Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is crucial to your hotel’s online visibility on search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. SEO is complicated and constantly in flux, so it’s no wonder so many people don’t even know where to start.
To make things a little clearer, we’ve put together a concise and skimmed-down guide on the most important things you need to know about your hotel website’s SEO and how to get started.
We’ll be telling you about:
- The Basics – what is SEO?
- Why does your hotel need optimisation?
- Keywords
- Tools to help you get started with SEO
What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
Search Engine Optimization is the strategy, comprised of both creative and technical elements, used to increase the authority, visibility and presence of a website organically in search engine results.
Your SEO will tell search engines everything they need to know about the quality of your content, its relevance to specific topics, and how much you can be trusted. SEO is all about your organic presence. Its purpose is to driving unpaid user traffic to your website – the real golden egg for website traffic.
Winning or losing in the SEO game is mainly dependant on three things:
- The structure of your website
- Your website’s content
- Your site’s relative authority based on who is linking back to and mentioning you.
It is a combined effort between technical efforts and front-end content. What goes on behind the scenes is just as important as what’s visible to the public.
The user’s experience is key. if they don’t like what they’re getting or have trouble navigating, search engines will know, and your website will suffer for it.
Why Does My Website Need To Be Optimised?
It’s pretty simple, really. If your website isn’t search-engine optimized, it’ll be an uphill battle to appear in search results organically.
Imagine searching your hotel’s name in Google and appearing on the third or fourth page, rather than right at the top. It’s a nightmare, but all that could be avoided with a little SEO tweaking to your site. Your brand website should be the first result when people are searching for your brand name – after all, that’s a highly targeted search that means they’re interested in you, specifically, and are likely to be much closer to a booking then someone looking for ‘hotels in Greenland’.
