If you work in the hospitality industry, there’s a good chance you already know how important a strong hotel SEO strategy is. The stronger your SEO, the greater the odds potential guests will visit your site. That means they may book through your site as well. This helps you save money by avoiding the commission fees online travel agencies charge.
That doesn’t mean an SEO strategy is enough. To truly succeed, you need to take additional key steps. They include the following:
Beyond Your Hotel SEO Strategy: Attract Guests with These Tips
Explore Unique Marketing Opportunities
Strong SEO absolutely can and will attract more guests to your site. However, you also need a strong marketing plan to optimize your return-on-investment.
Your approach to marketing should be multifaceted. Yes, it’s a good idea to leverage the traditional channels, such as social media and email, but it’s also important to explore avenues you may not have considered.
For example, you may wish to coordinate with an Instagram influencer to further spread the word about your properties. According to research, 92% of consumers find influencer recommendations to be more trustworthy than typical marketing content. Or, you might consider experiential marketing, in which (as the name implies) you create an experience that impresses guests to such a degree that they post about it online, doing your marketing for you.
The goal is to experiment. You want to test different tactics and methods to determine which is most effective for your brand.
Develop a Content Plan
Content marketing should absolutely have a place in your overall strategy. You simply need to determine what types of content your audience would find valuable.
For example, perhaps you maintain a regular blog on your website. This could serve as a useful resource to potential guests planning a trip to your area. By providing readers with practical tips for making the most out of their trip, you’ll appeal to people who are clearly already thinking about traveling to your part of the world.
You might also want to incorporate video content into your plan. Videos allow you to display your properties in an emotionally engaging way. Thus, your video content may consist primarily of videos that depict all the exciting things guests can do when visiting your area, featuring people on screen clearly enjoying their trips. Of course, you would also want to highlight your own properties in such videos. You just want to make sure they deliver genuine value to your audience.
Be Ready to Adapt to Change
The teams programming search engine algorithms want to ensure users find what they’re looking for when conducting online searches. Because of this, they are constantly changing such algorithms.
That means that SEO best practices are also constantly changing. You need to be aware of this. A hotel SEO strategy that delivers results now may not be as effective in a few years. To remain competitive, you need to be willing to stay abreast of SEO developments.
You also need to think beyond SEO. By considering how unique marketing campaigns and valuable content can spread brand awareness, you’ll be far more likely to succeed.
