It is necessary to apply oneself. To do this we can start with one of the aspects of Search Engine Optimization, the SEO On Page, that is, the strategy of optimizing your website for search engines and user experience. But of course, this requires optimizing code and content.
To make it better understood, when we cover SEO On Page, we think about keywords, hierarchy of information, prioritization of the most relevant content during navigation… we think about Google and our potential customers. But before even starting to modify the code, it is first necessary to lay the groundwork by performing a keyword research for the right people. How?
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Study your potential customers.
If you want to attract and create content for the right people with the right keywords, you need to find out what their motivations are when they travel, what they expect from that experience, what they will do during their stay in your hotel, etc. You need to understand who they are and why they come to you. And to do so, we create representations of our potential customers, which we call
buyer persona
.
Although by definition, they are semi-fictional representations, the buyer persona profiles that are built are not based on fiction. In fact, they are living elements that should be reviewed as the needs of your digital strategy change. These buyer personas are based on real data and real people and we can study them:
1. Using tools such as Google Analytics.
This will allow you to better understand the interests, needs and desires of your web users. Plus, you’ll know which sources lead them to your website before they book or register. And demographic reports will allow you to segment your potential customers based on their age, gender, location, etc.
2. Through interviews.
This will give you a more detailed idea of what attracts them, what motivates them and what they think about your products and services. Your staff at the destination, in this case, would be your best help. They are the ones who can get first-hand feedback from your end customers and let them talk about their experience.
And you may ask, what are buyer persona profiles for? What do you do with them?
Find the right keywords for them.
Buyer persona profiles make sense when we can use them in different online marketing strategies. With SEO in mind, the right keywords are the words that your buyer personas would type into search engines. That is, the information (content) they are looking for regarding their trip. Your hotel must have a specific buyer persona profile, with specific needs and expectations. How well you know them will result in a successful keyword search. And how do you start?
1. Make a list of keywords based on their relevance to your website.
Gather your marketing and sales team and brainstorm keywords for your business. On the one hand, think that search engines are smart, so all possible variations of keywords would work. On the other hand, keep in mind the consumption trends of your potential users, in each of the online channels.
2. Use ranking tools and related searches to expand your list.
With SEMRush you will be able to analyze how competitive they are and the volume of searches they have; and with Ubersuggest and Google Trends you will be able to see which are the search trends and searches related to the keyword you are analyzing. As you can see, you can get a whole range of keywords with semantic variations that work for your users.
3. Categorize keywords based on two classes.
On the one hand, the short-tail keywords should be those keywords whose purpose is to rank the main pages of your website, that is to say, keywords and services that generally have more competition; on the other hand, you will have the short tails that talk about your products and services, and that generally have more competition. long-tail keywords that work best on secondary pages, landing pages, blog posts, social networks… with which you can improve ranking and get qualified traffic.
4. Classify long-tail keywords according to the buying cycle of your buyer.
To ensure that your keywords are effective before you start generating new content, you need to know how to target the right people at the right time. To do this, we classify keywords based on the buying cycle(traveller’s journey) in which our buyer personas are in, i.e. how close potential customers are to booking:
Dreaming
(exploration stage, top of the funnel or TOFU): keywords based on consumer preferences in the travel sector in your area.
Planning
( middle of the funnel or MOFU): based on the different solutions and offers of experiences and activities that exist in your location.
Booking
(decision stage, bottom of the funnel or BOFU): based on the purchase decision and therefore on the options that your hotel brand can offer.
Performs a content audit.
It is a good idea to document the content that has already been published on your website and is still up to date. Based on the previous steps, you will be able to evaluate if it is relevant to your buyer persona, as well as classify it around the appropriate keywords. You may find that what you need to do is not to create new content, but to prioritize and recycle the content you already have, because it is still important.
As you can see, these are the first steps for any On Page SEO strategy. Once you have solved these previous steps, you can start with the optimization of the code and content.
