Hotel SEO: The Ultimate Guide 2024

What is hotel SEO?

SEO, or “search engine optimization,” combines several methods designed to increase the number of visitors to your hotel website from organic results.

The strategies implemented by your establishment must increase its visibility in the search engine results page (SERP).

If your SEO is successful, users searching for certain keywords or phrases will see your hotel displayed among the first results for their query, ranked in order of relevance. They will therefore be more likely to click on your website and book a room at your establishment. It’s important to keep in mind that your optimization strategy will take time to bear fruit. SEO is a job of perseverance.

 

Why is SEO so important for hotels?

Since websites that appear on the first page of Google results receive more than 90% of traffic, it is essential to develop an effective SEO strategy. Here are the benefits of good SEO:

• Organic traffic, strictly from natural referencing, is free and permanent.
• SEO helps target users with clear intent. If they’re looking for a hotel, activities, or places to explore in the area, they clearly intend to visit your city and book.
• The role of SEO is probably more important than ever. Indeed, reports indicate that the search for hotels and resorts has continued to evolve over the past ten years.
• SEO can drive commission-free bookings when travellers visit your website from Google.
• It will take time, but if you adopt the right strategy, you will spend less on marketing to get more bookings and get ahead of your competitors.

 

SEO Basics: Keyword Research

An important first step is to develop a good keyword strategy. Indeed, these must perfectly reflect the content of your website. Knowing that customers are looking for exceptional experiences, you can enrich your website with a blog dedicated to “Hotels offering unparalleled services in .If the content doesn’t match their search, people will search again without clicking on it, and Google won’t consider it relevant.

 

There are four types of user intent:

Informational search

As its name suggests, this type of search is carried out by users looking for information. In your case, it may be a starting point to prepare for their next trip. Example: “what to do in Paris”.

 

Sales Research

Here the user seeks to know more before making a purchasing decision. For example, it can search for “top rated restaurants in Paris”.

 

Transactional Search

The user knows what they want and they are ready to buy. He will search, for example, for a “hotel room for two people in Paris”.

 

Navigational search

The user wants to visit a specific section of a website, and their Google search makes the task easier. Example: “[hotel name] cancellation policy”.

There are two main types of keywords: generic and long tail. For example, “hotel in sydney” is a broad match, and “business travel hotel in central Sydney” is a long tail, which is a more specific search.

 

Choosing your keywords for good SEO

 

To succeed in your SEO, focus your keyword strategy on the main characteristics of your establishment:

 

Target the terms travelers use to describe your hotel.

Why are they coming to your area?

What are their plans?

Why would they choose your establishment?

What peripheral services does your hotel offer? In particular, can it accommodate weddings, conferences or other types of events?

With tools designed for keyword research, you will know the number of times a keyword is searched every month. If you see “0/month” displayed, this does not mean that Internet users are not interested in this subject, but quite simply that they do not use the same words as you. So keep looking!

After making a list of relevant keywords, you will need to divide them into two categories, namely your main and secondary keywords.

 

Primary Keywords

The primary keyword is the topic or term you want a page to rank for. It’s worth noting that these are usually competitive keywords. However, if your hotel is pet-friendly, it’s important to include this type of keyword in your website content.

Examples of primary keywords:

• Hotels
• Hotel nearby
• Hotels in New York

 

Secondary or related keywords

More detailed, this search remains associated with your main keywords. Often these keywords will research further before making a decision. For example, your potential guests want to know if your hotel allows pets or if it offers Wi-Fi. It is therefore important that all these details are mentioned on your website.

Examples of secondary keywords:

• Pet friendly hotel
• Pet-friendly hotel nearby
• Pet-friendly accommodation in New York
• Your content should be useful and informative. Google favors content that meets the user’s needs. When creating yours, please take this into account to boost your visibility.

 

Quality content will be:

Relevant: Does your content match user intent? We recommend using your chosen keyword as your topic or concept and expanding from there.

Expert: Your content should be in-depth, detailed and well-researched. It must answer all the questions that the user asks during their search.

Trustworthy: It is important that Google considers your information trustworthy. Be sure to cite sources where appropriate and keep your content up to date.

Unique: Avoid copying content from other sites or from another section of your own site.

User-friendly: Your content should be easy to read and navigate. It is important that it is attractive, quick to load and digestible.

It is strongly advised to personalize your content and treat it in the context of supply and demand!

 

On-site SEO

On-site or on-page SEO consists of optimizing the elements of your website (content and HTML) in order to improve its ranking in search engines and thus attract more organic traffic.

 

Off-site SEO

Off-site SEO helps increase the authority, relevance and reliability of websites. These are factors that you cannot directly control, but which you can undoubtedly influence.

Let’s take as an example link creation, a real pillar of SEO. Google looks at the number of external links linking to each page to estimate its value and relevance. It’s a bit like a vote of confidence.

Internal links help Google understand how different pieces of content on your site are related and identify your most important pages. External links point to other websites. External links allow you to support your words, support sites that can support you, build trust with your customers by suggesting useful content, reinforce the trustworthiness of your site, and associate your site with other quality sites. Backlinks are links that point to your site from external sources.

Please note that local searches present two sets of results:

• The so-called “snack pack” results
• Normal organic results

The “snack pack” is the box that appears on the first page of results when you perform a local search on Google. It displays the three most relevant local businesses that match the search. Since traffic is distributed equally, it is important to be able to position yourself on both, hence the interest in having an effective local SEO strategy.

It may be interesting to write posts about “the best” in your area. Examples: “best restaurants in…”, “best local attractions…”, “best walks in…”

 

SEO Indicators

It is not enough to implement different SEO plans and strategies, you also need to be able to evaluate their effectiveness and measure the return on investment. It is important to monitor and measure your SEO using SEO key performance indicators.

• Organic traffic, strictly from natural referencing, is free, permanent and can generate direct reservations.
• The term “keyword” refers to the words and expressions that you choose to target and around which you structure your content based on the searches that your audience is likely to carry out.
• On-site, or on-page, SEO concerns everything that users and search engines see.
• Off-site SEO helps increase the authority, relevance and reliability of websites.
• Your content must be relevant, reliable, original and documented.
• It is essential to optimize the elements and images of your website to succeed in your SEO.
• When successful, link building generates significant traffic and promotes better positioning.
• Structured data, or “schema markup”, are lines of code that allow Google to better understand the different elements of your web pages.
• It is essential to reduce the loading time of your pages as much as possible to retain visitors on your site.
• Leverage local SEO and your Google professional profile to improve conversions from metasearch engines.
• Remember to monitor your SEO indicators and equip yourself with effective tools or software.

 

Conclusion

In conclusion, mastering SEO for your hotel in 2023-2024 involves implementing a combination of targeted keyword strategies, high-quality content creation, local SEO optimization, and regular performance monitoring. By staying updated with the latest trends and search engine algorithms, you can significantly improve your hotel’s online visibility and attract more potential guests. Partnering with a specialized hotel SEO agency can provide the expertise and tailored strategies needed to stay ahead in the competitive hospitality industry, ensuring your hotel ranks higher in search results and drives more bookings.