As the snow clears and the sun peaks it’s head out from behind the clouds, we get the urge to dust off the cobwebs and start afresh. So whilst we’re cleaning out cupboards and desk drawers, why not give a little tune-up to one of the most important parts of your hotel: your website.
There is no need for a total overhaul or hours of rewriting, a few small changes will make a big difference for your hotel’s presence in organic search results. So, what are you waiting for? Let’s get to it!
Here is what you need to add to your spring cleaning to-do list:
- Update your content
This should be the first on your list for the spring clean. Go through your seasonal content and make sure that outdated content is removed or updated. This means no more mentions of Santa Claus and Valentine’s Day dinners in 2017 lingering on your internal pages. Keeping this content around is an invitation for a higher bounce rate thanks to users clicking right off the page with nothing new or relevant to read.
- Give your Gallery a refresh
Images are key for users to get an idea of what your hotel is really like and entice them to make a booking. Now is the time to go through and make sure all your images are up to date and reflect the season (i.e. no snow-covered shots as the main feature of your homepage). While you’re updating your images, you should also go through and make sure they are all the right size, named properly with alt tags to match, and compressed, so as not to weigh down the page and make it slow to load.
- Clean up your pages
Coming out of the busy holiday season, you’re likely have a few pages of content or marketing landing pages dedicated to seasonal content and offers. Following up from the first point on updating content, if you don’t have a good reason to keep it around, don’t! Make sure pages that are no longer relevant are removed from the sitemap. Once you’re happy they are removed from the public, resubmit your sitemap in Google Search Console to make sure they are no longer being indexed.
- Check in on your Meta Data
Meta titles and descriptions may have been changed during the holiday season or new pages and content may have been added in the meantime, so going through your meta data and making sure it is all up to date is crucial. Make sure all keywords and phrases included are reflective of the content on the page and relevant to the goals for your organic search traffic.
- Make sure your Offers are up to date
Whilst the content on your website is key for your SERP (search engine results page) listings, your offers, and in the case of hotels your rateplans, are the heart of your business. Take some time to go through your offers and make sure old ones are no longer appearing, descriptions and images are suitable, and that the meta data is current.
- Revise your keywords
This is the time to review your keyword strategy and make sure that it is still relevant to your current goals. Go through all your meta data and website content to make sure that old keywords and phrases are removed and replaced with those that best fit your new strategy and current direction.
