hotel and travel hotel SEO

SEO for an Awakening Travel Market

As the recovery begins in earnest in the US and Canada, hot and travel business owners have a lot of decisions to make on how to approach the reviving travel and accommodation market. It’s easy to gloss over strong preparation and fail to build the necessary strengths to establish presence online.

Whatever new customer and revenue goals you have, preparation and action are important.  And Google will be a pivotal channel in your mix. For example, Google’s reach, power to influence, and relevance to travel consumer’s pressing needs right now is significant. Google is significant for most companies, especially for hotels as we’ll explore below. Hotel SEO is a thing and advanced SEO is a big part of it.

Free Visibility is a Big Marketing and Sales Asset

Even your most loyal customers use Google and that exposure to competitor’s marketing can erode their loyalty to you. And free listings and organic visibility in search results aids your paid ad campaigns. It’s much more powerful to get your complete mix working. But SEO is the “special child” and you should definitely bring this one along well. The payoff is immense.

Not mastering SEO for your business isn’t wise. It’s an unparalleled source of leads and it can provide support to your entire marketing mix. Let’s not lose sight of this last point. Significant, broad exposure on different relevant topics can make your business appear more relevant and more top of mind. Yes, you still have to capitalize on all of that value, but never fear, persist and it will happen. You’ll solve the missing pieces of the puzzle.

Results on Google don’t happen instantly, so it’s wise to begin the search engine optimization strategy now.

Keyword volume trends for hotel, travel, flights.
Screenshot courtesy of Google. Keyword volume trends for hotel, travel, flights.

Hotel SEO

As an example, the travel and hotel industry is about to enter a fast growth period where bookings of every kind from hotel rooms, to flights to tours will happen. Travelers hunt for flights and hotel rooms first, but they move on to tourist spots, car rentals, restaurants, beaches, and more before they embark. They do all this on Google.

My hotel client was enjoying 1.2 million visits per year many years ago. While at first I doubted I could lift that volume higher, I actually helped them reach 2.5 million visits per year. The hotel keyword space is incredibly competitive. Via simple and advanced SEO techniques, we achieved significant growth. It was a major win that made them the most visible hotel website online.

At the time, they were a Canadian hotel chain, and served an upscale business traveler. Yet they became one of the top sites in the US market too. It’s an achievement that didn’t go unnoticed by the major brands you know well. In fact, Marriott was so impressed, it bought their company and it’s now part of Marriott’s many hotel brands.

SEO overview for Marriott.com
Screenshot courtesy of Spyfu.com. SEO overview for Marriott.com

As you can see from the above image, Marriott has millions of monthly visitors and that has millions in click value. You can understand why Google would rather push that traffic through Google Ads. Big hotel room seeking visitors are worth a lot of money. Google themselves tried to muscle in on the hotel trade but have since withdrawn given the monopoly legal issues. They still operate the Google.com/travel/ directory which may offer significant benefit to your travel firm.

Last year, Google began offering free listings for hotels and other travel businesses.

An optimized Google shopping feed can help you get listed. The rest will come from good hotel seo applied on your website and strong outreach and social media engagement.

Screenshot courtesy of Google

For Hotels, the opportunity is amazing. High Google rankings convert better, the prospect spends more, and can turn into a long term customer. And long term value is something SEO companies never get credit for. Yet search engine exposure helps to create a wider pool of prospects and helps generate repeat sales.

Customers are often creatures of habit. They will search on Google, book the same hotels, and use their reward cards. That whole process is captured when you rank high on Google. It is always wise to have an SEO consultant or SEO company working for you. For a hotel chain, the revenue gains are exceptional.

Hyatt and Marriott

The value of SEO and SEO company services isn’t lost on Marriott or Hilton. Marriott didn’t just buy a hotel. They bought the SEO success of that hotel brand. If not for the success of the advanced SEO strategy, they wouldn’t have even known the Canadian upstart existed. It wasn’t on their radar. That SEO success has been brought into their company and had an impact on their marketing department.

Top hotel competition on Google.
Top hotel competition on Google. Hotel SEO. Screenshot courtesy of Spyfu.com

Simple Keys to Great Hotel SEO

Advanced SEO generates advanced results. The basics are noted, but the real success is in sophisticated strategy to help your hotel compare favorably to your powerful competitors.

  • promoting strongly to travel bloggers with a subtle value offer
  • accept content/reviews and a special club for nomad travelers/bloggers
  • completing an optimized Google shopping feed
  • creating compelling, impactful, and engaging content for visitors (video, photos, travel stories)
  • using advanced SEO strategy to focus your ranking power
  • conducting excellent keyword and topic research
  • developing connections to travel bloggers and social media influencers
  • applying optimization to your travel sites content
  • engaging in social media to promote sharing and linking

How to Launch Your Hotel SEO Success?

The most important step is to hire a hotel SEO company or expert with experience and talent. You provide the resources and I provide the skill and strategy.

Strategy is vital. It’s a huge and fast growing travel market and travel SEO companies will be doing a brisk business this year. This isn’t the time to languish in anonymity.

It’s recommended to share your market research with your SEO consultant and allow them to conduct a digital marketing audit after briefing with your team.  At this point the SEO consultant isn’t an expert on your brand or challenge, but soon still be. The more thorough understanding of your competitive positioning and the better the SEO budget you have, the better the end result.

The SEO strategy when devised will help inform your marketing strategy on Google and guide your content writer’s topic development.  Any analytics you have on your previous content success is welcome.  A good strategy evolves from the data you collect. It’s important for hotel companies to have a good analytics solution. Even an AI analytics solution can deliver excellent insights and aid in your content strategy.

But for the immediate time period, a talented SEO consultant or capable SEO company is your best bet. You can evolve and adjust as you please. The goal is understood: it’s business success.

Advanced SEO is a Serious Talent

Read up on advanced SEO and Advanced SEO strategy to understand the value and the level of work an SEO company should be generating. The travel and hotel business is competitive, and whoever has mastered strategy is positioned for the most significant successes.

Check out AI Marketer’s advanced SEO Services and see the essentials of a great SEO Company. From Google search results to customer loyalty, you’re getting a solution that feeds your customer acquisition process.

SEO Services | SEO Company | How to Gain High Rankings | Top Priority is SEO | Digital Marketing Audit | Advanced SEO Strategy | Select SEO Company | SEO Agency San Diego | Advanced SEO Topics | Advanced SEO Consultant | Linkedin SEO

Similar Posts