If you’ve been using content marketing to promote your hotel online for a while, chances are you’ve already created a sizeable number of blog posts. But are they actually generating traffic? No matter how interesting, helpful and engaging your content, if no one actually discovers and reads it, your hard work will count for nothing.
So what’s the answer? To boost your blog posts’ organic ranking using these 5 tips of course!
1. Choose The Right Posts First
First things first: not all blog posts have what it takes to reach the top of page one of Google SERPs. Before you start, do some research and assess the amount of competition out there for your target keyword. Obviously, those with less competition will be easier to rank for. It’s also a good idea to try ranking for a keyword your hotel’s competitors already rank for – if they can rank for these terms, then most likely you can too!
2. Optimise Your Posts
This one will be obvious to anyone who has been content marketing for a while, but its worth repeating. Here are the basics:
- Keyword optimization – The main focus should be on long-tail keywords, used in the title and sprinkled naturally throughout the content. The title should be less than 60 characters
- Meta description optimization – This should be a concise (less than 160 character) summary of what your blog post is about, including your keyword.
- Image optimization – Images need to be optimised too! Include alt text with keywords/synonyms
- Link optimization – Include internal links where appropriate and link to high authority external sites wherever possible
3. Try content syndication
One of the best ways to get your blog content in front of a larger audience is by content syndication. This simply means featuring your posts on a high-traffic website that relates to the travel industry. There are tonnes of different syndication networks to choose from, so take a look and decide which ones are likely to be most helpful for reaching your target guest groups. Whichever you choose, the blog you want to syndicate needs to include a link back to your hotel’s website to drive traffic and bookings.
4. Increase blog ranking with social signals
As usual, Google has remained tight-lipped on the extent to which social signals are a ranking factor. However, several studies have shown a link between increased social signals and a boost in ranking and traffic. With this in mind, drawing attention to your blog on social media and driving likes, comments and shares should certainly be a priority.
5. Focus on Boosting Click Through Rate
Click through rate (CTR) indicates the volume of people who actually click through to read your content. A high click through rate tells Google that your blog is interesting to its users, which means its algorithm will push your content higher up the SERPs to be discovered by even more people.
One of the best ways to improve the CTR of your content is simply to make the title more enticing and eye-catching. So, before you hit publish, revisit your title: is it likely to spark curiosity in your readers and make them want to click?
Do you use any of these tips to improve your blog’s organic ranking? Let us know in the comments below!
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