuring that your accommodation name, address, and phone number are the same across the web. That, of course, includes your listing on Select Registry.

Make a note to yourself every time you change information so you don’t forget, or even better, log in and fix it immediately.

Benefits of Select Registry Membership

Select Registry offers many marketing and branding advantages to its members. To begin with, Select Registry helps thousands of travelers find you through unique platforms. You will also have the opportunity to attend member-exclusive events and learn more about marketing for your business! Here are just a few of the benefits you can expect from a membership with Select Registry:

• Presence in Select Registry’s annual Guidebook, which reaches more than 200,000 travelers a year.
• Hospitality Search Engine Optimization through a listing on a high-quality website.
• Marketing webinars and newsletters that help you strengthen your online bed and breakfast marketing strategy.
• Participation in the Select Rewards loyalty program, which exposes you to over 24,000 Select Registry visitors.
• Increased traffic to your website through partnerships with other travel associations and companies.
• Property exposure through Select Registry’s email campaigns, content-rich blogs, social media platforms, and more.
• Opportunity for bookings from international travelers through Vacations to America.
• Annual Member Value Worksheet that documents your listing’s progress.

For more Select Registry Membership benefits, be sure to check their Benefits of Membership page.

Select Registry Membership Criteria

Select Registry is a community of success-minded innkeepers and hoteliers. Each member is expected to offer guests a consistent and exceptional level of quality, excellent customer service, and one-of-a-kind lodging. To ensure each member meets these standards, they must undergo a two-step process.

First, they must meet all the listed criteria:

• The property must be fully licensed according to national, regional, and local government requirements.
• Breakfast must be offered to guests who book a room at the accommodation.
• Each guestroom/suite must have a private bathroom.
• Fine dining must be available in the nearby area if an evening meal is not offered on the property.

The following criteria are not required, but is considered a plus to Select Registry:

• The accommodation owner/operator must have at least three years of documented lodging management experience.
• The inn/hotel has been in operation for at least two years to the time of application.
• At least two secured endorsements from SR properties in good standing.

If a property meets the above specifications, the second step is the Select Registry Quality Assurance Program. Each applicant must pass this inspection before becoming an official member.

During this examination, an undercover Select Registry inspector will make a visit to your accommodation. During their stay, they will be evaluating important aspects of your hotel or bed and breakfast such as quality, cleanliness, comfort, and hospitality. It is only after checkout that the inspector will reveal his or her identity and request a meeting with you to discuss their impressions. After the visit, a report will be sent to the accommodation containing your final score. A score of 175 out of 200 is required to pass the exam and become a member of Select Registry.

The goal of the Quality Assurance Program is to ensure that the standards of Select Registry are being met at all times. An extra benefit is that it gives unbiased feedback to the innkeeper about the quality of the accommodation and services.

Need Help Creating the Perfect Select Registry Listing? Q4Launch Can Help!

We are bed and breakfast marketing experts.

We pride ourselves on providing excellent customer service and making data-driven decisions. If you need help building an attractive and effective Select Registry listing, you can count on our talented Content Creators to make you stand out from your competition.

If you aren’t a Q4Launch customer or you are thinking about becoming one, now is an excellent opportunity to see what we can do for you! We’ll optimize your Select Registry listing for a small fee. If you are already a client of ours, we will optimize your Select Registry listing at a special rate.

Take a look at our services or contact us today to let us know what we can do for you!