Many hotel marketing teams are starting to recognise the importance of SEO to the ongoing success of their website campaigns. Are you making these common SEO mistakes?
With research showing that 80% of people using Search Engines to find and book hotels, SEO is an important part of hotel marketing but not all marketing specialists understand the relevance of SEO to their hotel Internet marketing campaigns. Read this article to find your SEO sea legs, avoid the ten most common SEO mistakes and stop your hotel website getting lost in a sea of competitors.
Optimising your website after it has been designed: Search Engine Optimisation should not be an afterthought but a crucial part of the design process. As well as helping to create a hotel website with a Search Engine-friendly infrastructure, a SEO company can also advise you on a Search Engine-friendly CMS (content-management system).
Content which is not updated regularly: A major mistake that hotel marketing teams make is not adding fresh content or updating pages Web pages regularly. Creating keyword-rich content that is original, engaging and compelling is a very important part of Search Engine Optimisation.
Focusing on competitive keywords: The hotel industry is a very competitive industry so ranking on page one for a keyword like ‘Sydney hotels’ may be a big ask for a new hotel website. It may be better to base an SEO campaign around both competitive short tail keywords and longer tail keywords like ‘luxury hotel sydney cbd’.
All traffic driven to the homepage: While it is important to optimise your home page with keywords most relevant to your industry, some hotel websites make the mistake of stuffing it with keywords. Use the power of your home page and create internal links to landing pages targeting relevant keywords for your hotel.
No link building strategy in place: Link building is one of the most important factors in boosting your Search Engine ranking. By creating great content that other websites want to link to and focusing on link building strategies; this will increase your Search Engine visibility.
Focusing on Flash and rich media: Although, Search Engines have become better at indexing Flash and rich media, most SEO companies would be reluctant to recommend creating a hotel website that consisted entirely of one Flash file. There’s no point in looking good, if no one can find you.
No SEO maintenance: Some hotels may engage the services of an SEO company but do not understand that SEO requires ongoing maintenance:
- monitoring keywords and competitive analysis
- link building strategies
- creating and updating hotel pages
- analysing analytics and changing your hotel marketing accordingly
Part of the role of a professional SEO company is to make sure they share their SEO knowledge with you so you can confidently take over the ongoing SEO of your website once the SEO foundations have been laid.
Forgetting about conversion: The end goal of SEO and Internet hotel marketing are conversions. As well as driving quality traffic to your website, you must also focus on creating interesting content on your website which will encourage customers to enquire about the hotel or make a direct booking.
Unrealistic expectations: Hotel clients, who are unfamiliar with SEO, may have unrealistic expectations and not realise that a new website may take several months to rank on Search Engines. It is up to the SEO company or SEO expert to hose down those expectations at the start of the process.
Ignoring SEO altogether: Some hotels dismiss Search Engine Optimisation as unimportant. While content is certainly important and the design of the website are important factors, hotel customers need to be able to find the website in searches. Research shows that most Web surfers do not look beyond the first pages of a Web search.
Still confused about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and how it relates to hotel marketing? At Hotel Internet Marketing, our SEO experts act as a consultant to your business and are encouraged to share their knowledge and experience with you. We won’t be able to show you how to walk on water but contact us to see how we can assist with your hotel marketing activities and help you to avoid these common SEO mistakes.
