Client services, concierge services, ad placements, luxury marketing are some of the terms any hotel marketing staff would know. But in today’s world, to market luxury hotels brands some terms that one has to know about are hotel search engine optimisation, keywords, meta-tagging, user generated content, web spiders, crawling pages and more. Today building traffic and revenue is accomplished less by ads in magazines and more by developing strong websites, and ensuring that the website is search engine optimised (SEO ready).
The science of SEO came about when search engines were used to find websites and other businesses. By using certain keywords and modifying website attributes, a website could be optimised or made in a way which would lead to better page rankings on search engine results naturally. This process involved developing original web content, ensuring that the pages on websites were updated frequently, interlinking webpages and using certain keywords that a person looking for a business would use on the search engines. As the internet connected more and more people across the world, travellers searching for hotels would make their bookings online. Hotel search engine optimisation became a necessary tool across the global hospitality industry.
One of the first and most important steps to hotel search engine optimisation is website ownership. Every hotel, regardless of its size and franchise, must develop and own its website. The simple reasoning behind this is maximising generic search results. Every major franchise has its own website. Add to this a privately owned, proprietary website and one has a lethal marketing combination. It is being one step ahead of the curve. Most franchise sites lack the ability to be seen in generic search results. The privately owned website ensures that this search traffic is led to themselves and thereby to the franchise. This is the advantage that most hotel owners give up on when they rely solely on the franchise website to deliver the business.
There are other tools one can use besides SEO to drive traffic to a website. Pay per click advertising (PPC) is a tool one can use in the short term to build up traffic. This tool is a great way to boost traffic while the website gathers momentum through the hotel search engine optimisation delivering the higher page rankings on generic search results. Another tool less talked about but nevertheless as important is in-bound linkages. If the website links are displayed on many other websites like the local Chambers of Commerce, along with reciprocal links to and from popular websites, it will boost search engines results. Such a process will enhance exposure and drive visitors to the website.
Summary
The internet is a great connector – of individuals to businesses, of businesses to other businesses and vice versa. With a little bit of understanding, the hotel industry can ensure good business through tools like hotel search engine optimisation. When used wisely, it can enhance business revenue, ensure high visibility of the hotel website for a fraction of the cost that one would spend on the mass media. A little learning and spending to ensure that the website is search engine optimised can yield big gains.