SEO opportunity for hospitality industry according to latest figures
One of the UK’s top digital marketing agencies estimate hotels are missing out on hundreds of bookings due to poor Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).
According to the latest figures, just 30 per cent of hotel website revenue come as a direct result of SEO.
David O’Keefe, account director at digital marketing agency Fat Media said: “Despite SEO being around for more than 20 years, it is still ignored and misunderstood, which means hotels are losing out on thousands of pounds through missed bookings.
“The same mistakes are regularly made and this impacts both on the bottom line and visitors to the sites.”
According to David there are simple ways to improve the SEO. He said: “Smart changes can make huge differences, from improving keywords and content on the site, to even looking at the imagery you use. Google Analytics is user friendly and can really help support you in improving the site and ensuring it starts appearing higher up in search results.”
According to the latest intelligence from Google, 62 per cent of customers use a search engine to find hotels, with 73 per cent of those searchers looking for a business to visit that day, or in the next few weeks.
With those statistics in mind, David believes it’s time to make those SEO changes now, so businesses can start to benefit.
He said: “There are essentially three types of SEO, ‘Technical’, ‘Off Page’ and ‘On Page’. Technical is where you need to ensure your website is built well, that’s where you need good developers and designers involved, Off Page is where you get inbound links from other sites and On Page is the content on your own site. The easiest one to tackle and one that can have real impact is your On Page SEO.”
David advises that content is key, using the correct wording, tone of voice and descriptions on your site will dramatically boost your rankings.
David’s top tips are:
- Make sure you have clear landing pages
- Provide strong content and imagery, along with individual and clear FAQ’s
- Use Google’s Keyword Planner to understand what people are searching for and adjust your content to match
- Create unique metadata throughout your top level landing pages. This is the page title and description that searchers see on Google listings
- Know your competition, where they rank in Google and look at what they are doing, learn from them
- Exploit the tools that Google offers. The Google Search Console is great for running diagnostics on your site, to see what needs improving and can be linked to your website analytics to create an in-depth analysis
- Look at easy Off Page SEO, e.g. listing your site on Google business listings, working with local businesses to combine offers and “back link” to each other’s sites etc.
David added: “Take some time to understand some simple SEO tactics, and it will pay dividends in the long run, with the chance to really boost bookings and have a positive impact on your bottom line.”
