SEO Basics For Your Hotel Website
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We discussed SEO strategies and best practices for increasing your hotel's web presence. Featuring guest speakers Marco Braggio, SEO Expert, and Alicia Whalen, Digital Marketing Expert.
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SEO Basics For Your Hotel Website
- 1. Copyright © 2014 Leonardo Worldwide Corporation Technical Difficulties? Contact Citrix GoToWebinar 1-800-263-6317 support@citrixonline.com SEO Basics For Your Hotel Website April 23, 2015 Darlene Rondeau, VP, Best Practices, Online Merchandising, Leonardo Marco Braggio, SEO Expert and Co-Founder, Braggio Cook Interactive Alicia Whalen, Digital Marketing Expert and Co-Founder, Hashtagio.com Technical Difficulties? Contact Citrix GoToWebinar 1-800-263-6317 support@citrixonline.com
- 2. Darlene Rondeau Vice-President, Best Practices, Online Merchandising Leonardo @darlenerondeau
- 4. Marco Braggio SEO Expert and Co-Founder Braggio Cook Interactive @marcobraggio
- 5. Alicia Whalen Digital Marketing Expert and Co-Founder Hashtagio.com @Alicia_Whalen_
- 6. ► Over 131 billion web searches a month ► More than 85% of travelers start their search online ► Mobile matters ► Social media impacts rankings Introduction to SEO
- 7. Marco Braggio SEO Expert and Co-Founder Braggio Cook Interactive @marcobraggio
- 8. WHAT is SEO Search Engine Optimization is the process (marketing and technical) of getting qualified traffic from the “organic”, “editorial” or “natural” search results within search engines. What does that mean?
- 9. How Search Engines Work (nutshell version) TWO MAJOR FUNCTIONS 1. Crawling & Indexing 2. Providing Answers
- 10. 3 Basic Elements Accessibility Relevancy Usability
- 11. Organic vs. Paid Organic Accounts for 83% of traffic No media cost, substantial ROI Best converting channel Global reach & hyper localization 83%
- 12. Organic vs Paid Organic Accounts for 17% of traffic High media cost, lower ROI Keyword discovery 83% Paid Ads 17% Short term strategy
- 14. OFFPAGE SEO ONPAGE Site Architecture & Coding Duplicate Content Monitoring Conversion & Goals Rich Media Site Uptime Site Speed Keywords & Content Marketing Link Building Mobile Optimization Localization & Google Hotel Finder Blogs & Articles Topic Association Press Releases Social Optimization
- 15. #LeoWebinar
- 17. The Importance of Social Media Drives higher quality website traffic Link Potential Personalization Search Query Volume Brand Signals
- 18. The Mobile World MOBILE isn’t a TREND
- 19. Mobile is Here to Stay… #LeoWebinar
- 20. Prepare for Mobile Build for mobile first, not desktop Device-agnostic approach Simplify content Make it navigable #LeoWebinar
- 22. SEO is frequently misunderstood It’s critical to have a wider SEO strategy Best SEO aligns with both search engines and users Mobile is not a trend Key Takeaways #LeoWebinar
- 23. Alicia Whalen Digital Marketing Expert and Co-Founder Hashtagio.com @Alicia_Whalen_
- 24. The Travel Buying Funnel Fact: The average travel research/buying process runs across 22 different websites and 9.5 sessions before booking Fact: 85% of travelers use the web for research and booking Fact: 62% of travelers start travel research in a search engine before they even know where they want to go Source: Goggle Think Travel #LeoWebinar
- 25. Consumer Path to Purchase
- 26. The Roadmap: Lead your guests to the point of booking
- 27. • Allocate a portion of marketing spend to SEO and good content • Have a strategy: Align your SEO efforts with unique demand drivers (i.e. weddings, sports teams, location to attractions etc.) and specific times of the year • Do keyword research to determine what is actually being searched • Do your own research • Optimize your Google Local/Places listings: Google+ Google Places, Google Maps • Measure and benchmark with Google Analytics Getting Started with SEO #LeoWebinar
- 28. • What you need to be found for - including “hotel” "accommodations” + City, Geo Reference, demand driver, specials, packages, F&B outlets • Identify what customers are looking for as part of their path to purchase • Are you providing the best rate opportunity when they click through to the website? GOALS: • Over time, work to build indexing in Search for keywords related to all demand drivers + MEASURE Use Google Analytics and Keyword Research #LeoWebinar
- 29. First Booking Opportunities: Be Found OTAs + Brand PPC TripAdvisor Google Local
- 30. Measuring the Impact of SEO Traffic sources: #LeoWebinar
- 31. • Keep target keywords in mind in content off the website • Link back to the website where possible • Social signals (links back to the website from Social Media sites are important for SEO) SEO Principals to Follow Off-Page #LeoWebinar
- 32. SEO in Practice Website optimized for “Yellowknife Hotel” and related keywords Indexed on Page #1 – 2 Booking Opportunities
- 33. Impact of Implementation of SEO Strategy 132% increase in TRANSACTIONS (Month over month) from being found in Search.
- 34. RESULTS 700 NEW VISITS TO THE WEBSITE WITH SEO APPLIED OVER 250 NEW VISITS DURING THE PREVIOUS PERIOD
- 35. Bring the Customer to the Point of Conversion #LeoWebinar
- 36. Be visible in all places along the consumer path to purchase All roads lead to the website – point of transaction Be strategic with SEO and allocate budget Optimize Google Maps, Places, Google+ Key Takeaways #LeoWebinar
- 38. It’s a Wrap TripAdvisor Tell-All: How to Use Reviews to Craft Your Story and Drive Bookings Save your spot: http://bit.ly/TripAdvisorWebinar
- 39. www.leonardo.com 1.877.593.6634 @VFMLeonardo blog.leonardo.com Connect with us! @marcobraggio Marco Braggio Alicia Whalen alicia.whalen@gmail.com www.braggiocook.com www.ideahatching.com hello@braggiocook.com @Alicia_Whalen_
Editor's Notes
- That’s all great but how do we get qualified traffic? Let’s take a step back and understand how search engines work.
- Search engines have two major functions: crawling and building an index with crawlers (or spiders) across the billions of documents, pages, files, news, videos, and media online, which in turn provides answers to users queries with a ranked list of the websites search engines have determined are the most relevant. Essentially, any search engine you're using has a crawler that goes out and gathers information about all the content they can find on the Internet. The crawlers bring all those 1s and 0s back to the search engine to build an index. That index is then fed through an algorithm that tries to match all that data with your query.
- Search engines crawlers are motivated by three basic elements: accessibility, relevance and usability. The accessibility of a destination page or website defines the ease with which a search engine can index it and make a determination of where it fits within the grand scheme of things. Relevance and user experience of the destination determine how well the page aligns with the searchers’ expectations. After all, a poor user experience or irrelevant content will make a user doubt the veracity of the results that a search engine serves up.
- Once search engine have weighed websites, the outcome is something like this typical search engine results page. In it’s simplest form Organic search results are links that appear for free based on search engine algorithms. On average, 83 percent of the traffic from search engines comes from SEO SEO traffic has no media cost and can provide a substantial ROI – higher than most other channels. SEO traffic converts better than other channels due to the fact that rankings often convey trust from the search engines. SEO has global reach and hyper localization that can bring in new and unexpected customers from all corners of the world.
- Paid search are links that advertisers pay to list on different search engines which may appear on top, bottom or side of a search engine results page (SERP). 17% of the traffic from search engines comes from PPC Spending can get out hand quickly with little return Using PPC marketing can help quickly identify your best performing keywords, while implementing a longer-term SEO strategy will increase chances of ranking well in the organic listings to get long term good traffic While SEO does require an upfront resource investment, search engine rankings, once earned, have long-term duration unlike PPC. Don’t pay, can’t play.
- You might think of a search engine as a website you visit to type (or speak) a question into a box and Google, Yahoo!, Bing, or whatever search engine you're using magically serves up a long list of links to webpages that could potentially answer your question. That's true. But have you ever stopped to consider what's behind those magical lists of links? How do we appear relevant and authoritive? Let’s take a look…
- SEO can be divided into two major disciplines; On-Page SEO and OFF-Page SEO. Plus each discipline has further sub-specialities that require their own set of techniques. Where to start? Off page or On page? In most cases you don’t want to put the horse before the cart because any off-page SEO initiatives may result in marginal return if your house (website) isn’t in order. Site structure and best in class coding principles Relevant, unique and engaging content that speaks to your customer Measuring success through analytics – informed decisions Having video and images, not just text How long a webpage takes to serve up to the user – time is money Ensuring your website or webhost doesn’t crash Monitor your own content for duplication – virtual sin Now, Off-page SEO probably accounts for 75% of the work. It’s all about building your website’s online authority though inbound signals. Off-page SEO is the quality and relevancy to your website, which will establish your SEO authority and ultimately influence your search ranking results. Link Building – The core of how search engines evaluate your online presence. Content distribution through press releases, blogs, and articles will help build your online authority and relevancy signals. Social optimization – generate publicity to increase the awareness of a product, brand or event. Ensure that your content has local intent and optimized for local searches like same-day check-in. If you’re not in Google Hotel Finder, you’re customer is booking elsewhere. The biggest shift in off-SEO is keyword matching to topic association. Search engines getting smarter and understand a search intent. For instance; searching Google for “movie with time traveling phone booth” will serve up “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure” movie links.
- This is a 2013 Search Engine Ranking Factors conducted by Moz.com (SEO software and resource site) presents survey data from over 100 search engine professionals and provides insight into the inner workings of the future of search. The following data represents the opinions of the on how Google's overall algorithm is broken down. Links are still believed to be the most important part of the algorithm (approximately 40%). Keyword usage on the page is still fundamental, and—other than links—is thought to be the most important type of factor. SEOs no longer think that domain-level, keyword-agnostic features are as much value (5%) in 2013. This relates to length of URL, hyphens, character count, etc.
- Social media has allowed businesses to create meaningful connections with customers about their products and services by having an open dialogue online with users.
- Spreading the world socially promotes your content to a much wider audience, increasing the possibility that it will be shared by others. Since search results are personalized for anyone logged into Google, and localized for everyone that is not, this varies the actual results that are presented to each searcher. Socially engaged users are building a personalized profile and those results can match your efforts – providing you with increased, very specific, visibility. Getting out there in the world of social builds your brands credibility, authority, and affinity. Begin to get your logo or faces out to a wider audience and recognition will drive buyers to you. Social Media has the ability to create awareness of brand and spur conversation in co-citation mentioned either in blog or website content. Social media drives REAL traffic to your website – traffic that is high quality! If someone is engaging with your company or brand on social media then there is an obvious connection or interest. These are the type of visitors that eventually turn into customers. Social media can give you faster reach compare to other platforms and if you are totally engaged with such channels, you can get more benefit. Your strong online presence can help you to get higher placement in SERP.
- Mobile is about user experience. A mobile user wants a relevant page that is going to be easy to read on his or her mobile device. With over 45% of organic traffic now mobile, it’s time to rethink your priorities. Easier to build for mobile and scale to desktop. Should content be optimized for iPhone or Android? What about BlackBerry? And then there are iPads and other tablet devices. By taking a device-agnostic approach, content can be built that is optimized for all major mobile operating systems. Condense content and simplify with responsive design. Marketers should carefully consider the volume of content available on a mobile version. Responsive design helps restrict content only to the most relevant for those accessing via mobile device. Make it navigable. The navigation on a hand-screen or touch-tablet is inherently different than the navigation on a traditional website. Essentially, remember to consider the difference in a site optimized for touch instead of for a click.
- Consider this...
- The Travel Industry has had to adopt much faster than other industries as the Internet has shifted the way travel is researched and sold. Changes are still happening at a rapid pace – but being VISIBLE IN SEARCH is still a KEY MARKETING AND DISTRIBUTION TACTIC.
- What has changed in SEARCH? Fragmented Travel buying – avg of 22 touch points and across multiple devices before booking. Be visible in all places of the buying cycle Increasing use of MOBILE to research, BOOK and as CRM Organic indexing is harder to achieve than in the past. SEO is also about optimizing the website content and being strategic.
- Brands must be visible at all points of the buying funnel. Travel buying has become extremely fragmented and complicated for consumers. We need to make it easy for them to find us – and easy for them to BUY
- The customer path to purchase occurs over multiple devices, across websites and social networks. Search is a constant along the Path to Customer booking from the time travel planning starts – to the finish.
- Just like a library, you need to tag your digital assets to be found. Google needs the cues to know where to index your content.
- Allocate a portion of marketing spend to SEO and good content: Add SEO as a line item in your marketing budgets, in addition to content writing and photography. Have a Strategy: Align your SEO efforts with unique demand drivers (ie. Weddings, sports teams, location to attractions etc.) and specific times of the year. Work with Sales and Marketing teams to identify niche demand drivers and optimize content in advance so when search volume increases, your website is visible Ex. Valentines Day Packages, New Years, Spring Break). Do keyword Research to identify target keywords to determine what is actually being searched Do your own Research. What is your comp set being found in Search for? Do you know your customer path to purchase?
- Use Google analytics to measure increases in traffic by target keyword. Over time, optimize website content to be found for the most targeted keywords What you need to be found for - including “hotel” "accommodations” + City, Geo Reference, demand driver, specials, packages, F&B outlets Identify what customers are looking for as part of their path to purchase. (keyword research) Are you providing the best rate opportunity when they click through to the website? GOALS: Over time, work to build indexing in Search for keywords related to all demand drivers + MEASURE
- First booking opportunities are now Paid. Optimization and placement within these sites Is still important – but be strategic.
- Use Google Analytics to track improvements to Organic SEARCH referral traffic over time – and drill down to see what keywords are driving the most qualified traffic Unique Visits to the websites, bounce rates and time on site are important benchmarks to illustrate improvements:
- All Roads lead to the transaction point. The website. Use Social Media Channels to amplify your message and bring brand ambassadors – and to drive traffic back to the website. -Keep Optimization strategy in mind in all marketing. Keep target keywords in mind in content off the website – including Social Media pages and posts (driving traffic back to the website), on Display Ads and Ads on DMO websites (ie. Closest hotel to Niagara Falls) -Social Signals are important for SEO
- This illustrates on-site SEO in practice and resulting indexing in SEARCH. On page optimization + Meta-Data optimized for target keywords. Google Local/Places also claimed and optimized.
- Month over month increase in Organic Search Traffic after deploying SEO to the website – with an increase of 132% more transactions coming from SEARCH. If the website was not visible in SEARCH – Customer may have booked elsewhere (Booking.com, Expedia, TripAdvisor) = Higher COST PER AQUISITION
- SEO needs to be planned, and developed over time. Benchmarking improvements in indexing for target keywords through google analytics – and now marketers can assign an ROI by measuring goal conversions in Google analytics for all Digital marketing tactics including organic search referrals.
- All roads should lead the customer back to the WEBSITE – the point of TRANSACTION. Marketers are spending time, resources and dollars to build content on Social Media channels, and on digital advertising. Ultimately is still comes down to being found when the customer is looking for you.
- READ More about SEO and SEARCH – Connect with me on LinkedIn and read my blog at www.ideahatching.com and www.hashtagio.com