Guide 2: Be Visible with Search Engine Optimisation

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION

This guide is all about how to ensure your website is as visible as possible to search engines and to increase your chances of your website appearing near the top results for relevant keyword search terms.

This is a direct internet marketing technique and is a highly cost effective way to communicate with your potential customers by using search engines, such as Google, enabling you to place your business directly in front of people who are actively looking for what you provide, as opposed to the mass media approach of press advertising.

Although advanced Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) can get highly technical, our guide is aimed at the non-technical owners and managers of hotels. It will enable you to ensure your website designers build your website in a search engine friendly manner so you can undergo ongoing activity to help boost your site up the search rankings.

SEO VS SEM

Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO, are the techniques that can be used to enhance where you appear in the organic search results. These are the main results on the left hand side that appear when you perform a search on Google.

Also appearing on Google search results on the right hand side of the page are little adverts relevant to your search query. These are paid adverts, referred to as Search Engine Marketing (SEM) or Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC) and I’ll discuss these in the next free guide.

IT'S ALL ABOUT KEYWORDS

Keywords are the key to SEO. The first step in any optimisation campaign is to work out the search terms that you would like to be found for.

There’s no need to be greedy, just list the top ten words or phrases most relevant to what you do, such as your location, the type of services or facilities you provide and any special events you cater for. These are the words that you will incorporate into your website that will ensure you appear near the top of the search results list.

For example, if you are a spa hotel in Oxfordshire near Oxford and the Cotswolds you might include:

• Spa Hotel Oxfordshire
• Luxury Spa Hotel Oxfordshire
• Oxford Spa Hotel
• Cotswold Spa Hotel
• Luxury Wedding Hotel Oxford

BE IMPORTANT TO GOOGLE

All Google are trying to do with search results is to provide the most relevant results, for any given search term, at the top in order of importance. Search Optimisation techniques are used to help Google allow your site to be the best result.

Google assesses websites by sending little pieces of crawler software through the internet, called Spiders (Spiders searching the Web, clever eh?). These Spiders look through your website and report back to Google with information about your site. Spiders can read text on your site, and follow links through it, to and from your website and examine your headings and titles. The more it finds the keyword search terms that are relevant to you, the higher you will be ranked for those terms.

But be warned, clever though they are, Spiders do have their limitations. One of the largest barriers to Search Spiders is Flash animation, which many websites are built in. Though Flash can produce good special effects, Spiders can’t read it or follow it, so any content in Flash such as text and navigation links can’t be assessed, so won’t help your search results.

Let me repeat that: Do not build your website entirely in Flash if you want to be seen by Search Engines!

FEED THE SPIDERS

The art of SEO rests with making sure the Search Spiders keep coming across the keywords that you wish to be found with.

Use these keywords in your page description (the title you see at the top of your web browser), your various on-page headings, in your internal link names and in your copy text. Be careful not to over-use them in your copy, as it must still sound natural, just peppered with your top keywords. Feed the Search Spiders with your keywords and they’ll run back to Google with a glowing report!

Use relevant keywords in:

• Page Titles
• Page Headings
• Page Sub-Headings
• Internal Links
• Copy Text

GET CONNECTED

The other main assessment criteria that the Search Engines consider is how well connected your site is to other websites.

If you seem to have lots of friends and are well linked to many other sites then Google thinks you’re pretty important, and ranks you higher. This is most effective if the websites that link to you are relevant to your site, as for example hotel or travel review sites, news sites, local tourist information pages and the like are all good for hotel SEO.

Google ranks websites according to how much it trusts them, and ranks links from them accordingly. For example, a link from The Guardian’s website will be far more valuable to your SEO than a link from your local shops’ website.

The larger your network of connections, the more the Spiders are going to come across you, so it’s worth spending the time building links with other good websites.

Top Tip: appoint someone at your hotel the responsibility of growing your links. It’s a slow organic process, but will have one of the biggest impacts on your websites natural listing.

BE SOCIABLE

An effective technique to enhance your SEO is to write blogs and articles, which then link back to your site. For example you could post a recipe on a local newspaper website if they agree to link back to your website, or a wedding planning guide on a wedding website.

Social media activity is also helpful. Running links from Twitter or Facebook to your blog with interesting articles all helps Google to assess how important you are. Regularly updating your website indicates that it is active and more likely to be relevant and current.

IGNITE'S 5-STEP SEO CHECKLIST

It’s a worthwhile exercise to look at your current website with these techniques in mind:

Have you used Flash to build your website? If you have – change it!

How frequently do your ideal keywords appear in your page headings and copy text?

Ensure your copy still sounds natural but is peppered with keyword terms.

Ensure your keywords appear on your browser headings.

Are the headings relevant to the content of the page? Content and headings should all be consistent.

Make sure you have as many links as possible pointing to your site, preferably from important and trusted websites.

Is your website regularly updated? If not, add a blog.

Follow the suggestions here and you’ll quickly become easier to find on search engines, which will certainly lead to more bookings through your website.

Remember: Search Engines are one of the primary sources of visitors for your website and 85% of travellers now use a search engine when looking for a hotel.

HOW'S YOUR HOTEL SEO?

Our goal is to help hoteliers succeed online. The Online Distribution Channel is the only growth channel in 2010 and it is the cheapest. Smart hoteliers should dedicate increasing proportions of their marketing budgets to internet marketing.

If you would like to work with us to dramatically improve visitors to your website and subsequent online bookings call 020 7275 8682 or email us.