SEO strategy is commonly known for keyword optimization to increase visibility in search results. However, in a highly competitive industry like hotels and hospitality, there is a list of SEO strategies that should be implemented to achieve results that last longer and lead to business growth.
SEO strategy planning for hotels
- Analysing competitors’ profiles(organically):
SEO competitors for hotels exist from outside the hospitality niche as well. Understanding the competitors’ SEO, domain strength, and backlinking strategies can aid in building strategies and aiming for targeted keywords better. Running analysis for their on-page content can provide insights into the publishing frequency and their target keywords. - Building an optimized & fast-loading website:
Page speed is an important SEO ranking factor ideal for improved user experience and lowering bounce rates which can affect conversion.
Compressing or removing redundant script files, codes, comments and characters are highly recommended because it can drastically increase the page speed. Redirection of pages demands another page to load, adding waiting time for visitors and lowering the website speed.
Hotel websites are filled with images for customers. These images can be optimized and compressed for the web, saving users from waiting for multiple images to load.
Fast-loading websites provide users with an exceptional experience increasing the likeliness of conversion. - Integrating all commercial-based keywords and booking forms:
Commercial keywords hold a lot of potential and valuable opportunities for hotels to reach out to customers with higher chances of conversion. Commercial keywords reveal the search interest of users revolving around a specific idea. Understanding, optimizing and integrating these keywords in blogs, articles, listicles or reviews can enable hotels to engage and interest their target audience.
Most users search for hotels based on location, making the geographical location of a hotel its commercial keyword and optimizing it would increase the chances of appearing higher on the search result. Driving the traffic generated through these keywords directly to a booking form for queries and potential slot bookings can also increase the conversion rates of hotel websites. - Measuring all Technical SEO of the website:
A good technical SEO is the identity of a high-value website. Websites with factors like faster loading experience, mobile-friendly, fixed crawl errors, indexed primary pages, secure connection protocol, and content stability have better rankings on the search results.
A good technical SEO is vital as it immensely impacts website performance and visibility on Google. Websites without good technical SEO are less accessible to search engines despite having valuable content available. It results in less traffic and the loss of potential sales and revenue for the business. - Creating a local SEO map pack:
Hotels require a robust online presence to improve their rankings and receive its benefits. According to research, 86% of people look for business information on Google maps, proving the importance of local SEO for hotels. And local map pack results receive 33% of the clicks as they have maximum visibility on search results.
Google My Business is highly effective for local SEO as it targets geographical locations, and as mentioned earlier, is highly important for hotel SEO. GMB is also essential for SEO as it positively impacts CTR, providing users with direct links to booking forms and other services. - Maintaining social channels:
Maintenance of social channels for business has become an essential factor to maintain its relevancy in the industry, especially in a highly competitive field like hospitality. - Facebook: It has various beneficial features like building a genuine community where previous hotel guests can interact and share their experiences with other potential customers and travellers, providing hotels with credibility. Interacting within these communities can also gain engagement from the audience.
- Instagram: Currently, being one of the most famous social media platforms, hotels can use Instagram to increase popularity and engagement, directing the audience to the website.
- LinkedIn: It is one of the most influential social networking platforms for hotels to claim authenticity and gain genuine traffic, B2B networking and drive SEO traffic.
- Solid backlinks profile :
Backlinks, in simpler terms, could be considered a vote of confidence to search engines. Reaching out to nearby businesses and making connections can get hotel-quality links from them. This can result in appearing on the result pages of users looking for hotels around the business. Protecting the links to save hotels from being penalized due to spammy links and monitoring them to ensure links are unbroken is important.
Hotels with backlinks from hotel directories, business-to-business directories and online business directories can provide them with credibility and authenticity, increase traffic and raise SEO rankings. - Creating blogs monthly
Adding interesting content in blogs, articles and newsletters on unique accommodations, destinations, or food culture on hotel websites can attract the audience enhancing website rankings. Blogs require to be published once or twice a month as it is necessary to maintain consistency in the schedule. Infrequent consistency can harm the hotel’s SEO. - Measuring performance
Utilizing different SEO strategies requires analyzing them regularly to track performance and generate consistent and stable traffic. It is an essential aspect of SEO and must always be taken into consideration. The performance of the hotel website can be measured through impressions, rank position on the result pages, clicks, CTR, page speed, organic sessions, average session duration and page duration, website authority score, backlinks, bounce rates, and conversion rates.
Tracking and measuring strategies through these factors show its potential and areas of improvement and enable achieving the SEO goals and positively impacting the hotel’s development.
