The rules of SEO for your hotel website are simple and finite, even though there’s often changes in which part is more important to focus on. These best practices are up to date, simple enough to check on or create with relative ease and, best of all, these strategies will help boost the visibility of your hotel on Google. That means you’ll get more traffic for the kind of searches you really want to rank for, and the people that come to your site will get exactly what they were looking for. If that doesn’t sound like a recipe for building your hotel's direct bookings, we don’t know what does!

1. 4 SEO STRATEGIES
TO GET MORE
DIRECT BOOKINGS
FROM GOOGLE
THE INDEPENDENT HOTELIER'S GUIDE
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2. KEY TAKEAWAYS:
Take advantage of Video
SEO-friendly URLs
The WASP method for content
Optimise for mobile or suffer
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3. WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT SEO.
It's an area that can seem pretty
murky next to running a summer offer
or taking great pictures of your hotel,
but it's a key part of your hotel's online
presence.
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4. WWW.NETAFFINITY.COM
DESPITE ITS CHANGING NATURE,
SEO CAN STILL GET YOUR HOTEL
MORE BOOKINGS.
Search engine optimisation is
necessary to a healthy website.
Without it, guests are going to have a
really, really hard time finding your
hotel online.

5. WWW.NETAFFINITY.COM
READY FOR 4 STRATEGIES TO USE
FOR YOUR HOTEL?
Let's go.

6. TAKE
ADVANTAGE
OF THE
POWER OF
VIDEO
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1

7. 64% of travellers on YouTube watch travel videos when they're
thinking about holidays.
37% watch when actively choosing a site to book on.
Video searches are 62% of all Google searches, so Google pays more
attention to your web pages that have videos on them.
WWW.NETAFFINITY.COM

8. HOW DO YOU DECIDE WHAT TO MAKE VIDEOS OF?
Think of things that would appeal to your guest personas. Aim to
create content that helps your guests - not just shameless
promotion!
Here are 4 ideas:
A tour of nearby attractions
Quirky challenges for guests and staff
Entertaining interviews with guests
Quick recordins of activities guests can
get involved in during their stay
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9. WWW.NETAFFINITY.COM
IT DOESN'T NEED TO BE
COMPLICATED.
All you really need are an iPhone, a
camera stabilizer and a few hours.

10. USE
SEO-FRIENDLY
URLS
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2

11. USE
LOWERCASE
LETTERS
USE DASHES,
NOT
UNDERSCORES
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these - , not these _
USE YOUR
KEYWORDS IN
YOUR URL
What does an SEO-friendly URL mean?
Just a few things:

12. WWW.NETAFFINITY.COM
HAVING THE RIGHT URLS IS AN
EASY WAY TO BECOME
GOOGLE-FRIENDLY.
You're optimising your hotel's web
pages at a basic level.

13. WWW.NETAFFINITY.COM
WHAT KIND OF KEYWORDS GIVE
YOU TRAFFIC BOOSTS?
Try to be specific.
Instead of "hotels in Ireland", try
"honeymoon hotel packages Killarney":
“http:// hotelname.com/hotel-honeymoon-packages-killarney”

14. WASP
METHOD FOR
CONTENT
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15. Hotel photography with
sparkling copy
Customer testimonials
An FAQ for guests
Describing the local scene
Promotions or events at your
hotel
Travel tips
Local guides and resources
Useful language phrases, if you
get a lot of non-native speakers
Behind the scenes
Interesting facts about your hotel
or the local area
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This SEO tactic requires you to publish
content. If you're stuck for ideas, try:

16. WWW.NETAFFINITY.COM
HERE ARE THE STEPS OF
THE WASP METHOD

17. WWW.NETAFFINITY.COM
RITE CONTENTW
Strive for content that will appeal to local
journalists and travel writers - they can
instantly boost your website's exposure and
traffic.
Quality is key! Be better than your competitors.

18. WWW.NETAFFINITY.COM
DD SOCIAL SHARING
OPTIONS
A
Sharing buttons will allow people to easily
link to your content. Add buttons, embed
tweetable quotes - make it as easy as
possible to spread the word about your
content.

19. WWW.NETAFFINITY.COM
ET UP ON-PAGE SEOS
This means:
Your target keyword should be in the
URL. Keep it short! Google prefers shorter
URLs.
Drop the target keywords into the first
100 words of content -the sooner, the
better.

20. WWW.NETAFFINITY.COM
ROMOTEP
Email those people who might be inclined
to share your content. You've (presumably)
created a piece of content that's better
than what those travel writers have already
linked to, and you should tell them about it!
There's a good chance of them wanting to
feature it.

21. WWW.NETAFFINITY.COM
As you might have guessed, this
method is a job for your marketing
team.
Getting it set up can take a little time - don't
waste more of that time training people who are
unfamiliar with what needs to be done when
you've already got a team to do it.
Once your content is up and running, you'll have
those SEO-friendly links pouring in.

22. OPTIMISE FOR
THE SHIFT
TO
MOBILE
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23. WWW.NETAFFINITY.COM
The rise of mobile is well known, and
it's just as important as everyone says
it is.
Net Affinity's own data shows that 1 in 5 bookings
were made on mobile last year, and 37% of all
bookings were on mobile and tablet combined.
That's huge.

24. WWW.NETAFFINITY.COM
Because of this, user experience for those on
mobile weighs heavily on SEO. This means your
website needs to be mobile-friendly!
Make sure people can not only book on your
mobile website, they can actually find your
website when they Google it!

25. WWW.NETAFFINITY.COM
TO OPTIMISE YOUR SEO
FOR MOBILE:
Use a responsive design
Ensure navigation for mobile is
smooth as possible
Have a device-agnostic approach

26. THAT'S IT!
WWW.NETAFFINITY.COM
The rules of SEO are simple and
finite - even though ther's often
changes in which rules are most
important.
These best practices are up to
date, simple, and will help boost
your hotel's visibility on Google
for the traffic you really want to
rank for.
If that doesn't sound like a
recipe for direct bookings, we
don't know what does!

27. WWW.NETAFFINITY.COM
Focused exclusively on the hotel sector, Net Affinity is a
technology, digital marketing and web design firm. We have
collated the brightest, most commercially focused, experienced
and passionate team of online marketers, account managers,
designers and developers whose combined skill set ensures our
clients' online success.