THATBlog

Travelers are ready to book. With upward trends in the economy and in consumer confidence, more people are planning business travel and personal vacations. At the same time, hoteliers face increased competition — and the risk that slight downturns could lead to cuts in discretionary spending. To compensate, compete, and thrive, you need strong search engine marketing solutions.

In today’s climate, techniques geared specifically towards hotel SEO are more relevant than ever when it comes to building your brand and converting customers. Some steps to take so you can keep up with hotel marketing trends:

Carefully Target Your Keywords

Start with the basics: “hotel + your location.” But don’t stop there. If you are located in Miami, for instance, competition for “hotels in Miami” and related terms will be fierce. Take your search to the next level with a keyword planning tool, such as Google Adwords. This will help you narrow down on specific keywords, particularly longtail phrases. For example: “pet-friendly hotels in Miami,” “hotels on Miami Beach,” or “Top 10 restaurants/beaches/attractions in Miami” (this last is ideal for your blog and social pages).  These phrases are a higher priority than your brand name (if you’re not the Hilton or Marriott.) Place them more prominently. 

Another great way to organize your keywords and content is to create a keyword map.  Keyword mapping is the process of assigning relevant keywords to the different pages throughout your website.  While it's not an essential activity to planning an effective digital marketing strategy, it can help you organize your content and get a visual representation of the searches you'll potentially rank for.

Create a Tight Internal Link Structure

High-quality links are important in the SEO world; when you can generate solid leads to your website, you can increase your authority and visibility in the search engine results pages. However, do not neglect your internal link structure. This enables visitors to your site to navigate intuitively and conveniently; if they face no impediments while they gather the information they need, they are more likely to stay on-site and convert. Interlink to key landing pages and from your blog content to relevant pages.

Optimize Your Website

On a related note, optimizing your site so it runs as efficiently (and quickly) as possible helps engage visitors and keep them on your site longer. There are several steps you can take, from ditching all the heavy Flash elements and auto playing media to “minifying” your HTML, CSS, or JavaScript. This enables the pages to load faster, which in turn reduces bounce rates.  This can quickly get technical; enlisting the aid of a hotel SEO expert can provide a great return for your business. 

Hail Content as the King

Consumers begin their buyer’s “journey", if you will, not by booking but by dreaming. This is true of both business and pleasure travelers; they want to know what’s special, fun, and unique about your location, and how you can help them enjoy their stays. Top 10 lists are always popular — and helpful. Top 10 things to do in Miami, Top 10 Must-Have Items to Pack, etc. Educate about your area and offerings. Consistency is essential; post written content as well as video, podcasts, and images on a set schedule.  Create content ahead of time so you have a good inventory on hand to post regularly. 

Analyze and Respond

There is no excuse not to track your performance. Google provides free tools, such as Search Console and Google Analytics.  With the former, you  can submit content for crawling, remove content you want excluded from search results, monitor content, monitor and resolves spam/malware issues, and more. With the latter, you can keep an eye on website traffic, track campaigns, find out where your best customers are located, see what people are searching for on your site and what elements generates the most clicks, identify your best-performing content as well as your lowest performing pages, figure out where people abandon the process, and more. 

With these insights, you can adjust campaigns to target your audience more effectively.

The hospitality industry is booming — and fiercely competitive in many areas.  Keep up with search engine optimization trends and stand above the crowd. With the right hotel seo, you can realize stronger results and give your hotel marketing the fuel it needs for direct bookings and an increase in revenue.