Dear hotel marketers, what is your top priority? With the rapidly growing competition, emerging technologies and millions of potential consumers online, we know that your top target is to make it easier for potential guests to find your hotels online, right? But the question is, how will you make them find your hotel? The answer to this is to have an effectiveSearch Engine Optimisation (SEO) strategy!
What is SEO?
SEO is a set of marketing and technical practices that aims to increase the organic search engine rankings of a given website. The hotel industry is now focusing on crafting bold strategies, optimising their website and investing extra in digital marketing efforts to be more visible on search engines results.
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Redesign your website
By redesigning your website, we emphasize on having a smart website. This may look like it does not affect the SEO, but if you look closely at the bigger picture, it does. Redesigning your website allows you develop an intuitive site structure with pertinent content. Another key reason for a hotel to invest in website re-design is the increasing need for digital marketing asset management technology. Hotel marketers are challenged to circulate special offers, packages, events and any current happenings through all the effective channels. It is almost impossible to manage a desktop website, tablet and mobile websites, social media profiles (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram…) without a good Content Management System (CMS). That is why, making your website user-friendly for you and your viewers will help you update easily and let them surf hassle-free, in other words, will help you do what search engines love!
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Create engaging content
The ongoing Google updates for SEO emphasize that website content needs to be relevant, unique, authentic and engaging, otherwise hoteliers will have a hard time making top of search engine rankings. Engaging content for hotels does not mean filling your website with text only but to have some visual content as well. As a guest, do you book a hotel based on the persuasive text only? Well, guests don’t either! Hotels are visual, guests want to see where they will be relaxing, what the spa and pool look like and so on. As a hotelier, you should also verify that all the pictures are properly tagged and that each has an alternative text description. Quality photography and graphics are crucial for hotel websites but you also have to give your audience something nice to read.
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Use professional copywriting
You only get what you pay for – cheap copywriters usually provide lifeless content that does no more than taking up space on a page. Take the time and effort to invest in professional copywriters with both SEO and hospitality experience that can create compelling and interesting content for your potential guests. These writers will also help you brainstorm ideas and provide consultancy about how to best present the hotel’s services online. Money spent on lasting content is money well spent.
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Develop a content plan creation and Blogging
Besides updating content about your products or services, building additional content will work best for your SEO; Google loves fresh content! A way to do so is by blogging on the hotel website; a branded blog engages followers with little interesting updates. Keep in mind that a stale blog is worse than no blog!
You can take some ‘content’ inspiration from the following diagram:
Eventually, the goal is to make the website content and traffic grow massively every year. That’s how Google loves it!
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Go for mobile SEO
Mobile site is a must! Mobile search engines prefer websites having local content, thus, hoteliers need to optimize their local content and listings on the search engines, such as phone number, address and google map.
SEE ALSO: TOP 6 SUCCESSFUL PPC STRATEGIES FOR HOTELS in 2015
That’s it! The mentioned points are not only great for SEOs, but will also improve your user experience; something hoteliers should strive to do!
We hope that this article helps your hotel reach the top, and remember, if you need any help, we are here to assist you.
