If you’ve got a website, then the chances are you might have started a blog for it at some point – it’s commonly advised when seeking to boost the advertising of hotels. However, when was the last time you updated it or gave it any attention? If the answer is the day you pressed the set-up button, then it’s time for a rethink.
Blogging is an essential strategy for hotel marketers and the importance of a good one for boosting revenues should never be underestimated.Here’s how having a regularly updated hotel blog could help your business.
1. Better results in search engine optimisation If you’re not a big-name hotel brand, then travellers probably won’t know your property to search for it by name. They will instead take to Google to type in something like ‘Manhattan hotels’.If you have a property there and have been blogging about five top things to do in Manhattan or other related topics, you’ll be placed higher up the search rankings for those subjects – and you’ll be more likely to be found by those would-be guests looking for hotels in New York. According to Tech client, websites with a blog have up to 434 per cent more indexed pages, which represents many more opportunities to be discovered by searches.Don’t forget to update it regularly either, as the more indexed pages you achieve, the higher up the search rankings you’ll go.
2. Improved lead generation and conversion Once people know you have a blog on a topic they’re interested in, they’ll probably keep coming back to read it. As a result, you’re building engagement with those readers and should hopefully be at the forefront of their minds when they come to make a decision on where to holiday. According to Hubspot, marketers that use blogs achieve 67 per cent more leads than those that don’t, which is a lot of potential new relationships.
3. Better knowledge of your audience Analysing the blog posts you create will help you to find out what your readers like and what they share with their friends, as well as their browsing behaviour. Knowing more about your would-be guests should help you to better cater for them and convert them into paying customers.
See blogging as part of your wider digital marketing strategy and you should achieve better web traffic, new leads and increased revenues, all for a very positive return on investment. There’s no reason not to try it for 2017.
