In this digital age, not having your hotel website is one of the fastest ways to lose credibility and business.
But then, is having a well-designed website enough to attract those guests?
Not really!
It’s no hidden fact that your visitors land on the website from search engines.
This means, your hotel website should rank higher on search engines to drive leads and eventually turn them into your guests.
This is where Hotel SEO comes into the frame.
This article is going to be your one-stop guide to understanding the ins and outs of SEO services for hotels and standing out in this competitive landscape.
▶ What is SEO for Hotels?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the method used to maximize and raise the ranking of a hotel website on search engines (such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing) result pages (SERP).
It helps you to improve the bookings of your hotel, increase traffic to your website, and raise your internet visibility.
To mention, SEO is an inseparable part of hotel digital marketing and is one of the assured strategies to win over your competitors.
▶ Why is Hotel SEO Important?
Whenever your audience searches for anything, they get a list of results from the search engines.
Most of the time, their immediate action would be, to click the webpage that ranks first; because they believe it will give answers to their questions in the best way.
Very few of them will click on second, third, or fourth results. This percentage decreases to 2.2% for the last result on the first page. So you can gauge, there are barely any chances to go to the second page. (Even you won’t!)
If you are not visible to your audience on the first page, then odds are, they won’t discover you. And, you will lose potential direct bookings through your website.
▶ How to Do SEO for Hotel Websites the Right Way
There are various hotel SEO tips available; however, it’s important to know which ones are more effective. This is why, to help you learn the most imperative ones and do SEO for hotels on the right foot, I have 15 actionable steps.
➔ Define Your Target Audience
This is step zero to perform SEO of your hotel website. You need to define your target audience – who they are, what they like, and their booking patterns.
Once you know your audience, think of what they will search for whenever they are exploring accommodation options.
For example:
If you are a resort, your ideal audience might search for the terms like
- Resort in “your city”
- Best/Top resorts in “your city”
These are called search terms. Find some and define one primary term your audience commonly searches for.
By the way, these search terms are nothing but KEYWORDS. Let’s dig deeper and explore the what, how, and why of keywords.
➔ Start With Keyword Research
Keyword research cannot be disregarded if you are developing a strong hotel SEO plan. Keywords are terms and phrases people search for websites like yours.
As I said, list down all possible search terms your audience will type in the search bar. The best keywords for hotels in the Maldives can be:
- Hotels in Male, Maldives
- Cheap hotels in Male
- Best hotels in Male
- Hotels near Meeru Island
- Hotels near Maldives airport
This tells you about how you can get the common keywords. But, you will need more such terms to rank your hotel’s website higher on Google.
There are many keyword research tools available like Google Keyword Planner and Ubersuggest.
They are easy to get started with. All you have to do is search by typing a keyword (or list of keywords).
➔ Work On The Page Title (Meta Title), Meta Description, and URL
The webpage title, meta description, and URL play an important role in the SEO of your hotel website.
Because these are the only and essential 3 elements that’ll be displayed in the search engine results.
So let’s understand each one of them and write SEO-friendly content for your website.
➔ Page title
The page title (also known as meta title) is displayed on your browser tab and tells your audience what your webpage/website is about. They are also read by search engine robots and your users.
The text that is highlighted in the below image is the title of your website home page.
➔ Where to find the page title?
Step 1: Open your website. Press the F12 key or Ctrl + U to open the source code of your website, or right-click your webpage and select “view source” or “inspect element.”
Step 2: Find the tag. The content that you find there is the title of your webpage.
➔ How to write an SEO-friendly page title?
Write a title that describes your property in the best way.
- It should include your keyword. (I’d recommend starting the title tag with your focus keyword.)
- It should be easy to understand for both users and machines.
- Its length should be between 50-60 characters
So, this was all about how to optimize the meta title of your webpage. Now let us explore meta description:
➔ Meta description
A meta description is an HTML tag that summarizes a page’s content. Search engines show the meta description immediately after the meta title.
This is the second most important factor that can make or break your ranking.
➔ How to find out the current meta description of your website?
Step 1: It is similar to how we found the page title. Open your website, press the F12 key or Ctrl + U to open the source code of your website, or right-click your webpage and select “view source” or “inspect element.”
Step 2: Under the tag, you will find the tag. The meta description of your webpage is mentioned there.
▶ Webpage URL
A URL is the address of each page on your hotel’s website. You may think, how come a webpage URL is a part of your SEO strategy?
Believe me, it has a great impact on your hotel SEO. A proper URL helps you go a long way in the SEO journey.
▶ Optimize Your Website Content
Let’s start with the content of your home page. Firstly, I want you to add the targeted keyword in the h1 tag.
Then, starting the first paragraph of your page within the first hundred words, include the same targeted keyword.
On your homepage, I would also advise you to produce a minimum of 800 to 1000 words including the keywords and their synonyms.
You can create materials appealing to your readers in the shape of newsletters, blogs, and articles. You can target a significant number of keywords with the content.
For example, you can write blogs like 10 Things to do in Maldives or 10 Unique Accommodations in Maldives and add relevant keywords in them to enhance your website’s ranking.
Now, let me tell you how this will drive your traffic. Some travelers might search directly for topics like- 10 things to do in Maldives, and they come across your blog.
While reading your content, there are chances that they may end up booking with your hotel (if your content is appealing!)
Other than that, you can write about the city, the tourist spots, famous food or cuisines, and many other related topics.
Your hotel website’s SEO is incomplete without amazing content. You should put effort into producing content that your audience wants to explore before they book your hotel.
▶ Add Alt Text to Images
Image alt text is an alternate text that appears if an image cannot be displayed. Here’s why writing relevant alt-text for each image is important:
- The search engines don’t understand images. Including alt text to the photographs will provide the search engines context so they may index your images appropriately.
- For screen-reading technologies to visually challenged users describe images, the alt text aids.
- Of great relevance in hotel SEO is a tool known as an image search engine. You have to rank on that as well (as shown in the image.)
➔ How to add alt text?
Step 1: Go to your website. Press the F12 key or Ctrl + U to open the source code of your website, or right-click your webpage and select “view source” or “inspect element.”
Step 2: Find the tag
Step 3: Then ask your website designer or developer to add the alt attribute in the tag. Or if you have editing access to your website (back-end access), you can add it by yourself.
▶ Arrange Headings and Subheadings
The headings help users and search engines to read and understand the text content of your website. They define which parts of your content are important, and show how they’re interconnected.
Structured content is easy for users to read, which is better for your hotel SEO. Besides, headings give you a great chance to use your focus keyword.
➔ How to find heading tags?
H tags are used to define headings and subheadings. The different heading tags are H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, and H6.
Step 1: Press the F12 key or Ctrl + U to open the source code of your website or, right-click your webpage and select “View Source” or “Inspect Element.”
Step 2: Look for H1, H2, etc. They must be contained in brackets like this.
Step 3: Include the focus keyword in the H1 tag.
Step 4: Maintain the right hierarchy.
▶ Optimize Your Website’s Loading Speed
Loading speed is another factor that holds utmost importance in your hotel website SEO. You have to acknowledge the fact that your audience is important.
I know it’s a bit technical but this will be helpful to understand what you should ask your website designer or developer.
Here’s how you can check your website speed.
- Go to Google Page Speed Insight.
- Enter your website URL and hit analyze.
The higher your website speed, the higher your chance of getting more traffic.
This website score shows your website’s loading speed.
➔ Make sure your website is mobile-friendly.
According to studies, almost sixty percent of Google searches come from mobile devices. Having stated that, as part of SEO for hotels you should make your hotel website responsive.
➔ How can one find out whether your website is mobile-friendly?
- Go over to the “Mobile-Friendly Test.”
- Enter your website URL and hit the enter key or “Test URL” button.
A simple check to see if your website is mobile-optimized
It will show whether your page is mobile-friendly or not. If it’s not mobile-friendly, it will display the issues to fix on your website. Simply follow those or ask your website designer to fix it. Once it is fixed, test it again.
▶ Build and Submit the Sitemap
As the name suggests, a sitemap is a map for your website. It shows what pages are on your website.
A sitemap is a file where you can list the web pages of your site to tell the search engines about the organization of your site content. Search engines read this file to crawl your site. That is why it is important to create a sitemap as a part of SEO for hotels.
➔ So, how to create an XML Sitemap?
These days, modern content management systems generate XML sitemaps automatically. You simply have to enable it.
However, only creating XML is not enough.
Once your sitemap has been created, the next step is to submit it to Google Search Console.
I know, you may find this technical. But, don’t worry!
Simply ask your website designer to help you with this. Or if you have hired an agency or freelancer for SEO, they can also help you with this. They might have already done this.
▶ Structure Your Content
Schema, or structured data, is a code that helps search engines understand specific pieces of data from your website.
Schema is one of the best ways to optimize a hotel website and an important part of your SEO strategies. It gives users more relevant information in an organized manner.
There are a lot of things that you can add to your website’s schema markup.
- Street address
- Phone number
- Description
- Star rating
- The hotel’s surrounding temperature
- A photo of your hotel
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
- Typical room rates/price range
- Reception opening hours/check-in hours
- Map URL
- Features and services, such as a gym or pool
- A parent company, if you are part of a chain
- Languages that are spoken by your team
