This piece on hotel website SEO tips for 2019 is not the first time we’ve written on the topic of SEO for hotels. Considering the growing number of travelers searching for hotels online and the rapid evolution of search engine functionalities, it won’t be the last time, either.
Because, as we revealed in “The 10 Distribution Solutions Every Hotel Will Need to Compete in 2018,” SEO is crucial to the success of any hotel marketing strategy. As such, it should be updated as often as needed to keep up with shifting traveler search behaviors and rising trends in the SEO environment.
(Read “SEO 101: A Guide to Best Practices for Hotel Websites” to review the basics of and essential tips for a solid hotel SEO strategy.)
Our researchers have identified the top three major trends in SEO this year. Here’s what they are, what they mean to hotels, and how hotel websites can be updated to capitalize on them.
Hotel website SEO tip #1 Consider mobile a top priority
The SEO trend: mobile-first indexing
What it is: Indexing is how search engines such as Google gather and store websites so that they may appear in relevant search results. Until now, the desktop version of a website has been prioritized for indexing. But in 2018, it’s the mobile version of websites that will be indexed first as the most important version. Mobile-first indexing is one of the biggest SEO evolutions on the horizon, which is why we highlighted it in our article “The Top Hotel Trends to Watch in 2018.”
What it means for hotels: If a hotel website is already responsive and optimized for both desktop and mobile, the impact of mobile-first indexing will be minimal. For hotel websites with a separate mobile site, ensuring that the mobile version is ready for this trend will be a high priority this year, as more travelers than ever search for and book hotels on mobile devices.
How hotels can adapt to the trend: Responsive design is a hotel’s best mobile-first indexing friend. Apart from that, providing a mobile-friendly hotel website is a good strategy for adapting to this trend. A fast page speed and load time are crucial, as are high-quality content and proper metadata to help search engines read (crawl) the information on the page. Equally if not more important is offering a seamless mobile booking experience to travelers.
Hoteliers can check if their hotel websites are mobile-first indexing ready on Google’s “Mobile-Friendly Test.”
