The global hotel business is experiencing a rare boom in sales due to the sudden rise in the number of travelers now. Hence, the hotel business has an open yet competitive market.
Take a look at the below graph showing how rapidly world tourism is growing.
Hotel owners are experimenting with different SEO techniques to maximize their online visibility and sales. But they tend to neglect the critical aspects of running a successful SEO campaign. These mistakes might seem subtle, but they come with a hefty price for any hotel business.
In this article, we will be discussing common SEO mistakes that hotel owners are making. We will also discuss tips and tools to rectify those mistakes and run a successful SEO campaign.
Read: Local SEO Tips For Hotels
Many hotel owners make the simple but costly error of creating a GMB profile for their company and then leaving it dormant. In more ways than one, a dormant GMB profile of a hotel can affect your online reputation and rankings. Let's have a look at how this is done.
What are the solutions?
Read: Step-by-step Setup Guide for Google My Business Set up
Inconsistent business information might not seem like a blunder, but it is one. When you list your hotel on public directories, your brand is exposed to your target audience in the market.
If your audience notices inconsistent or irrelevant information on those listings, they will question your hotel's credibility.
Take a look at Brightlocal’s survey on users' feelings about it.
So how can we maintain consistency with local listings?
Hotels with consistent business information on their directory listings perform better in the market.
Consistent business information across online platforms drives organic traffic to your business website and popularizes your hotel. Your hotel will be ranked higher on the SERPs due to consistent business information on your local listings.
Google's search engine algorithm frequently flags unclaimed business profiles as spam. Google would speed up the indexing process if you claimed your hotel listing.
If your hotel is well-categorized and claimed, the search engine algorithm will prioritize it to rank higher on the SERPs.
So, what does it mean if you don't claim your hotel’s local listings?
So, how do you claim your hotel listing(s)?
Hotel owners are often seen making the mistake of providing inconsistent contact information about their hotel business. Inconsistent and missing NAP details on your local listings can hamper your market visibility and rankings big time.
Name, Address, and Phone Number (NAP) is an acronym for Name, Address, and Phone Number. Your hotel listing’s NAP is the information that allows others to contact you and do business with you. Inconsistent NAP information on your hotel listings can deceive Google and your visitors.
You can use free tools like Brightlocal or Mozlocal to find inconsistent NAP details. Just enter accurate NAP, and it’ll fetch you incorrect listings.
Let's look at how conflicting NAP information affects your hotel business.
As a result, it's critical to keep up-to-date local listings of your hotel with accurate NAP information.
Provide your business location details to your hotel’s website visitors if you want them to do business with you.
Missing or erroneous location information can cost your hotel a lot in sales and client engagement. Before indexing a business for ranking, Google's search engine algorithm frequently evaluates its location across several platforms.
This is why businesses should ensure that while listing the business, they need to pinpoint their location accurately, as shown in the example below. It’s because search engines use local searches, and audiences use them to find the directions.
So, what happens if the location information in your hotel listings is inaccurate or missing?
How can you get more people to come to your physical location and visit your business website?
Read: What are the Benefits of a Google My Business Listing?
Take a look at this example of how a hotel used title and meta description for their site. You can check other competitors using the free Mozbar extension.
The title is everything for a business and especially for hotels. The title symbolizes what your brand stands from. A relevant and appealing title should drive more crowd and sales to your hotel than an irrelevant one.
Missing titles and meta-description lowers your credibility in the market.
When a user searches for a hotel in your locality, your hotel's title and meta-descriptions come first on the SERPs.
A meta-description is that short and crisp summary of your business under the title tag of your business listings on SERPs. Missing meta-descriptions hurt your visitors' purchase intents.
Let's look at some of the tips to improve the meta-description and title tags of your hotel's local listings.
On-site blogging has been neglected by many amateur digital marketers and hotel owners. Blogging is not a thing of the past.
Neglecting to blog is neglecting user engagement on-site and website uptime. Neglecting on-site blogging can cost your hotel business big time.
Producing quality content on-site has significant benefits. Quality blog content can improve your on-site user engagement. It will also land your hotel website higher on the SERPs.
Relevant and engaging content on-site authenticates your position as a leading hotel in the market. Although Mariott is a well-known brand, they still produce content to keep their game on top. Take a look at this screenshot.
Let’s look at some of the tools to up the on-site blogging game for your hotel website.
Irrelevant keyword strategy is one of the blunders that hotel owners are making. If you are in the hotel business, then a solid keywords strategy could accelerate your growth as a brand in the market.
Your market rankings and online visibility could hit the lowest without any proper keywords strategy for your hotel business website.
Let’s understand keywords and strategize them better for your hotel business.
Keywords are divided into two categories: those with a purchase purpose and those with a research goal. Buying intent keywords are straightforward and reveal the user's desire to check out your hotel.
For example, take a look at the below keywords in the screenshot:
The research purpose keywords are ambiguous, implying that the user is only interested in hotels and has not yet decided whether or not to stay in them.
Read: Common Keyword Research Mistakes People Often Do In SEO
Online mentions can skyrocket your hotel's ranking on the SERPs.
External links and citations from hotel websites with high domain authority help your hotel's brand reputation. You can acquire high-quality backlinks from guest blogging on one of the leading hotel chain's websites.
People, for example, browse through a plethora of information regarding traveling and vacations every second.
To expand your hotel business's exposure, guest blog on one of the most popular travel blogs or websites. You must have inbound links from reliable and high-traffic websites for better market rankings.
You can find these blogs by using certain keywords such as “hotel + submit guest posts”, “hotel + write for us”, “travel + contribute blogs”, etc. Take a look at the below screenshot showing it.
Let’s look at some of the tools to manage the backlinks on your hotel website.
Read: Simple Tips To Build Local Citations
Business owners are missing out on some serious boost in conversion rate on-site by neglecting the power of internal linking. Hotel websites with few or no internal links tend to convert fewer customers than websites with more internal links.
Login to Google search console. You can check for the links option on the left that shows whether or not your pages have a good number of internal links.
Take a look t this screenshot showing number of internal links the pages have:
Internal linking enhances the benefits that external links provide to the overall growth of your hotel's website! Someone who comes across your hotel listing might be interested in learning more about it.
Internal linking will then assist users in obtaining the information they require on your hotel website. It will increase the uptime of your website. More engagement implies more time spent on your website.
Let’s look at some of the tools to manage all the internal linking on your hotel website.
The importance of a category in Google's ranking of a business cannot be overstated. If you are in the hotel business, then rankings are all that matters.
When Google's search engine algorithm scans a hotel listing, it looks for similar categories. If your hotel is uncategorized or is categorized in the wrong categories, Google will mark it under an ambiguous category.
So, what happens if your hotel listing is uncategorized or is included in many categories?
What are the solutions?
For example, look at the above screenshot. If you own a hotel, place your business listing under a hotel category rather than a hospital, homestay, hostel, etc.
Unattended reviews on your hotel’s local listing should be a major source of concern for hotel owners. Hotel owners and inexperienced digital marketers sometimes overlook solo reviews, yet they must attend.
Take a look at this screenshot.
It creates a negative impression among the potential customers. Attend to all the queries and resolve them. It will improve your hotel’s brand reputation in the market.
So, how do unattended reviews affect your hotel’s local listing?
What are the solutions to these problems?
Hotel business owners are still confused about maintaining multiple domains for their hotel website. Acquiring additional domains is optional and essential for hotels trying to improve their online visibility.
Hotel owners should have a clear strategy before owning multiple domains for their hotel website. If they want to set up an extra website for a specific market segment, then having multiple domains can help.
For example, a hotel can set up a dedicated website for their in-house restaurants or spa.
Take a look at this screenshot. Marriot is a world-known brand, hence apart from .com, they have purchased almost every possible domain to rank in all locations.
Benefits of having multiple domains?
Cons of having additional domains?
Social media platforms and YouTube are the most effective yet undervalued SEO tactics in the market. Social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook are the perfect places to expand your hotel's online reach.
Social media platforms have millions of active and interested users to promote your hotel’s brand.
Hotel business owners usually neglect YouTube due to their lack of knowledge on its usage. Currently, YouTube is driving millions of users every day. Your hotel will have the necessary audience attention and market presence if it has a page with relevant videos on YouTube.
Also, with an increased number of travelers getting numerous attention through vlogging, help these hotels awareness through youtube. For example, take a look at this example:
Let's discuss some popular tools to up your social media game for your hotel business.
Brice has been handling marketing projects for more than 12 years and he is providing consulting services on SEO, Social Media and PPC. He has a huge expertise in working at large corporations including Accenture Interactive & PwC Digital Services.
Brice has been handling marketing projects for more than 12 years and he is providing consulting services on SEO, Social Media and PPC. He has a huge expertise in working at large corporations including Accenture Interactive & PwC Digital Services.
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