Perfecting your SEO strategy is not a one-off task; it’s an ongoing commitment. After all, Google is reported to make more than 500 algorithm tweaks annually, many of which have the potential to impact your website’s ranking, the amount of organic traffic you receive and your booking rates.
So how often do you need to modify your SEO campaign to give your resort the best chance possible of ranking highly in the SERPs and getting noticed by your guests? In today’s post we’ll look at how often on-page SEO elements should be revisited to keep your website performing at its best.
Keyword Strategy
The keyword phrases your guests use to search for your property change overtime as social and travel trends evolve, new words enter the common vocabulary and others get phased out.
Google’s Keyword Planner tool is a great way to keep track of how often words and phrases are getting searched for when you’re planning your initial keyword strategy. By keeping an eye on the average monthly searches of the keywords you’re interested in, you can gauge if the targeted words are still relevant and being searched for regularly.
How often should you revisit?
We recommend you spend some time looking over your keyword campaign on a regular quarterly basis and at least 3 months before you launch a new campaign or promotion.
Title Tags and Meta Descriptions
You need to adjust the target keywords used in your title tags and meta data as your website rankings fluctuate.
Make a habit of tracking how your web pages are ranking for your target keywords and be ready to tweak your title tags and meta descriptions to include or exclude these words and phrases accordingly.
Don’t forget that sometimes Google will change the way they want you to create your title tags and meta descriptions as new algorithm updates are rolled out. The search company offers several valuable tips on how to create the perfect title tags and meta descriptions. As it stands, you should aim to keep title tags under 65 characters and include one keyword, while meta descriptions should also contain one target keyword but be kept under 160 characters.
How often should you revisit?
As mentioned above, one of the most important times to revisit your title tags and meta descriptions is in the advent of a new Google Algorithm update – we’ll usually let you know about the most significant updates here on the blog.
You’ll also need to tweak these elements if you have recently made changes to your keyword strategy, to make sure all elements are aligned with your new keywords.
Content
You’re probably aware how much Google values fresh content and try to add as much new content to your site each month as you can manage.
What’s talked about less is how important it is to refresh old content. How do you choose which pieces of content to refresh? Simply measure the number of visits to a page. If a certain blog post is generating a lot of traffic, it’s usually a sign that the content was well received and does not need an update. However, if you notice a downward trend in the number of visits over time, it might be time to give the content a quick refresh. This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to spend time rewriting the blog post itself – instead, try updating the title tag or meta data or perhaps promoting it again to your email subscribers and social media audience.
How often should you revisit?
Tracking visits to your content should be an ongoing, week by week process. If you establish a routine of monitoring these numbers, you’ll start to see when it’s time to update or re-promote a piece of content. As a general guide, we recommend giving a new piece of content around 4 months before taking another look at its metrics and deciding whether it needs a refresh.
Keeping up with Google’s constant updates and staying on top of your SEO campaign can be an uphill battle, but by keeping track of algorithm changes and revisiting your website’s on-page SEO elements on a regular basis, you give yourself the best chance of ranking highly and getting your resort’s content seen by your guests.
Stay tuned for the second part of this blog on updating off-page SEO strategies, coming soon!
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