There’s never a bad time to take an honest look at what your Internet presence is doing for your hotel or other lodging. Here are 11 tips for a website refresh.

1. Check that your home page and your entire site’s focus is clear; your call to action is fresh, changing and relevant.

2. Avoid clutter. From page and blog navigation to Social Media icons, a simple, clean design keep visitors on site longer. People have brief attention spans and block text is rarely read. Avoid flash whenever possible. Most visitors don’t like it nor do some browsers.

3. Make it easy to reach you by the visitor’s choice of methods. Phone, email, online chat, even fax are all important. Can these be found quickly no matter which page your visitor is on?

4. Accessing your website-integrated booking engine should be easy and consistent from each page.

5. Assure visitors that they’re getting the best rate right here and now.  Risk avoidance is high in people’s minds these days.

6. Present up-sell opportunities from the outset to achieve additional revenue opportunities.

7. Prominently display awards, accolades, press releases, and other collateral.

8. Use an open-source standards based CMS that is easy for your staff to update. These include WordPress, Drupal and Joomla.

9. Visuals are a key. Include short videos together with prolific photos. Don’t forget to cross-post those to your Facebook and other Social Media presences as well.

10. Show your Social Media prominently on your website so visitors will know to join you there. Incorporate Facebook “Like” and Twitter Retweet functions, at least on your blog. Be sure you’re easily found in Google Places.

11. Make sure your site is ranking well in search. The easiest way to do that is to search for all the keywords that relate to your property. If you’re not coming up near the top, you’re missing much potential business, and it may be time to get help from Techspokes.

As consultants, our entire mission is assuring that clients achieve their marketing and technology goals. We are committed to clients’ success.

Many smaller businesses have asked for our help in setting up and using WordPress.org. In response, we’re offering a 4 hour beginning, hands-on WordPress class.

This will be useful not only to those smaller companies wanting to try using the technology themselves, but also to larger businesses who need to understand what’s possible in order to work with web programmers, developers and consultants.

If you’re on Kauai or need an excuse to be, we look forward to seeing you:

Your comments are welcomed.

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You’re a business owner with a fan page on Facebook. You want the world to see you. But what about your personal profile? I suggest you take a half hour and review your public and personal image.

A recent article from The Atlantic (Stealth Mode: Making Yourself Nearly Invisible on Facebook by Nicholas Jackson) provides an instructional guide to hiding out on-line. I tell business clients to use caution on this and not always take such an extreme measure. It’s important to look accessible in social marketing to potential and current clients. You want people to see you engaged and not cloaked on your personal profile.

Here’s my best advice to business owners who have professional and personal acquaintances as friends: Use Facebook Lists. Keep your profile in the mainstream and then let the “list” feature guide your communication strategy. You can direct your personal updates to those closest to you while still looking engaged to your Facebook business friends.

The Atlantic article is a good reminder to check privacy settings and make sure they reflect your intent. I did the following tune-up yesterday on mine:

1. Reviewed how my personal profile looked to people searching. Everything checked out. My main goal was to see how I looked to the business community. It’s all about image.

2. Reviewed Apps and Websites I had allowed. I was surprised at what I found here and deleted many of them. Remember that Apps allow access to some of your Facebook information.

3. Stopped friends from posting on my Wall. I know it sounds tough but I think it’s good for damage control. What if someone wrote a personal update on your Wall that everyone saw? And it turned out to be something you wanted to keep private instead of distributed to your network. Better to encourage a one-on-one message instead.

4. Reviewed photos to see if any should be more private. This is all about your image. Sometimes you may want photos to be seen by friends and family and not business associates. Ask yourself how a business associate or client would react to that party photo and then decide if any privacy screen is appropriate.

How private are you on Facebook? If there are other privacy measures you recommend?

Your comments are welcomed.

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1. Every Business is Social.

It’s the reality. Participation is optional but it’s happening with or without us.

Suggestion: Don’t hold back or be left behind. Social is a key to successfully marketing for most every business.

2. Facebook vs. Google: And the Winner is Facebook.

Why? Because we trust our friends more than we trust machines. Information discovery is becoming more and more socially based (vs. search based), which is resulting in a shift in dominance and ad revenue from Google to Facebook. Google has seemingly all but given up on social, realizing finally that it doesn’t stand a chance of competing with Facebook. The problem is that in the long run, Google will have less and less to offer consumers.

Suggestion: The more you use and understand the nuances of Facebook, personally and professionally, the better position you’ll be in to make it an effective business tool.

3. Internet TV plus Streaming to TV and Mobile.

Check out Google TV or ROKU. The Internet as a delivery platform is shifting into high gear replacing television broadcasting. Are you streaming Netflix? These are about to get a lot more social too.

Suggestion: This is a hot and upcoming area to watch.

4. Contextual Awareness Based Applications.

Not only will Facebook Places and Foursquare continue to expand, but location awareness built into other apps will flourish. Awareness isn’t just about location, it’s also about relations. There will be more context included in search results, as well as in applications that gather information from your Facebook and Twitter accounts, such as TripAdvisor.

Suggestion: Start using contextual awareness applications so that you can understand them.

5. Mobile Devices.

Android (primarily) and iPhones are overtaking computers with more money soon expected to be spent on mobile than PC’s for the first time.

Suggestion: Do you have mobile strategies for your business?

6. Social Video Sharing.

User generated video news streamed from the Cloud. New destinations like Qlipso that let you watch any video, play any game or share any slideshow you find on the Internet while hanging out with your social relations.

Do you have a YouTube channel?

7. Group Buying: Boom or Bust.

In spite of the grossly inflated valuations, just how sustainable is the model established by Groupon, and its competitors LivingSocial, BuyWithMe, CoupMe, Tippr, etc.

On this one, I’m suggesting that most businesses avoid group buying at this time.

In 2010, Facebook surpassed Google to become the Internet’s most popular destination. This is a fundamental shift in where we find find utility on the Internet, which is moving from technology to friends. Both Comscore and Experian Hitwise determined that Facebook is number one in terms of pages viewed.

In addition, Neilsen had previously reported that Americans now spend nearly on-fourth of their time online using social networks.

Google remains relevant for now

There remains one key area where Facebook still has room to grow and that is revenue. Google led in 2010 by an estimated $24 billion to Facebook’s measly $1 Billion.

Yet, at the same time the real world value of algorithmically determined search results has been diminished. And Google appears to be throwing in the towel on Social Networking following multiple failed attempts.

Business’ Bottom Line: Time to Set your Facebook Goals for 2011

Mine include using the list function better on Facebook. I need to communicate more with my larger group of business associates. This means not only pushing out updates, but joining discussions.

What are your Facebook goals for the New Year?

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