Learn everything you need to know about SEO for hotels. Read these easy 7 steps on how to do local SEO for hotels business. And understand how SEO hotels can help you to boost bookings?
Are you struggling to promote your hotel business online? Do you want know the secret to drive hotel website traffic? If your goal is to increase your hotel business through hotel online marketing strategy, then the right way to do is by generating web traffic. Higher the traffic on your website – higher will be chances of booking confirmation.
Now wondering how to drive traffic on the website? In this article, we’ll reveal everything you need to know about search engine optimization companies for hotels. Also learn how to do SEO for hotels. Let’s begin with understanding the importance of hotels SEO and how to get started with hotel digital marketing.
How to Boost Hotel Bookings?
If you are reading the post, I’m sure you find food as the solution to improve your hotel business. The trick to any business lies in marketing, either traditional or digital. Many findings suggest that promoting any business with digital means has a higher success rate than traditional means of marketing.
This is because today the user spends nearly about 2 – 3 hours on the internet per day. Digital marketing allows targeting an audience by demographics and at a cost-friendly budget. I am sure you require no more reasons to choose digital marketing for hotels over conventional ways of the market. If you’re still not convenience, then check out a short-list of reasons you need to invest in online marketing for hotels:
- Reach customer
- Seamless bookings
- Reputation management
- Brand awareness
Coming back to the primary subject, how to do SEO for hospitality industry?
What is SEO for Hotels?
Today hotels are facing tremendous competition. They are struggling to attract guest and increase bookings. One of the biggest challenges for smaller, local hotels is letting prospective guests know that you exist. Here comes the role of SEO for hotels.
Hotels Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a process to create and enhance the organic visibility of the hotel in search engines. SEO helps hotels to increase online presence and drive sales. It maximize customer base. Therefore, helps reach customers by helping them to find on top Google hotel rankings.
Why is SEO important for Hotels?
A customer uses a search engine to find suitable accommodation in a specific area. If you optimize your hotel business online, making it visible on the search engine will make it easier for customers to find you. In fact, they rank the results displayed based on which gain higher chances of clickbait. SEO for hotels allows you to improve ranking and show up in the higher search results. Search the best SEO agency for that will help to rank your hotel to the top and generate business for your hotel.
Here are 7 steps to get started with SEO for Hotels. These steps work miracles if you want more clickbait and higher rankings in the search engine.
7 Steps to Do SEO for Hotels
We break hotel search engine marketing into different components. This involves various steps and long procedures to develop the right hotel SEO strategy. Read the 7 steps to do hotel website SEO.
- Keyword Research And Competition Analysis
There are plenty of elements that are responsible for hotel website’s success. But, search engines prioritize content over the user search queries. Here comes the role of SEO keywords for hotels. It is also known as an “intent-based search,”. Hotel keywords is the core of the search engine algorithm. So, as a hotel marketer, your site should cater to the user’s needs and what they are searching for in the web of queries. Thus, analyzing and rectifying the query is the key component of SEO hotels keywords search.
For instance, if a user seeking “X-Hotel reviews,” then the search engine would provide them relevant pages having the same intent. So, it becomes easy for you and your customer to work smoothly. However, keywords for hotel industry also perform the same task. But, sometimes, it becomes difficult to get the relevant content via hotel SEO keywords. There are several keyword planner research tools present that could help you the best keywords for hotels. But, it’s better to do some research in your niche first.
- Identifying Keywords Opportunities
Now you have seen that keywords play a vital role in ranking your hotel website. So it’s a must to identify which hospitality keywords would be relevant for your site. For instance, a resort website would use keywords for resorts like: “best resort in Manali, adventure resort in Shimla”.
Thus, you first need to understand the keywords that are required on your site. Get a pen and paper research a little as there are plenty of keyword tools that would provide you keywords according to their usage and volume. After selecting the keyword for your page, you need to see where your site stands in search engines.
After optimizing the keywords, make sure your content matches them. In addition, focus on hotel meta description as well since meta descriptions are special coded tags or snippets that help search engines to find your site. So make sure your meta description focuses on your keyword. This is why you first need to search a keyword before heading to its writing part thoroughly.
- On-Site Page Implementation
On-site is a term used for website optimization. There’s a difference between on-page and on-site SEO, as in on-site, your entire hotel website is optimized while, on the other hand, only particular pages are optimized. The aim of using on-site SEO is to boost your website by reaching numerous users at a time. It triggers four essential components of any website. These are:
- What is your hotel website all about?
- What is the purpose of all these pages marked on your hotel website SEO?
- Whether the pages are relevant regarding the search query?
- If the page marked is high in value?
Let’s dig into the elements of On-page SEO for hotel industry:
- Write Unique SEO Hotel Title and Meta Tags
A title tag is an HTML component of that specific page title in the search engine. Meta title and description are a short snippet of the webpage. It explains search engines about their website.
The Hotel SEO services meta title and description must be short and crisp. Also, when writing the Hotel meta title and description it should be unique. Avoid duplicate meta tags and description to keep away from keyword cannibalization.
- Structured URL
A hotel website must have several pages to target multiple keywords. Each page must have a unique keyword as well as a unique URL structure. A URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator. It is a unique identity or an address of a page. Your URL page structure must be semantic. No-Semantic page URLs are readable to users, but not by search engines. Here is a preview of a semantic URL structure.
Non-semantic URL: https://hotelname.com/rooms.45londondoublesuite.type=valid
Semantic URL: https://hotelname.com/doublesuiteroomlondon
Similar to title tags, ensure that the page URL is different for each web page. Some general SEO tips for hotels are:
- Add relevant hospitality industry keyword
- Must be easy to read
- Separate words with a dash
- Avoid using underscores
- Image Alt Text
Image alt text is also known as ‘alt tags’. Alt tags are written copy that appears in place of an image on a website if the website fails to load on. The original purpose of having an alt text is to make information accessible to search engines that describe images.
- Copywriting And Marketing
A key ingredient to boost website traffic is to write ample content. The SEO content for hotel website must contact specific keywords of hotel industry. You can either provide informative articles or blogs related to your hotel business. The content must include features, facilities, and activities you provide. Content plays a huge part in strategically planning your website since it targets most of your customers’ query related keywords. Further, you can also write marketing content that could inform your customers about your business.
- Website Speed And Site Test
Generally, hotel websites are loaded with pictures and videos. This is because portraying “how their hotel looks like” in real life. But, this is also responsible for reducing the speed of the site. However, pictures are a crucial part of any hotel website. Since it’s the key component to attract many users. So in order to make sure that your website loads quickly you need to compress the picture size.
This is because if your website takes ample time to open, then either the search engine would reduce your ranking. Besides, your customer gets irritated while waiting for so long. Hence it ultimately results in a decrease in ranking.
- Off-Page SEO And Link Building
Off-Page SEO for hotels is an advanced way to optimize a website. Normally, this optimization style is done when you’re a part of the saturated market. Which have high competition in local hotel business. So, the number of websites pointing towards your website could be a good indication for your business since the search engine considers the number of links while ranking your website. If thousands of links are generated website, then chances are high to rank on top of the search pages.
Backlinks for hotel websites are when your website links to third party webpage. They play an important role in most of the search engine algorithms. Backlinks are also known as ‘inbound links’ coming from their party website. It is a major metric for ranking a website.
Learn More: How to Set Realistic SEO Goals
Here are key on-page SEO for hotels, activities you must include:
- XML Sitemap
An XML sitemap is a modern tool. It is a roadmap of your website that leads search engines to all important pages. A sitemap is a file where you provide information about pages, images, videos, and all other files on your site. It helps to boost website relationships with search engines.
Once you create a sitemap the next step is to submit in major search engines. You can submit your sitemap at:
- Google search console
- Bing Webmaster
- Yandex Webmaster
- Yahoo Webmaster
- SSL Certification
SSL (Secure Sockets Layer ) certification is a type of security configuration. It is a digital authentication of a website that enables an encrypted connection between the internet and the user. SSL is a small data file to be installed on the web servers. If your hotel website has a payment option, then you must install an SSL certification.
This will guarantee your customer that your website is safe to make payment. According to research, 89% of websites are not secured to make payment. It potentially threatens customers with insecurity to make online hotel bookings.
- Ranking Report And Tracking
A feature ranking report helps you to identify how good your website is doing. It provides you with details of exact metrics, keywords, and locations from where queries are generated maximum. The detailed keyword analytics report and tracking report help you analyze which keyword is most searched on your website. Thus you can improve for further usage.
Other Things to Keep in Mind for SEO for Hotels
If you know more about how to do hotel SEO then there are few tips you must know – rules for hotels SEO.
Avoid Keyword Stuffing: Never stuff your content with keywords. Adding keywords multiple times in webpage will result to Google penalty. This act will not only hone your website ranking. But also potentially get your website banned in search engines.
Do not buy links: Many beginners to SEO comprise with off-page SEO activities. They buy unnatural SEO links which can harm their website. This practice is also known as Black Hat SEO or Grey Hat SEO. Links can boost website ranking which must be acquired through a natural way.
Allow time: Search engine marketing for hotels is a long term process. Spamming your website can lead to the site being removed from the search engine completely. Be patient. It will take time to see results.
Getting Most of the Hotel SEO Strategy
In conclusion, while building your seo services for hotels, it’s crucial first to research the top hotel keywords that might be required to rank. After that start checking their volume before using them to create effective content. Since it would help you optimize your website quite well. Half of the battle is a win for Local SEO hotel. Other half you can accomplish to create backlinks for hotels website easily.
Search Markup is the best-in-class among offering SEO hotel marketing companies. Contact us today to know more about how to do SEO for hotels website and our SEO action plan.
