The importance of content in the hospitality industry cannot be stressed enough. “Content is king,” as the saying goes is holding truer everyday. With that in mind, it is important to remember that while the look and feel of a hotel website grabs a viewers attention, it is the body, the content that leads them to making a yes or no decision when deciding if they are going to stay at your property. Rich, original and engaging content is the key factor in getting that traveler to book at your hotel.
A hotel website is crucial for providing information to potential guests, and for search engine optimization (SEO). Because search engine bots crawl and index content to provide in results pages, your content becomes that much more important. You can manipulate your content to attract certain guests based on their searches.
There are a handful of major no-no’s and a laundry-list of do’s when it comes to hotel website content – here are a couple.
Dont’s
1. Duplicate Website Content – Simply put, search engines hate duplicate content. During scans for information, search engines pick their proverbial brains to produce content that is unique to a search. If a website contains one or more pages of duplicate content, the search engine removes those pages from the list of search results. Be mindful of what is on each page of your website to avoid this from happening.
2. Official and Unofficial Page Content – A common pitfall of hotel websites is the separation between official and unofficial content. Official content is content that has been approved (and often times internally created) by the property for use across multiple platforms. Unofficial content is content such as a review post, Facebook mention or anything else that has been composed by someone not affiliated with the property – user generated content. The bigger the gap between these two categories, the less credible a property looks. It is critical to be on the same page as your guests…monitor what they are saying about you at all times and be sure that your content is saying the same thing.
Do’s
1. Keyword Research – Keywords are where it all begins. Quality research about keywords that define your demographic and traveler audience is the jump-off point to creating quality content that will let your travelers easily discover you in their searches.
2. Maintain a Consistent Voice – One of the more common errors in producing quality website content is the habit of jumping between voices – Past, present and future tense. To create the highest quality content means to stick to one voice. That voice is up to you and your team, just be certain that it remains the same across all platforms – website content, social media content, press releases, etc.
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