Hotel SEO Best Practices in 2022 and beyond

In recent years, competition in the tourism industry has been fierce, with hotels and hotel chains competing with online travel agencies (OTA) and booking sites in increasingly rich search results.

Now, the industry has also been severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the heavy impact is still being felt.

As the epidemic subsided in some states and countries, people began to travel again, showing signs of life.

However, user behavior has still undergone tremendous changes. Therefore, if hotel brands want to attract tourists now and in the near future, they must change their SEO strategies to promote increased bookings, traffic, and revenue.

The following is a list of strategies, tactics and tools to help achieve this goal SEO best practices The hotel industry in 2022 and beyond.

Use data to determine the priority of the destination

To prioritize locations and make sure your hotel is ranked high, just look at Destination insight With Google.

In the travel industry, where people go is particularly important. Let the data tell you this so you can compare trends and focus on ensuring that you have a high reputation for these destinations.

For example, from 09/03 to 11/19, the preferred destination in the United States is Las Vegas.

If I work with a hotel like Bellagio, I will make sure that I rank on the first page of Las Vegas hotels, brands, brands + geographic keywords, restaurants, COVID prevention measures, and other relevant keywords.

Another great tool to provide insights into your SEO strategy is Google Hotel Insights. It provides you with data on who is looking to stay in your area, as well as the tools and techniques to differentiate your business from the competition.

Looking at the data for the New York region below, consumers who want to book travel have increased by 50% to 75% year-on-year (YOY).

Author screenshot, November 2021

If you are a travel brand in the area, this is a good insight that can help you focus on the destination page.View existing content and your Key words for hitting distance Have the opportunity to build or Reuse content Activities nearby and activities in the city.

Another great feature of this tool is that you can see whether users are searching for this information from the U.S. or overseas. This can help you plan content strategies and PPC activities to target international travelers and attract more potential guests.

Author screenshot, November 2021

Meet the needs of travelers with brand concierge strategy

You should also always have content (eat).

The path of booking a hotel room is not a linear process. Before travelers book a trip and come to a hotel website, there are many considerations that come into play:

• Is the destination attractive to me?
• What can I do?
• What’s nearby?
• How is the restaurant?
• Do they provide vegetarian food?

Of course, these are just examples. There may be thousands of preference combinations.

Travelers sometimes conduct research months in advance. Ninety-one percent Of travelers use search engines when looking for places to stay, and most (81%) prefer to use Google as their source of travel inspiration.

This is why hotels need an SEO brand concierge strategy to connect with travelers throughout the user journey.

This includes overall content strategies and in-depth understanding of guest profiles, which should include generational segments such as millennials and baby boomers, and interest-based segments such as adventurers and gourmets.

Each of these market segments requires content that meets the following conditions Talk to individual travelers And this content must be placed above and inside the specific hotel destination.

For example, in order for a hotel brand website to rank high in “food destinations” or “dining experiences around the world,” it needs content that can plan the types of experiences that reflect the purpose of concierge services.

These experiences are not only related to what the hotel brand provides. Think about it: If the concierge only recommends lobby restaurants, how would you rate your experience?

The brand concierge strategy needs to rethink the hotel brand website and its role in connecting with travelers through role identification, journey maps and content.

This type of strategy requires a Understanding of search, The connection between the topics, and the intent phase of the query carried out throughout the traveler’s journey.

Optimize your GMB and local lists

go through Optimize your Google business profile, Your hotel list can be displayed in a map package in addition to geographic modification keywords in the regular organic list on the page.

This can drive increased revenue, bookings and organic traffic.

A fully optimized listing helps to prioritize your business to ensure that your hotel listings appear at the top of local searches and provide a consistent customer experience to drive reservations and reservations.

Here are my important tips for doing this:

• Optimize your list Cross-key search engine directory.create Google posts And optimize the photos so that travelers can see the hotel.
• Manage and respond to comments. Local comment It is considered to be the most useful content used by potential guests when making a decision. Respond to comments to show that you value your customers and their feedback on your business. This is crucial because Google rewards companies that rank higher for reviews.
• Reply to Q&A And create a FAQ section so that your hotel brand can control the conversation about your business.
• Make sure your Google Maps pin Be in the right location so that users can find your hotel.
• Display beautiful photos and videos Convenient facilities such as hotels, guest rooms and restaurants.
• Use attribute Differentiate your location and provide more detailed information about health and safety precautions, Wi-Fi, accessibility, etc. related to travelers.
• Always keep hotels, restaurants, spas and other business hours up to date So users know when they open and close.

Work with your social media team

Share content about the most popular destinations, travel tips, hotel products, activities, and nearby attractions.

This helps to maximize awareness, build more brand exposure and generate more links and buzz about your hotel, which will have a positive impact on your visibility, traffic, and revenue.

Look Repurposing Travel Branded Content: The Complete Guide Learn more tips and tricks to make the most of cross-platform content.

Optimize core Web Vitals

In highly competitive industries such as travel and tourism, optimizing your website is very important Core network vital signs.

These three combined indicators are used to measure a series of key performance indicators of the website, and these indicators become ranking signals in May 2021. They include:

1. How long does it take to load the main part of the webpage (LCP).
2. How long does it take for a web page to become interactive (FID).
3. The amount of movement (CLS) of the page layout at load time.

In order to improve CWV, the hotel website should have clean code, Use CDN For heavy images, externalizing JS and CSS, and mobile-friendly and safe, etc.

There is no penalty for not optimizing for CWV, but it may be a factor that provides you with impetus and allows you to surpass strong competitors.

Take advantage of frequently asked questions and prepare for voice

Your potential guests ask questions, and your hotel brand should have answers. Place FAQs on your website to help current and future guests find the information they need, which also helps minimize phone calls to the hotel.

The common problem should be Mark up with structured data So they can appear in rich results and maximize the potential of natural search.

As consumers use voice search, your content must also be optimized for voice search:

Hey Google, does the Boston Hilton have a swimming pool?

If your brand is responding to such a voice search query, it can help influence whether users decide to book at your hotel.

Monitor the visibility and performance of competitors

The way consumers search for hotels has changed. This is why always monitor the ranking of competitors and check:

• What are they building.
• How much market share do they have.
• What new SEO strategy are they trying.
• How they get the link.
• And their page loading speed, etc.

From there, find out which tactics and strategies you can gather that might be worth testing.

Sometimes brands don’t like adding content to their website because they don’t want to interfere with the user experience. But it is very likely that your competitors are adding content.

And, if you find that one of your biggest competitors has added content to a key target page, and that content has FAQs and is marked with structured data, and they are now ranking on the first page of the key target term, they May increase bookings, increase brand awareness, etc.

This is why it is worth building and promoting content to keep up with or even surpass competitors.

wrap up

The pandemic has affected all aspects of life, including travel and tourism. Hopefully, the situation will improve soon and travel will return to pre-pandemic levels.

Currently, hotel brands need to experiment flexibly New content ideas And SEO strategies, as well as monitoring competitors and understanding their customers.

By understanding who travelers are, what they want, and how to get them to use content that meets their information needs, travel brands can drive increased bookings, traffic, and revenue.

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Featured image: Shutterstock/LanKogal