Building Business – The Hotel Search Engine Marketing Guide

By using hotel search engine marketing (SEM) strategies, hospitality organisations across the globe can boost sales, add revenue, and enhance their visibility in the online world. Yes, it is easier said than done but it can be done. In fact, SEM is one of the highest revenue generating models for the hotel industry. It delivers the highest returns on investments (ROI), takes a little bit of skill and understanding on how it works, and can be put into effect quite easily. In today's multi-connected world where travel plans and hotel bookings are made via phones, websites, chat platforms, social media engagements, etc. – SEM is perhaps the least expensive and most under-utilised tool of promotion.

Some basics about hotel search engine marketing that you should know about are that SEM uses various strategies to enhance page rankings on search engines. Making the hotel website search engine optimised (SEO friendly) is one aspect of it. Other aspects include paid advertising, contextual advertising, and paid inclusions.

Making a search engine optimised website means populating the website with online content that uses specific keywords that the customers would use when they search for a hotel. Using meta-tags is another aspect of SEO. The idea being that every website should be both search and user friendly to generate maximum impact.

Hotel search engine marketing also uses paid search as a tool to draw in customers. From sponsored ads that can be seen on any search engine results page, to banner placements on the web pages of a major newspaper's travel section and travel blogs – it is all a part of the SEM action plan. Making a landing page where the customer “lands” after clicking on any ad is another key aspect of the process. This is where a consumer can opt-in through email to receive the best promotions and updates.

On smart phones today, internet and mobile browsers allow users to search for and look at content. Contextual advertising makes it easy for marketers to place promotions that are relevant to the content being displayed on the screens. As one of the many tools available in the hotel search engine marketing portfolio, contextual advertising continues to deliver the results. This is because contextual advertisements are usually more targeted and therefore are more likely to be clicked.

Paid inclusions are a product that search engines companies sell to their clients. These are basically promotions of websites that are included in the search index (as opposed to paid advertisements which are listed separately and not in the search index). Using this tool can be a great search engine marketing strategy for hotels especially because most hotel websites feature dynamic content that is frequently changed. With paid inclusions, website owners can specify the schedule for crawling the page.