When it comes to the hospitality industry, blogging for hotels is one of the best ways to leverage content marketing.
Blogging is a simple way to connect with potential customers while increasing your SEO reach and positioning your hotel as an expert in your niche. Developing a content calendar, staying consistent, and providing content that matters, could make all the difference in your content marketing plans.
If you’ve never done it before, you might be wondering how to get started. We’ve come up with a few essential steps to follow.
Develop a customer persona
There’s no point in writing if you don’t know who you’re writing for. The first place to start is by developing your customer persona. How do you do this?
You can start by using the information you already have. Over the years, you’ve collected an influx of data that you can now turn into a persona. Take all that data and use it to build a model of what that number one customer looks like. Include attributes like:
- Age
- Location
- Gender
- Job
- Income
- Relationship Status
- Kids or no kids?
- Values
- Shopping Behaviors
- Goals
This gives you insight into the person you’re writing for so you can better develop content for them.
Develop a content calendar
Now that you know who your customer is, you can start to brainstorm content. Your content should include events, exhibits, tourist attractions, and activities around your hotel. Think about what that person might most want to hear about, and include it in the calendar.
The point of this content is twofold. One, to build a relationship with your customer and let them known you’re working to make their vacation amazing. Two, to let Google know that you’re an expert about your area and your industry so you rank higher in search results.
For instance, if you’re a boutique hotel in Savannah, Georgia, it would be ideal if you had content that ranked you for “live music in Savannah.”
Once you have an idea of the content, schedule it out for the next few months, and make sure you stick to the schedule.
Decide who’s writing the posts
Your posts can, and should, be written by a variety of different people associated with your hotel. Whether it’s your marketing manager, a young concierge that knows about all the hot spots, or past guests/influencers that have a great experience to share.
Whoever writes it, make sure your voice is positive, exciting, and your material is consistently high quality.
Provide engagement opportunities
It’s especially crucial for hotels to provide exceptional visuals in the form of high-quality photos that will impress their readers.
Equally so, linking to other blog posts on your site, and even sharing articles from other experts is a must. This lets Google see when people are engaging with your content, and you rank higher.
Since 2011, Google has ranked content based on something called the “freshness algorithm.” They’re looking for new content that provides recent information. That’s why consistency is so vital to your blogging strategy. But equally important to this algorithm is producing valuable information that people engage with.
If you’re walking into the world of hotel blogging for the first time, fret not. Stay consistent, write well, and have fun with it!
