By discovering how
hotel SEO can help your website, you can maximize your visibility, attract potential guests, and drive more traffic to your boutique hotel website.
What is on-page SEO?
On-page SEO is the process of optimizing a series of elements on each webpage for both search engines and users. There are factors which are completely under your control. On-page refers to both the content and the HTML source code of each specific page and both can be optimized to gain your site more relevant traffic.
There are several on-page SEO elements, for example meta titles, meta descriptions, headings (H-tags), content, internal links and alt tags.
In this first part of our two-part blog series, we will cover 3 parts of on-page SEO: meta titles, meta descriptions, and headers.
They're the first interaction between your potential guests and your brand.
1.Meta titles
A meta title is the text used to accurately summarize the content on a web page. Title tags are displayed on search engine results pages as the clickable headline for a given result.
Search engines expect a meta title including relevant keywords and phrases that describe what the page is about.
The title is used in SEO to increase ranking for a keyword which people search for.
It's really important to write your meta titles as well as possible since they show in three key places- search engine result pages, social sharing, and web browsers.
At Aró, after keyword research and determining the top keywords people search for in relation to your boutique hotel, we create a meta title that will match those searches.
We pay special attention when writing meta title as each page on the website should have unique on-page SEO elements.
The result? Better positions on Google.
What is the importance of optimized meta titles?
They increase rankings for keywords and increase free clicks (website visitors) if they are the optimum length!
Meta title checklist
- Length: Meta titles that are too long will look less relevant to the searcher and less professional. Meta titles that are too short might miss some additional keywords people search for and more information about the page you want to show the exact keywords the person searched for. Accordingly, meta title length should be limited to 60 characters, including the spaces, and punctuation.
- Duplicate: Try not to repeat the same word in a title tag- duplicate meta titles go against Google's advice that every page should be unique and have a unique meta title.
- And: When you want to say 'and', you can use '&'. This will give you more space to put in various keywords in your meta title.
- Two different but related keyword phrases: Utilize "-" to break up your title tag in this case, but do not use more than one "-" in each meta title.
- Missing meta titles: A missing title tag means Google would automatically pull a meta title from the content, usually a header of the page, so the title isn't strategically optimized. As a result, you will get less traffic to your site.
2. Meta descriptions
A meta description is the text displayed under the meta title in the search results.
While meta titles are mean to be concise, a meta description is used to describe the page in more detail because it has more space. It's used to summarize a page's content.
At Aró, we make the most use of this space and make sure that the meta description of your webpages stand out in search result.
What is the importance of optimized meta descriptions?
They increase free traffic to the website. The more traffic to your hotel website, the more direct bookings.
Meta description checklist
- Length: Meta descriptions that are too long will be truncated and end in three dots "…" The message in the descriptions won't be carried across perfectly to the reader. On the other hand, descriptions which are too short are missing the opportunity to give more details about the page and the services offered on the hotel website. The text length should be 158 characters Including spaces and punctuation.
- Duplicate: Duplicate meta descriptions, as with other duplicate on-page SEO elements, go against Google's advice that every page should be unique.
- Call-to-action: Clearly describe what's on the page specially in the first few words. Include a strong call to action. for example, "book now!"
- Keyword: Utilize keywords or key phrases. pay attention to the fact that some of the keywords duplicate those that you used in the meta title.
- Missing meta description: This means the system will create a description from the content, usually the first few sentences from the page so the description may not be optimal. You will drive less traffic to your website because the description doesn't give them a good indication of what to expect when they click on the link. Google may also penalize the page if the associated metadata is not relevant.
3. Header (H1) Tags
On a web page, content is usually divided into sections, each with a heading.
The main header (H1) is the large text that you see at the top when you open a web page.
The H1 tag is used by search engine crawlers to learn what the page is about.
What is the importance of H1 tags?
Structured content is easy for users to read so headings give you a great chance to use your focus keyword and they can help improve rankings in Google.
Header (H1) Tags checklist
- Clear structure: Google and your audience prefer well-structured web pages with separate sections and distinctive headers. Users should get a basic idea or what each part of the page is about by skimming through the headers.
- Missing H1: Missing H1 tags signal that the page lacks structure and is not user friendly. A page may have a header but if it's not coded properly (i.e. <h1> Our Story</h1>) Google won't see it as a header.
- Duplicate H1 tags: Signal that the page is not unique because there is another page on the website with the same header. As previously mentioned, that is not recommended by Google and you will get less traffic to your hotel website.
Well-optimized meta titles, descriptions, and header tags are a must for your boutique hotel website.
Do you want to know if your website is up to scratch?
Get a free audit that measures these elements and much more!