TripAdvisor.co.uk and Superbreak.com have dropped off the rankings of the ten most visible sites for hotel-related searches, according to new research.
The latest research, ‘Hotels Sector Report – Issue 13’, by digital marketing agency, Greenlight, indicates that Marriott and Secret Escapes have risen up the rankings.
The agency’s quarterly report reveals the number of searches and the most popular terms consumers used when they went to Google UK to look for hotels located in short haul, long haul and domestic destinations.
League tables chart the most visible brands, retailers and review sites across Natural Search and Paid Media.
According to Greenlight, over 1.4 million searches were made for Hotel-related keywords in August down on May’s 1.5 million.
Generic hotel-related terms were the most popular, accounting for 38% of queries.
‘Hotels’, the most queried keyword, made up 11% of searches (165,000). ‘Cheap hotels’ followed with 90,500, then ‘Hotels in London’ with 60,500.
August searches for hotels located in short haul (225,834) and long haul destinations (202,496) were up on May levels, when they totalled 214,254 and 179,926, respectively.
Laterooms.com maintained its lead as the most visible site for hotel searches in August. This it did by achieving a sizeable share of voice across Natural Search and Paid Media. Interestingly, its share of visibility in Paid Media almost trebled from 24% in May to 69% in August. That in the organic listings decreased to 62% compared to 71% in May.
It was likewise for Lastminute.com which ranked second. Its share of voice in Natural Search shrank from 70% in May to 59% in August. Meanwhile, that in the paid listings grew dramatically from 22% in May to 65%.
Booking.com followed in third place doubling its share of visibility in the paid space indicating that like Laterooms.com and Lastminute.com, it leaned on advertising to help secure its visibility online and attract the searchers consideration.
A notable entrant to the top 10 was Secretescapes.com. It did not even feature in Greenlight’s May league table charting the 30 most visible sites in Integrated Search***. However in August, it replaced Superbreak.com, which dropped 13 places, to become the tenth most visible site, leaning solely on Paid Media to do so.
Meanwhile, Marriott.co.uk moved up a dramatic 17 places to secure ninth position through gaining a 5% share of visibility in the organic listings and increasing its share of voice in the paid listings more than five-fold, from just 6% in May to 39% in August.
Players that slipped down the ranks in August included TripAdvisor.co.uk. It dropped from position 7 in May to eleven in August.
SuperBreak.com slid down 13 places to position 23. Unlike in May, where solely having a 25% share of visibility in Natural Search was enough to secure it tenth place, a decrease in share to 19% in August and no presence in the paid listings, was not enough to keep it there.
Greenlight’s ‘Hotels Sector Report – Issue 13’ report is available here (registration required)
Source: www.greenlightdigital.com