3 Hotel SEO Tips from the Trenches

3 Hotel SEO Tips from the Trenches:

Promoting a hotel is not an easy task and I have learnt it the hard way. Coming from a small business environment, where I specialized in helping small, local businesses to establish their online presence, 6 months ago I started a new job as an SEO specialist for a hotel chain in the UK. In this post I want to offer you a few tips that I picked up over my time here so far about promoting and copywriting for an accommodation industry.

1. Focus on plural keywords.

It may be quite tempting to use the singular version of the keyword, not to mention that often it even feels more natural. However when it comes to booking accommodation, people almost always use the plural one. I can’t explain why it is like that but no one really searches for hotel in London, it almost always is hotels in London. By using the plural version of the keyword you are ensuring that you target the right audience.

2. Skip any warm ups.

Many of us SEO tend to use at least two paragraphs of the copy to introduce the meat in the text. However, when you are writing a copy that is supposed to convince someone to book a hotel, skip all that crap. Hit them with the main message from the start.

Unlike many other industries, in a hotel industry most people go through a lengthy research stage before they choose their holiday accommodation. Before they buy, they will check reviews on MK or other reviews site, they will check all the options they have and will buy only if they are 100% sure that your place is the right one for them. Therefore you have to give them what they are looking for early in the copy, otherwise they might trail off somewhere else to continue their research.

3. Top keywords do not always sell.

One of the most tempting things when promoting a hotel is to go after only the top keywords in the industry, at least that’s what I did. And to a point, that’s fine. However, many of the top keywords in this industry don’t sell at all. They assist during the research stage, but the sale happens somewhere else, often on the branded keyword level. So, mix your main keywords with smaller, low traffic ones and look after your whole branded presence and you should be fine. Go after only the top keywords and you might loose on a lot of sales.

Hotel industry is quite specific, it’s a fact. At least so it seemed for me, but nonetheless, it is an industry just like any other. There are certain things that are specific to it, and once you get to know them, you are fine.