How to Do On-Site Optimize Of Your Hotel or Guest House Website for Local Search Marketing
Are you a 5 star hotel in Karachi or a cheap guest house in Sukkur?
Being a local hotel business you will be certainly targeting people on the basis of specific geo-location. One of the great marketing mediums to attract the customers, who already intend to book a hotel, can be ‘web marketing’.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most important web marketing tools to help you get your rooms booked.
Let us start the basic guide to local SEO in easy steps.
Conduct Keyword Research for Local Search
Keyword research is the backbone of SEO. Before you initiate for anything such as can optimizing your hotel website, social media profiling, etc. you will be required to conduct right keywords for your business.
In local search marketing, you are targeting geo-specific terms along with industry-specific terms.
Suppose you have one of the best Hotels in Gulberg Lahore. When planning your web optimization strategy, the first thing you need to do is look at some geo-specific keywords in this way:
Keyword + Location to check how many times the terms have been searched with help of Google AdWords Keyword Tool.
With a free account, you will be able to see a bracket instead of exact search volume. However, it will still help you to figure out the potential.
There is another great way to get keyword ideas? Go and type your keyword idea on Google, scroll down to the bottom and you will see the related searches. If you have deep pockets, you can also track your competitor’s targeted keywords with help of paid tools like SEMrush. You can try the free account which will show limited number of keywords.
With help of these combinations of the tools and by researching your local competitors in hotel and guest house industry, you will explore the right keywords for the local search optimization of your hotel (or guest house) website.
On-Site Optimization for Local Search
After you have selected the list of keywords, comes the second thing and that is to optimize your own website for local search. You need to inform search engines about what locations you are targeting by adding geo-specific keywords, phrases and information. It will be done on your website on specific sections which are mentioned below.
Title and Meta Descriptions
People will see your website’s SEO title tags, meta-description and related snippet when they see your website in search results.
- Optimized Title Tags Geo-Specifically: SEO title tags are one of the important on-site optimization elements. Make sure to add your primary keywords along with your location. For example if you run a hotel in Johar town Lahore, you can add the phrase Book An Affordable Room in Johar town Lahore.
- Locally Optimized Meta Descriptions: Meta descriptions do not directly help in optimizing the website, however they are more like ‘text Ads’ inviting the searchers to click on the website after viewing relevant information. Do add your primary keywords, locations your business operate and your phone number. Keep the text short to maximum 165 characters.
Add Local Address and Phone Number on All Pages
This is one of the great elements for local search engine optimization. Add a local street address and phone number on all web pages. It is highly recommended to add the information in website’s footer in the text form.
Add Location-Specific Pages to Website
In case you have more than one hotel or guesthouse (or both) in the city, for example you own a guest house in Johar town, Lahore and one of the best hotels in DHA Lahore you can create separate pages for both the venues.
Optimizing both the pages separately will be more impactful.
This will help the searcher to book room in a particular area, city or province.
