Optimize your website for search engines.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of improving a website to attract more visitors from the search engines. This is a fundamental step that you cannot skip, since search engines look for your page keywords to find out what’s in them. And which are the best techniques you can apply? Using keywords, creating content around them, optimizing all your pages and others practices are the most important ones that you can check by doing this test.
Create content with a purpose.
Nowadays there are no space limitations to deliver your message, especially if you use the Internet. However, there is so much information on the net that winning your potential customers attention can be a problem. And how can you draw their attention? By creating content. Content is the message that your Inbound strategy delivers to your visitors, leads, customers and promoters.
There are many ways to deliver that message, but to do this you first need to think about what content to use. And in the Attraction stage of this methodology the content is what your blog posts, videos, website pages and social media publishing is about. A hotel that wants to create valuable content for its future clients has to get involved in a content process that has four steps:
1. Content planning
Its purpose. All content planning begins with a purpose; it has to have a goal. Your hotel’s website content, in this case, has to attract strangers.
Its format can be very diverse: videos, posts, infographics, guides, maps, eBooks, check lists, etc. Keep in mind that the same message can be delivered through different formats but the best is when it adapts to the user’s consumption preferences in order to satisfy him. The information in your content is what helps people reach their goals and its design is what makes it more accessible and appealing
Its subject is one of the most important parts. The best content is what prospects want to read, share and the one they want to go back to. Base your content on your potential customers needs when they want to plan their trips. Offer them this information in your blog section and don’t talk about your products or services unless is in your product pages. Remember that you are selling experiences, which is what current travelers are asking for. To get a more accurate idea of the topics that may interest them, you can do keyword research, look at forums, social networks, FAQs and learn about their goals.
2. Creation of content
Always focus on the content for your buyer personas and what stage they are in according to the Traveler’s Journey. Your buyer persona is the prospect you’re trying to get by generating educational content of value. And the Traveler’s Journey allows you to customize the content based on the stage of the journey in which this buyer persona is. That is, it allows you to direct the content in a more appropriate way to meet his needs at every stage (dreaming, planning and booking). Remember that the more specific the content is, the better. This way you will attract more qualified visitors who are more likely to become customers.
In addition, less is more. Keep in mind that when people are planning their trips, they often don’t have a lot of time to research. Which is also known as the Google’s micro-moments. Remember that it’s important that your content is easy to consume by focusing on both being concise and using an attractive format. And the format that is most often consumed is video.
3. Content distribution
Your content is as relevant as its distribution. For example, creating content for a blog post in you website won’t be enough if later people won’t reach it through organic search. Help your SEO with the best distribution practices. Spend as much time promoting your content as the time you spent when you created it. The right distribution technique delivers the right content to the right people in the right time.
Think that users (and your potential guests) spend most of their online time in social media platforms. If you want these potential clients to get to your hotel’s website you have to promote your content in platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter.
4. Analysis
For an effective Inbound strategy you need to analyze the content efficiency as well as the keywords your buyer personas use to find you. This is a vital step. So before you begin this content process once again, you have to make sure that it worked in the first place, and of course, what you can improve. So for next step you should collect everything you’ve learnt with the analysis, repeat what was working and stop doing what went wrong.
The measurement criteria you should have in mind are: the number of visits; the leads generation; social influence and how many times your content has been shared in networks; the number of inbound links to build authority; and the fulfillment of the content expectations by subject or format.
