The SEO Basics of Hotel Marketing
Do you work for a hotel or resort and want to set the best foundation for your SEO efforts? Follow these steps!
In each hotel marketing plan there is a chapter for SEO nowadays. Which is good news. But do hotels know how to set the right foundation for SEO? Only then can amazing results be achieved.
Let’s walk through this step-by-step summary of everything you can do to make sure your SEO efforts can take off.
#1 Creative Keyword Research
Doing high-quality keyword research is the first part of successful SEO. We all know this. But how do you really spot opportunities? Here are some tips:
- Use the Google Keyword Tool.
- Do not focus a lot on competitive keywords with high search volume. Everybody is already optimizing for this.
- Search for keywords that have decent search volume (more than 500 per month) and where the Google AdWords competition bar (green) is not so full. Low competition in AdWords usually means low competition for SEO too.
- Try to find keywords such as “best time to visit X”, “things to do in X”, where “X” is a city or country.
#2 Have a SEO-Friendly Website
How can some webdesigners still build websites in frames, javascript/AJAX or flash (without HTML version added)? You might not have a clue what this is about, as it is very technical and/or geeky. I was discussing some website techniques that work against you. Your webdesigner knows about this!
Have a look at the following:
- A SEO-friendly website consists out of plain and clean HTML. Discuss it with your webdesigner.
- Build your website in Wordpress or add Wordpress for a blog. Best thing you can do!
- Add a sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools. If you use Wordpress install the plugin “XML-Sitemap” so it will be updated automatically for each new page you add in Wordpress. Otherwise, use www.xml-sitemaps.com to create static sitemaps.
#3 Use Keywords in Informative Articles & Webpages
After you have done in-depth research on your keywords, create pages around them. For example, for me an important keyword to get high rankings on is “hotel marketing” and “travel seo”. Look at this website and see where these words appear.
I know this is very basic SEO, but I also want this post to be valuable for beginners.
Add your keywords to:
- <title>
- <meta name=description>
- <h1>
- body text
If you use Wordpress this will happen automatically. Download and install Wordpress! It’s free. Also install the plugins “All in One SEO”, “SEO Smart Links” and “Link Juice Keeper”.
#4 Quality Link Building
If you write quality content and promote it you will get linked automatically. Promote your blog and informative articles by using Facebook, Twitter, guestblogging, forums, social networks (ning.com) and blog commenting (not just for link building but for talking to people who can start linking to you if you build a relationship with them).
Before you automatically get linked you need to start with some basic link building methods. Use my methods in the following posts to do quality link building:
Go! Go! Go!
Have questions? Ask for free and fast advice in the comments!
Loading ...
To start earning money with your blog, initially use Google Adsense but gradually as your traffic increases, keep adding more and more money making programs to your site.
my God, i thought you were going to chip in with some decisive insght at the end there, not leave it with
Wow, this should definitely help my travel site as well! Awesome post bud!
We are finding with local geo search that it has been very helpful to have a good yelp review. I think google looks at that favorably. We are on the first page for several keywords without a lot of seo so far other than our on site optimization
Wordpress is on my list of things to do next. the all in one seo plugin I have heard good things about. If you site isnt set up for the keywords you want to be found for in the search engines then you basically have no chance. Good tips and info keep up the good work!
I think that writing guest posts in travel related blogs is a very important strategy for those persons doing SEO for hotel marketing.
Excellent post. Your post is a big help because I love to travel and its a great guide for someone like me. Thanks for sharing.
It is pleasing to see the open discussion on the basics of seo for travel. There is not so much mystery surrounding successful SEO for this vertical, but rather the constant application of what Google and the other engines like and look for. I will be reading more here. Good Stuff.
Hey Mark,
Thanks for showing up and taking time to comment! There are actually a lot of differences between regular SEO and SEO for Travel / Tourism websites. Many different approaches to choose from, only some will work.
Would love to see you around and hearing more from you!
Liek some of the comments above, I also agree with using wordpress as the base for a decent site.
When you say the site should be SEO friendly, it may be worth telling your readers that updating from the default permalink setting (thus making the URLs have the post title in them) is one of the best things that you can do in wordpress (in my opinion).
That, coupled with use of the allinoneSEO plugin will help a great deal.
Another thing I would mention is that if you do go down the wordpress route, don’t neglect your RSS feeds! – I would do 2 things…
1) Update the ‘ping list’ in wordpress (settings > Writing) so that you notify other sites of new posts
2) I would find someone skilled at seo to do some RSS blog directory submissions.
If you do the above, and follow all your other advice, I think that you will usually be ahead of lots of the competition!
Hi Lucinda,
I really like your contribution about changing the permalink URLs in Wordpress. I didn’t mention it before indeed.
Readers, make sure you set it to at least http://www.your-website.com/%postname% in the configuration! I am using the dates in my URLs too, but this is not necessary.
Great ideas! This blog needs someone like you for in-depth additions to my randomly picked thoughts.
I agree about wordpress I think it is the best platform to use right now but do make sure you make some basic changes and download the seo plugins to make your site seo friendly.
Definitely! Don’t forget about the Wordpress plugin All In One SEO!
Thanks for sharing your tips and advices, your article was really really helpful for me
Nice tips, I learn a lot from your post. Marketers will definitely like this. Thank you for sharing.
You can also use other programs instead of google keyword tool. I forgot their names but they are more effective than google keyword tool.
There isn’t one who can give you as much important information as Google’s tool.
Would like to hear about the tools you use.
Excellent advice. Now all they need to do is syndicate the content in feeds. Getting great content flowing around the web reaches new audiences and raises search ranking.
Sure! Which services do you recommend yourself?
These are truly some excellent suggestions. Keyword optimization is always my number one priority. Although I'm not in the travel niche, your tips apply to any webmaster.
A lot of people need to take your advice and optimize for long tail keywords instead of the single keywords that get 50,000 + visits a day. Sounds like a dumb idea right people? but would you rather be num 1 for a 500 per/month term or page 3 for a 50,000 per/month term? i will take the 500 :)
great article!
Hehe tricky question! Page 3 for 50,000 searches per month can get a lot traffic too! But to me you are defnitely right about the big idea.
Great info and should help many people.
Hotels have a great potential to go for a twin travel and information website that can launch a lot of linkbaits from time to time. Address in footer is definitely important.
I will also create individual pages highlighting each tourist attraction to get long tail traffic.
For sure! Creating pages/information about all the tourist attractions is a fantastic idea.
A great tip is to include the Complete Address and phone number in every possible page (in the footer). This will help a lot for the “geo-localization” of the rankings.
Hey! Welcome to the blog.
I never read or heard about this before, but it could make sense. I always think a IP address or WhoIs info would be enough to Google.
Your idea sure is unique! Thanks for bringing it to this blog. See ya!
Nice tips, especially to not target very competitive keywords. Targeting competitive keywords can take a long time to produce results and specifically targeting lower competition keywords will get some traffic in the short term.
yes good sugestions
Nice explanation of SEO for travel websites. I especially likes your tip about optimizing for key words like what time to visit and things to do