Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a critical component of digital marketing for hotels. It helps potential guests find your hotel when they are searching for lodging options online.  However, the world of SEO can be competitive and ever-changing. One way to stay ahead of the game is by targeting long-tail keywords. In this blog post, we’ll explore what long-tail keywords are and why they are important for hotel SEO.

What are Long-Tail Keywords?

When it comes to SEO, keywords are the phrases and words that people enter into search engines when they are looking for something. Traditionally, SEO has focused on short-tail keywords, which are one or two words and highly competitive. Examples of short-tail keywords for a hotel might be “hotel” or “lodging.”

Long-tail keywords, on the other hand, are more specific and usually longer phrases. They often include multiple words and are less competitive. For example, a long-tail keyword for a hotel might be “pet-friendly hotels in downtown Seattle.” These keywords are less frequently searched for than short-tail keywords, but they tend to have a higher conversion rate because they are more specific.

Why are they important for hotel SEO?

In order to understand the importance of long-tail keywords for hotel SEO, there are three things you need to know:

• Long-tail keywords are more specific and targeted, which means they’re more likely to be searched for than broad keywords.
• Long-tail keywords are also easier to rank for because they contain fewer characters in their string. This makes it easier for Google to find the right words and phrases within your website content, which can help you achieve higher rankings on the search engine results page (SERPs).
• Finally, long-tail searches tend to have less competition. This means you have a better chance of getting your site ranked at the top spot on Google and other major search engines like Bing or Yahoo.

How to Leverage Long-Tail Keywords for Hotel SEO

For hotels, it is especially important to ensure that potential guests can find your property when searching for accommodations. And as mentioned above, long-tail keywords can help you with this. There are two main ways to do this:

Use Long-Tail Keywords in Meta Descriptions

If you want to get more traffic from your hotel website, then it’s important that you use long-tail keywords as meta descriptions. This can help boost the relevance of your content and make it more likely that people will click on it when searching for hotels. You can also include these keywords in the title tag so that Google knows what kind of content this is going to be about.

Use Long-Tail Keywords In Your Content

You should also consider including some long-tail keywords within each piece of copy. This will help you rank higher when people are searching for a hotel that meets their specific needs. For instance, if you’re writing about pet-friendly accommodations, make sure to include “pet-friendly hotels in your city” within the content.

Now that you know where to use the long-tail keywords, let’s discuss how exactly you need to do this.

Identify Potential Long-Tail Keywords

Before you embark on a long-tail keyword strategy, it’s important to know what the competition is doing. To do this, you’ll need to look at the keywords that are driving traffic to your website and those that are driving traffic to hotels in your industry.

Use keyword research tools

There are several tools available that can help you identify long-tail keywords related to your hotel, such as Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Keywords Everywhere. These tools can provide you with a list of keywords that people are searching for, as well as information on their search volume and competition level.

Once you have a list of potential long-tail keywords, it’s important to expand on them. This means using synonyms, related terms and other modifiers to make sure you’re targeting the right audience. For example, if your hotel offers luxury amenities and services then you can target phrases such as “luxury hotels in ____” or “luxury accommodations in ____”.

Analyse your competitors

It’s also a good idea to analyse the keywords your competitors are using. Tools such as SpyFu and SEMrush can provide you with insight into which keywords your competitors are targeting.

If you notice that your competitors are targeting a certain keyword, you can use this as an opportunity to differentiate yourself and create unique content around it. This will help boost your SEO ranking and increase the likelihood of people finding your hotel when they search for those terms.

Understand your customer’s search intent

When identifying long-tail keywords, it’s important to consider your customer’s search intent. For example, someone searching for “best hotel deals in Miami” is likely looking for a specific type of information. Targeting this keyword can help you attract guests who are ready to book a room.

A good way to figure this out is to think about the types of questions people might ask when searching for hotels in your area. Then, create content that answers those questions and includes long-tail keywords related to them. Some common phrases you can target include “hotel specials in ____”, “best hotel deals in ____”. These are all phrases that people are likely to use when searching for a hotel.

Analyse Your Hotel’s Current Keywords

The second key step in leveraging long-tail keywords to boost your hotel’s SEO is understanding how these keywords work. To do this, you need to analyse the top organic search results on Google for each of your target keywords.

• Understand where you currently rank for each of these terms in relation to others
• Identify which ones are driving traffic back to your website (or not)

Once you have that data, take a look at it and determine which ones are bringing leads and customers. Those might be good candidates for increasing visibility in the SERPs. Finally, look at which ones convert into bookings or other actions like checking out online reviews or contacting customer service representatives via email/phone call etc.

Here are a few ways to analyse your current keywords:

• Google Analytics: Check the keywords are driving traffic to your website.
• Search engine rankings: Check where your hotel’s website is ranking for different keywords.
• On-page elements: Check for keyword optimisation on title tags, meta descriptions, and H1 headers.
• Backlinks: Number and quality of backlinks pointing to your website.
• Heat map tools: To understand where users are clicking and where they’re dropping off on your website.

Optimise Your Content with Long-Tail Keywords

Now, let’s take a look into how you can use long-tail keywords to optimise your content:

Incorporate long-tail keywords in your hotel’s website content

When creating content for your hotel’s website, it’s important to incorporate long-tail keywords. These are highly specific search terms that people use when looking for something more specific than a generic keyword or phrase. By incorporating these words in your content, you can help ensure that the right people find your website when they are searching for what you offer.

For example, if you own a luxury hotel in Miami, you can target phrases such as “luxury hotels in Miami” or “luxury accommodations in Miami”. This will help ensure that people looking for those specific terms are able to find your website and book with you.

You should include your long-tail keywords in the content on your website where it makes sense to do so. This could include headings, titles, and even within body copy.

Create content around your target long-tail keywords

Once you’ve identified the most effective long-tail keywords for your hotel, it’s time to create content that focuses on those specific terms. This can include blog posts, videos, and other types of content that highlight the unique features and benefits of staying at your property.

When creating content, make sure to incorporate the long-tail keywords in the title and throughout the body copy. It’s also important to make sure that the content is engaging and provides value to readers – if it isn’t something they find interesting or helpful, then it won’t help your SEO efforts at all.

Build backlinks with long-tail keywords

Last but not least, another way to leverage long-tail keywords for SEO is to build backlinks. Backlinks are links from other websites that point back to your own. Each link serves as a vote of confidence in your website, which can help boost its ranking on search engines like Google.

When creating backlinks, be sure to include long-tail keywords in the anchor text (the clickable part of the link). This will help ensure that your website is associated with those keywords, which can improve its visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs).

In addition, try using long-tail keywords as anchor texts of backlinks when linking to other websites. This will ensure that the link is relevant and helps your website rank higher in the SERPs.

Use internal linking on your website to connect your pages

When linking to other pages of your website, be sure to include the target long-tail keyword in the anchor text. This will help search engines understand how the pages are related, and can improve their ranking on SERPs. Additionally, it will also help visitors navigate your website more easily.

For example, if you have a blog post about luxury hotels in Miami, you could link to other pages on your website related to that topic. This will help search engines understand the context of each page and how they are related.

Optimise your images by using keywords

In addition to text content, it’s also important to optimise the images on your website. This includes using relevant keywords in the file names, meta tags and alt tags of your images. Doing so will help search engines understand the context of what they are looking at more easily, which can improve the ranking of your website.

For example, if you have an image of your luxury hotel in Miami, you could name it “luxury-hotel-miami.jpg” and use the alt tag “luxury hotel in Miami”. This will help make sure that search engines understand what they are looking at and can index it properly.

Monitor and track your SEO performance

Finally, make sure to monitor your SEO efforts and track the performance of your long-tail keywords. This will help you understand what’s working and what isn’t so you can further optimise them in the future. With the right strategy, leveraging long-tail keywords can be a great way to boost your hotel’s SEO.

By following these steps, you can improve your hotel’s SEO and get more visibility for your property. Doing so will help drive traffic to your website, increase bookings and ultimately generate more revenue for your property.

Key Takeaways

• Leveraging long-tail keywords can be a great way to boost your hotel’s SEO.

• Use long-tail keywords in blog posts, videos and other types of content.

• Incorporate them into backlinks to help improve ranking on SERPs.

• Optimise images using relevant keywords in their file names and alt tags.

• Monitor and track your SEO performance to further optimise long-tail keywords.

• Start leveraging long-tail keywords today and start seeing the results!