Search Engine Optimization for Hotels: How New Guests Automatically Find Their Way to Your Accommodation

1. What is SEO for hotels?
2. Why is SEO for hotels important?
3. What benefits does search engine optimization offer for hotels?
4. How high is the effort with search engine optimization for hotels?
5. Should you better outsource SEO for hotels to an agency or do it yourself?
6. What is local SEO for hotels?
7. What do you need to consider with SEO for hotels and how do you implement it?
8. Which (free) tools are suitable for hotel SEO?

Almost 70% of people aged 16 to 29 book their holidays online. With the right SEO measures, you can improve your online presence, ensuring online travel bookers spend their next dream holiday at your hotel.

According to a bitkom study online booking is especially popular among young people, rather than going to a travel agency. Slightly more than half of respondents aged 30 to 59 also prefer to book over the Internet. With search engine optimization for hotels (SEO), you actively ensure that search engines display your hotel at the top of the search results. Why this is so important in this competitive industry and how you create search engine optimized websites for your hotel, you will learn in this article.

What is SEO for hotels?

With search engine advertising (SEM) you increase the chance of being found on the Internet by new potential guests. You can run paid advertising (SEA), such as Google Hotel Ads, or become visible through search engine optimization (SEO) in the organic search results.

Your sales funnel describes the path your website visitors take from the accommodation search to the booking (Customer Journey). All contact points (Touch-Points) between you and your potential new guests are taken into account. Through SEO measures exactly the people end up in your sales funnel, for whom you have developed your sales and marketing strategy. This increases your conversations rate.

Why is SEO for hotels important?

Many travel enthusiasts search for hotels via Google. They type in a term like "Hotel Munich". The search engine crawls the indexed entries and suggests suitable search results from its perspective. Most internet users do not scroll to the second or even third page. That's why an important SEO goal is to land on page 1.

Depending on the target group, it is helpful or even essential to be present online. Those who do not take the opportunity to be displayed high up in the SERPs with search engine optimization miss out on many hotel guests.

What benefits does search engine optimization offer for hotels?

SEO for hotels generates reach and enables you to be found by hotel seekers. This in turn brings more guests to your hotels. Benefits of search engine optimization for hotels are in detail:

• More reach on the Internet
• Increase in visibility of your hotels in search engines like Google
• Optimizing your hotel image
• Individual touch for your desired guests

How high is the effort with search engine optimization for hotels?

Search engine optimization for hotels is extensive. It is not a one-time activity - SEO is a continuous process. You should develop a strategy with which you consistently pursue your SEO and marketing goals. You must constantly keep an eye on your SEO KPIs in order to make decisions on further action. Search engine optimization includes Onpage and Offpage measures.

Source: lawyersseo.com

Should you better outsource SEO for hotels to an agency or do it yourself?

Both in-house SEOs and SEO agencies have their pros and cons. What decision you should make depends on the situation you are in. These are the respective advantages and disadvantages:

Advantages: SEO for hotels with an SEO agency

• Flexibility: Agencies have specialists for all SEO topics and can therefore react flexibly to changed conditions. This saves you new hires, further training and capacities.
• Specialized knowledge and experience: Agencies deal with SEO topics on a daily basis and know your challenges. They have the knowledge to support you in achieving your goals.
• Less downtime: In-house SEOs can get sick, take vacation and quit. Any longer-term downtime can therefore lead to interruptions to your SEO measures. There is a risk that you will lose your hard-fought place in the ranking. Working with an SEO agency greatly reduces this risk.
• No operational blindness: Agencies, as outsiders, have an objective view.
• Up to date: Agencies have SEO developments and trends constantly on the screen.

Advantages: Doing SEO for hotels yourself

• Direct contact: In-house SEOs are directly in the company and therefore just more approachable. Your communication paths are shorter and they don’t have any other clients to deal with.
• Professional in your field: In-house SEOs are familiar with your hotels, your workflows, your values and your services. Your own employees know more than external agencies.
• Direct access to resources: In-house SEOs have direct access to your servers and files. You have to grant SEO agencies access to the information needed for the first time.

Conclusion: SEO for Hotels: Hire an agency or do it yourself?

Hiring in-house SEOs can be time-consuming and expensive. That's why it makes sense to hire an agency at the beginning. This gives you flexibility - especially if your hotels have a manageable SEO budget.

Agencies that specialize in the hospitality industry can guide you through the initial SEO phases with advice and action. Some companies search directly for in-house SEOs who can be carefully selected and trained through working with the agency. Gradually, they then shift more and more tasks to their in-house SEOs. They usually turn to the agency on a larger scale again when the in-house capacities are exhausted or if an objective expert opinion is required.

What is local SEO for hotels?

Source: searchenginejournal.com

SEO measures affect more than your website. Your social media activities, your presence on online platforms and your newsletter marketing also influence your ranking. Especially important is also the local SEO for hotels.

Germans spend more than 3 hours a day on their mobile phone - various studies prove this. The potential to attract new guests to you via the mobile phone or the internet is huge. Users do not necessarily see the websites in the mobile search results that they find in their desktop results. The use of suitable keywords and a few other criteria are the same. Local search engine optimization additionally takes into account the timing of the search and the location of mobile phone users.

Websites and browsers must be responsive to perform well in the ranking. Content must appear legible and intuitive. Search engines assess the mobile usability next to the readability also based on intuitive buttons, understandable content and a clear structure. Hotel guests can leave Google reviews. For this, all you need is a Google My Business account. The ratings are not only references for other hotel guests, but are also "read" by search engines. Positive and negative references affect your ranking.

Definitely create a Google My Business account for your local SEO, register in online directories and build local backlinks.

What do you need to consider with SEO for hotels and how do you implement it?

Source: sumax.de

1. Step: Carry out market analysis and market research

You should definitely position yourself. With a market analysis you analyze the competition. Conduct a strengths-weaknesses analysis and find out where your competitors and you stand. Furthermore, you should collect data on the development in the hospitality industry or access existing data.

2. Step: Set marketing goals

Examples of marketing goals are "increasing your reach", "acquiring new guests", "improving your image", "increasing your turnover" or "strengthening your connection with regular guests". Formulate smart goals from them. This means your goals need to be specific, measurable, accepted, realistic and time-bound.

3. Step: Develop marketing strategy and marketing plan

Now you have created the basis for everything else. Your marketing strategy and your marketing plan should match your desired clientele exactly.

4. Step: Define SEO measures

In the best case scenario, you have the capacities and the budget to serve all SEO areas. Otherwise, you should prioritize your SEO measures and start with the most effective ones. Parts of search engine optimization are Content SEO, technical SEO, link building, image SEO, video SEO, news SEO, mobile SEO, local SEO. Whether your measures show the desired effect, you should check in regular SEO audits.

5. Step: Create SEO content.

SEO content is a particularly important area of SEO. Your SEO texts and media must provide readers with added value. Popular are blog articles about excursion destinations, videos and pictures of hotel facilities, with which you make you want more and present yourself as a sympathetic host. When creating your content, SEO text writing tools can help.

How to find out what your guests want

Via the analysis of a keyword research you find out what hotel seekers google for. With this information, you can create inspiring and entertaining content.

You should pay attention to the following when creating your content:

• Keyword use: Use the right keywords in headlines, URLs, meta-data and in the body text (WARNING: avoid keyword stuffing).
• Website structure: Make it as easy as possible for your website visitors to navigate your homepage. Structure it clearly and user-friendly.
• Readability: Write texts that readers can understand just by skimming. Pay attention to correct grammar and spelling. Also check texts for duplicate content.
• Backlinks: Place internal (sub-pages) and external (links from other websites) links in the text.
• Short loading times: If your page does not open quickly enough, visitors will bounce back and opt for another accommodation that Google suggests.
• Design: Holiday time is feel-good time: Design breathtaking content for your desired guests and use high quality media.
• Google algorithm: Always stay informed about the current Google algorithm and adjust your content if necessary.

6. Step: Analyze performance and automate processes

You can only recognize and correct wrong decisions if you check the performance of your measures. If your content is not good enough, the wrong visitors end up on your website or technical problems lead to high abandonment rates, you can monitor this with the most popular SEO analysis tools.

Which (free) tools are suitable for hotel SEO?

OMR Reviews offers many useful SEO tools for hotels. Choose between free SEO tools and paid alternatives your favorite SEO tool. The list of suitable software is long: there you will find the best keyword research tools such as AnswerThePublic, WordPress plugins like Yoast and SEO jack-of-all-trades like the Google Search Console. Depending on the size of the hotel, you can filter for clear tools for small and medium-sized enterprises as well as Enterprise SEO tools. Users share their SEO tool experiences with you.

These are currently the most popular SEO tools on OMR Reviews:

• Seobility

• Sistrix

• Screaming Frog SEO Spider

• Google Search Console

• Ahrefs

• Semrush

• Google Trends

• Yoast

• SE Ranking

• Searchmetrics