We optimize websites for your customers first. Then we optimize for the search engines.
Search engine optimization is an ongoing process that involves more than just targeting the right keywords to reach your audience. Site architecture, link building, fresh content, meta tags and more all play a significant role in this ever-changing marketing opportunity.
Over 70% of travelers conduct research online before booking a hotel room. Specifically, the search engine is one of the primary tools in the arsenal of the savvy travel researcher. Search engine optimization, or SEO as it’s commonly known, is the process of refining the code, content and reputation of your site in order to rank prominently in major search engines for relevant keywords. To clarify, the entire concept of search engine optimization can effectively be summarized as the integration of the following three modifications to your hotel website:
- Architecture - The first component of search engine optimization has to do with the overall structure of your site and its technical coding. Things such as your choice in domain name, how quickly your pages load, the directory structure of your web pages, the simplicity of your webpage code, effective use of sitemaps and robots.txt files, proper 301 redirects and lack of broken links or missing pages can all contribute to your hotel website’s visibility (or lack thereof) in major search engines.
- Content - This is what most people think of when they hear the term “search engine optimization.” This component refers to conducting keyword research in order to determine which queries people are entering into the search engines to find your product, service or brand. Once these keywords have been selected, they can be properly integrated in the visible textual content of your website. Blue Magnet’s team of copywriters is skilled at integrating these chosen keywords and phrases in a natural way throughout the site. Keywords must be effectively integrated into many areas of the site, including body text, HTML header tags, image alt tags, captions, PDFs and more. In addition, even though they are considered part of the back-end code of the site, it’s also important to write the keywords into the Title and Description meta tags. Blue Magnet can help you determine the keywords that will produce the greatest amount of traffic at the highest conversion rate for your hotel.
- Reputation - Your website’s reputation is one of the more complex and possibly the most difficult component of successful search engine optimization campaigns. The search engines view your hotel’s online reputation as a product of many factors, including inbound links to your hotel’s website, the age of your domain and the level of expertise expressed within the content of your site. While it may be difficult to manipulate the age (and possibly the name) of your web domain, Blue Magnet can make a tremendous impact on the inbound link strategies and relevant content within your site. High quality, inbound links to your website can be found in the form of relevant industry sites, travel bloggers, niche market sites, event and attraction websites, and CVB sites. The link acquisition strategy that Blue Magnet implements is critical to the success of your search engine marketing campaign because major search engines like Google and Bing consider each inbound link to your site as a “vote” for your reputation. The more high-quality votes from relevant players in your industry, the greater your reputation within the search engines will be. Hotels can optimize their websites for relevant keywords all day long, but unless they get the link support from other reputable sites they will never outrank the competition.
Finally, how valuable is the content that you provide on your website? Is it rich, original text that’s interesting and inviting to potential visitors? Although this ties in with the “content” aspect of SEO as mentioned in the bullet point above, the value of your content goes a long way in determining your reputation in the search engines. Most importantly, strong, interesting web content draws in new visitors to your site. In addition, other sites will find that content and link to it as well. So, in effect, by creating great content, you are consequently increasing the number of relevant inbound links to your site, ultimately boosting your site’s overall online reputation.