Travellers today are turning to a search engine to explore different hotel options before they decide on one. Increasing your hotel’s visibility online can be tricky. There are many approaches you can go about it which can be a bit confusing and time-consuming. Google’s algorithms keep changing, and it can prove to be challenging for hoteliers to keep up with it. SEO for hotel websites is critical in gaining an edge over the competition. It isn’t about “tricking” search engines. According to Outbrain research, search engines have beaten social media by 300% and are No. 1 driver of traffic to content. People come to search engines to find information that would help them choose a hotel. Search engine’s primary aim is to provide relevant answers.
The hospitality industry is unique. It has many opportunities, and the website content plays an impact role in its rankings. When we say search engine optimized website, what do we imply? When a search engine comes to your site, it looks for details like who you are, what you do and why you are relevant to searchers. Optimizing your site with content useful to customers can improve the website ranking. That’s it. But how will you know what your customers are looking for? And how will you make sure to appear for relevant search terms keywords? Read on to understand, how to optimize your website for search engines. SEO rightly done can help you get discovered when your customers are looking for you.
Follow these Quick Tips On SEO For Hotels
1. Have a Website for Your Hotel
If your hotel website is not optimized for search results, you may never attract people to your site. According to Google, 43% of people plan their travel trips online. 60% of leisure travelers and 55% of business travelers make hotel bookings online. Traditional marketing still has several benefits for hotels. But hoteliers who haven’t thought about SEO are doing their wallets a disservice. SEO is a fundamental component of a global digital marketing strategy for hotels.
Your hotel website should have online-booking, channel management, client testimonials, and more. When a guest visits your site, they should get an extraordinary navigational experience. Regardless of the device used, your guest should get a seamless booking experience.
2. Content Marketing for Hotels
Search engines like websites who create content that is relevant and engaging. You can stand out from your competition if you have a good content marketing strategy. Create content that is specific to your geography. Use location-based keywords, but don’t go overboard. You can write about “Things to do”, “Places to visit”, “The best way to reach a place” and many more. These are the things people usually look for when they are going to a new place. Creating personalized content helps you to drive quality traffic to your website. Include long-tail search terms like “business hotel with free wifi in New York near Central Park” in your content. You can get more quality traffic from many low traffic keywords combined. See what your guest is searching for your location. You can use these long -tail search terms to create content that will attract more guests.
3. Submit Website to Search Engines
One of the best ways to start SEO for your hotel website is by updating your page titles and meta descriptions. Create a unique title for each page and submit them to search engines. Websites benefit from effective SEO. Having a unique title helps search engines to understand the relevance of each page. It also gives you an excellent opportunity to use the keywords you want to target to rank better. You can create free accounts on Google and Bing webmaster. Whenever you create a new page, submit the details about the content of the page along with their URLs. The best way is to submit your website’s sitemap.xml file to Search Engines, everytime you update/add any piece of content.
4. Leverage Social Channels
Social media channels like Facebook and Twitter are a great way to engage consumers. There are many tools available that you can integrate into your website. These tools can help you to promote your content. Using these tools, you can automate the task without any extra effort. Every time you post a new update or an offer, the tool will post it on all your social media channels. Having a strong social presence will grow your branding and reputation. When people keep seeing your post on social media, they will start recognizing your brand. They will come back to you if they are looking for a hotel room in your location. Distribute our content and offers as many social media channels as possible.
5. Location Based SEO
Your hotel may be a big international brand or a small motel – it is a local business by nature. When people go on search engines to look for a hotel, they look for a one in a particular location. When people land on your website for a hotel in a specific place, search engines understand. It recognizes your website is linked to the single business address. It will start showing your site more in search results for that specific geography.
6. Get Listed in Directories
Adding your location to your website alone is not enough to influence the search engines. Along with location-based information on your website, you need to establish your location. Claim and optimize your hotel on business listings like “Google My Business”. Fill in the exact name, address, phone number, and website that is mentioned on your site. You tell search engines that the business details on the site and business listing are same. Search engines will recognize your hotel for that location. When people look for hotels in your area, you get a better chance at ranking well in search results.
7. Omni-channel Communication
Keep sharing your website content to your guests and subscribers. You can keep your guests updated by sending them an email, Whatsapp message (Whatsapp for Business) or an SMS. Omni-channel communication will improve your website conversions.
8. Optimize Your Website Speed and Responsiveness
If you take a look at your hotel’s website, you would see it is full of photos. Your images play an essential role in marketing your hotel. But they also impact the website’s loading time, and that can harm your SEO. If your website is taking lot of time to load, the user will leave before you have a chance to engage them. Websites that load in no time result in better user experience. Search engines calculate how long it takes your website’s server to respond when it tries to load a page. Most of the time, web pages with many photos takes a lot of time to load. So you need to optimize them, or else it may result in decreasing your ranking. Compress all the pictures on your website. It will ensure your website loads faster, particularly on a mobile device. If your website is taking a lot of time to load, the user will leave before you have a chance to engage him/her. Search engines can also identify this behavior and factor it into your rankings. There are many tools that you use for resizing all the images to the appropriate size for your website. When your website loads faster, people are going to engage with your site longer. Your guests are getting a better user experience which is a good sign when search engines look at your site. Making your hotel website faster can help you rank well. It will give you a better chance to attract more guests from searches.
Google says, about 19% of hotel searches come from mobile phones. This makes it very important for your website to be mobile optimized. Search engines want to make it easier for people to find relevant information on the web. Use a responsive template to engage customers on all devices. Ensure your guests have extraordinary navigational experience. No matter what device your guest is using, they should get a seamless booking experience.
9. Insights on Web Traffic using Website Analytics Tools
Website analytics tools help you run an analytical report on your website. It helps you to understand if your SEO strategy is working well. KPI’s to consider in SEO are- Traffic to web pages, engagement rate, session time, and bounce rate. You can track every aspect of your business like e-booking, guest details, and more. Analytical reports will help you understand the trend of your bookings. You can use this report to optimize your selling channels. This will help you to understand the type of content your guest is engaging. You can optimize your content marketing strategy that is relevant to your business.
10. Logic of SEO
Understand what your guests are looking. Research on the search terms they are using. Plan your SEO strategy that is relevant to your geography. Your end goal should be to make people book a room from your website. Content management plays a significant role in SEO for hotels. Create contents that are useful for your guest. Include content about your location that will be helpful and informative. Optimizing your website for search results can help you get more visibility.
Benefits of SEO for Hotel Website
The hotel business is linked to a particular location. With SEO you can attract potential customers in your geography. SEO helps you to rank well in search results and increase your online presence. Make full out of SEO by optimizing your hotel website for search engines. Hotels should optimize for Long Tail search terms such as “Motel 6 in 1st Avenue New York City” for ranking higher in search engine results.