How to Design Super Website for your Hostel Startup? In-depth Analysis Ahead!

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Last Updated: April 26, 2022

Zostel is no longer the only dorm based accommodation service provider for backpackers in India. Every city that receives decent amount of tourists and young breed of travelers has its share of affordable hostels. While most hostel service providers offer more or less the same amenities (breakfast, dorm rooms, wifi etc), they are missing on something that can make a huge difference to online bookings. This critical element is a website.

Even the modern youth hostels that have a website fail to impress with its cluttered design and poor branding. FATbit Technologies wants to change this to make hostel startups more competitive online.

Here are the points you need to focus on while building a website for your hostel project to:

  • Establish it as an authority accommodation brand
  • Make it appear on relevant Google searches
  • Generate higher online reservations

So, what are we waiting for? Here are the mind blowing points!

Multi utility header

Website headers are possibly the most versatile elements on a website with plenty of room to play. You can use the mighty header:

  • To show unique propositions (Pricing or amenities)
  • To generate a booking through form
  • To introduce your community

Zostel accomplishes only one of the above goals through its website banner. You can do a lot more by using a slider header. Pro travel & hostel website designers can manage the work just fine.

Zostel website clone script

Homepage focus

There is no need to emphasize the importance of website homepage. While we have already shed light on the header, here are some points used by top travel booking website designers to plan homepage:

  • Prioritize sections – Reserve the first section for brief introduction, facilities, and hostel locations
  • Keep it visual – Rather than plain text, go with a mixture of text and images. Use real ones if possible.
  • Scatter Booking and Contact related action buttons throughout homepage.

Considering hostel websites usually don’t have too many pages, request your website designer to take some extra time with homepage.

Dedicated hostel pages

Even if your youth hostel is only present in one or two locations presently, they deserve dedicated pages. This will not only help visitors but also give you search advantage for location based searches. Here are some tips that might come handy while planning dedicated hostel pages:

  • Provide information about facilities on offer
  • Share contact details
  • Integrate map
  • Share how to reach your hostel through railway station and bus stop
  • Highlight landmarks
  • Talk a little about the city
  • Clearly highlight rent structure
  • Share images of interiors and guests.

This seems like a lot of work but an experienced team of hostel & travel website designers can get it done in a jiffy within reasonable budget.

Blog

Updating blog regularly seems like an extra headache to most website owners but benefits outweigh the efforts. Official blog of your hostel website can:

  • Inform visitors about your brand, team, and new offerings
  • Help you dominate search terms and generate additional traffic
  • Improve website indexing and improve its authority
  • Become mouthpiece of your company

zostel clone script blog

Pay special attention to visual appeal and social aspect. In addition to that, make sure your design and development team gets SEO right as well.

Booking functionality

Now this is something that can push up the cost of backpacker hostel website design & development. Payment gateway and booking functionality involves programming which sometimes costs more. In case you want to launch your website at low cost, then, you can opt to leave the booking part to third party online booking platforms like Booking.com.

Don’t want to share your profit with someone else? An experienced developer can easily integrate payment and booking features to your hostel website. Keep the following points in mind to get maximum benefits:

  • Smooth conversion funnel
  • Intuitive booking form
  • Secure payment gateway

Social media elements

Popular Indian hostel startups have tens of thousands of Likes on Facebook, and generates a lot of buzz from social media. While most have tried their best to put across their social popularity through website, many have wasted precious site real estate while doing so.

Social media elements like Twitter Feed and Facebook Like buttons are important but need to be placed deftly. Make sure that your development team gets your hostel name out there through social media channels but without spoiling user experience.

3

SEO optimized site

There is no fun in having a website that doesn’t appear on Google for hostel location and brand name related search queries. To make this happen, your hostel website development team need to take care of optimization related technicalities from the very beginning. Points that will make the biggest different for your hostel website:

  • Meta details
  • On-page work
  • Content optimization
  • Image optimization

We recently wrote a blog post for Business2Community that discusses how to optimize new websites. Check it out!

Most importantly

No doubt Zostel had a head start from other backpacker lodging ventures but it did something that most are still missing. We are talking about focusing on culture and branding. It has built a brand out of its dorm based hostels, and its website helps in the task.
Hostels that aspire to be leading industry names need to find their niche and evolve a culture that builds trust amongst backpackers and travelers.

So, the bottom line is that you don’t spend a fortune on your hostel site

Leading hostel brands may have spent decent amount of money in designing and developing their websites but this doesn’t mean you need to do the same. Get a simple website with:

  • Engaging homepage
  • Dedicated hostel pages
  • Clear contact details
  • Social media features

Pro tip – Get a CMS based website so that you can manage it on your own

Booking and payment functionality can be added or skipped depending on your hostel website design budget. Generating booking from websites like hostelworld.com and hostels.com is also fine but it is not a long term strategy. For every customer, you have to compete with other hostel service providers. So, the best way forward is focusing on building your own brand. And for that, you need a website.

How much a conversion and SEO optimized hostel website costs?

Disclaimer: The Blog has been created with consideration and care. We strive to ensure that all information is as complete, correct, comprehensible, accurate and up-to-date as possible. Despite our continuing efforts, we cannot guarantee that the information made available is complete, correct, accurate or up-to-date. We advise - the readers should not take decisions completely based on the information and views shared by FATbit on its blog, readers should do their own research to further assure themselves before taking any commercial decision. The 3rd party trademarks, logos and screenshots of the websites and mobile applications are property of their respective owners, we are not directly associated with most of them.


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