Posted on Feb 5th 2014
in Search Engine Marketing
We all know that optimising your website’s content and design is a key component of any successful SEO strategy. But it’s also possible to dominate the search rankings with off-site content that you control or at least influence, while at the same time improving your property’s marketing efforts in social media and review management.
Want to get started? Here are 4 tips you can start working on right away.
List Your Property on Local Websites
One of the most effective ways to boost your presence in local search is to make sure your property’s business listing information is included across a wide array of third party websites, including sites like Google Places and Facebook. The major search engines continually crawl these sites to find out as much as they can about your business and how it relates to the local web.
If your resort isn’t listed on these sites, or your listings contain incomplete or inconsistent information, you could be inadvertently limiting your property’s full ranking potential. Make sure your listings are as complete as possible with full contact details, photos, videos and links to your official website to help out the search engines and entice potential guests.
Develop a Link Strategy
Links to your website from third party sites and vice versa help to boost your SEO visibility by confirming your authenticity and credibility in the eyes of Google and the other search engines. However, attempting to beat the system by building masses of low quality links from unrelated websites may get you penalised in the SERPs over time. So how should you channel your link building efforts?
- Make sure you’re consistently sharing links to your resort’s website via your social media channels, and where appropriate, encourage your audience to pass the information on to others.
- Create a directory of local attractions, shops and nearby restaurants that may interest your guests. This will give you the chance to link to others and hopefully have them return the favour. Your blog is also the ideal platform to write about and link to local businesses your guests should check out while they’re in town.
- Include links to your resort’s website in email newsletters.
Promote and Respond To Guest Reviews
Guest reviews help to make your property more visible in local search results, and so does the extent to which you respond to this feedback – whether it’s complimentary or not.
- Drive feedback and ratings by encouraging satisfied guests to leave reviews of your property at every opportunity. The most obvious way to do this is via a simple email request after a guest has checked-out, but you might also consider a call to action on your website or even a flyer at checkout. All these authentic, positive reviews will help you climb the rankings while giving your online reputation a very welcome boost.
- Respond to both positive and negative reviews. If the guest’s feedback is positive, thank them and encourage them to stay again in the future. If the review is less flattering, explain that you appreciate the comments and ask the guest to contact you so you can address their problems personally.
- Never, ever post fake reviews, not matter how much you’re tempted! When your trickery is discovered – which it almost always will be – you may be penalised in search or receive the kind of publicity you could really do without.
Stay Active on Social Media
Your social media presence has a considerable impact on your resort’s visibility in search results. The more often you post content and engage with your audience on social media, the better chance you have of attracting followers and climbing the search rankings. So, if you haven’t done so already, you should focus on developing a strong social media strategy that promotes engagement with your guests on the key social networks (Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram) through giveaways, promotions, interesting local stories and photos that show off your best local attractions.
Have you put any of these strategies to use as part of your resort’s SEO campaign? Let us know in the comments below.
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