Blogging is one of the most reliable ways to drive a steady flow of organic traffic to your hotel’s website. If you regularly publish relevant, high quality blog articles, it will increase your rankings in the SERPs, especially if you take time to optimise your content for Google and promote it via social channels.
In today’s blog, we’ll take a look at 3 powerful ways you can max out your blog’s search potential so it leads to better rankings, more traffic, and more bookings.
1. Focus on Great Content First, Keywords Second
In recent years, Google has made it their mission to improve the search experience for its billions of users worldwide. In the process, they have shifted the focus away from standalone keywords and phrases to the context, meaning and intent behind each search query.
Following the Hummingbird update of 2013, Google is now more interested in how useful your content is to its users than the specific words it contains. Does this mean you can forget about optimising your blog posts with keywords altogether? Of course not!
Google’s algorithm still picks up on keywords and uses them to help understand what your content is about; it’s just that it has gotten much better at understanding context and seeing past poor quality, spammy content. In other words, there are no short cuts anymore. The days when marketers could ‘trick’ the system and climb the rankings by quickly putting together a bad quality blog post stuffed with keywords are well and truly over.
In 2016, the key is to concentrate on creating quality content that is of real use to your guests. If, say, you want to rank number one for ‘budget hotels Brisbane,’ then create great, engaging and helpful content that deserves to be ranked highly. Once you get comfortable with this mindset, you’re ready to start seeing real results with your SEO efforts.
2. Promote Your Blog Posts On Social Media
Millions of new blog articles are published everyday. If you want to make sure your content ranks highly and is seen by your guests, then you need to promote it, and one of the best ways to boost its visibility is through social media.
If you’re not already, start sharing each blog article you post with your audience on Facebook, Google Plus and any other network your property is active on. Is there a sure fire method to measure the link between social media activity and search rankings? Not currently. But once you distribute the content you create across a myriad of platforms, you’ll start gathering more backlinks, improve your organic reach and keep your social media audience engaged with valuable content, which can only mean good things for your blog and your entire online marketing campaign.
3. Optimize Your Website For Mobile Users
Your guests are no longer sitting at a desk behind a computer planning their breaks. They’re looking up travel information and booking hotels on the move on a variety of small screen devices.
Mobile has officially taken over. In April 2015, Google adapted to the behaviour of its users with the “mobile friendly update”, an algorithm tweak designed to reward mobile-friendly websites with higher rankings in the mobile SERPs.
If your blog is not optimised for mobile, its ranking will suffer. Here are 3 things to consider when adapting your hotel’s website for a mobile audience.
- Design: Your pages, menus and posts must be optimised for easy navigation on a small screen
- Guest Behaviours: Your landing pages and calls to action may require different strategies to drive bookings from mobile users
- Content: Is there a difference in the type of content that your mobile and desktop users want? Find out which format is generating the best results with mobile visitors to your hotel’s website.
SEO is an ongoing, long-term effort that combines an array of different digital marketing strategies. One of the best ways to boost your rankings in the SERPs is to simply create helpful blog content that addresses the most important needs of your guests. If you can regularly promote it across an array of social platforms, you’ll send a reliable stream of organic traffic to your hotel’s website.
What methods do you use to send more organic traffic to your blog? Let us know in the comments below!
RELATED PAGES AND BLOG POSTS:
- 3 Ways To Excel at Content Marketing in 2016
- How To Optimise Your Hotel's Content For Your Guests and Google
- Want to Create Great Content? 6 Things To Check Before You Hit Publish
