As owner or manager of a small hotel or B&B, your website is an important part of your marketing strategy. But if you’re like most small business owners, web design is not your expertise. Here are a few tips on how you can increase the productivity and traffic of your website, with some minimal effort. And, you don’t need to turn yourself into a web tech expert. Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) is a skill that can be learned. There are many ways for most novice website managers to get improved search engine rankings, and secure a high search engine listing.
Linking is an important part of your SEO strategy. You want to get as many independent, 3rd party websites to link to your site as possible. Sites of any type linking to you are beneficial, but the more authoritative and respected sites are preferred. While linking is important, good on-site SEO is also necessary.
Obtaining a good listing on Google or any of the other search engines is not as difficult as some consulting firms may tell you. There are rules and standards to follow, and if you play the game properly then the end outcome should be in your favor. The tips we’ll offer are not really secrets. Some consultants who offer their services for a price offer to divulge incredible secrets to you. But, this information is available freely on the internet, and for free. You might want to spend a little time reading some Web SEO or SEM (Search Engine Marketing) Blogs. Just type “Web SEO techniques” into your search engine search bar.
So here are some so-called “secret” tips on getting an excellent position for your website in Google, and improving your search engine ranking. You may know about meta tags, and have been informed that most meta tags aren’t used by search engines. The most important search engines, Google, Yahoo, and MSN Live do not divulge all there search listing methods. They withhold a lot of their ranking methods as secret. After all, they don’t want to let each other know how they do their magic. Nevertheless, don’t let anyone tell you that many top search engines do not use meta tags like the Description tag, because they do. It is very important for your B&B, inn, or hotel website to have a well written and complete description meta tag. This tag may not be used in its entirety, however, what you write here will definitely have an impact.
The keyword meta tag is another feature that has been in use since the humble beginnings of the internet 15 or more years ago. The most authoritative search engines like Google won’t be so impressed by what you tell them your keywords are. After all, anyone can post a list of their most important keywords. However, they decide for themselves the relevance of the page from the real content text and “Alt” tags on the page. Google no longer seeks keyword repetition to understand what you are writing about. They have an algorithm called LSI, which will determine the meaning of your page from various unique character strings it contains.
To maximize the potential for your hotel or bed & breakfast website to reach top rankings in search engine listings, the Description meta tag is important. But, there are some other HTML tags you should use. Although little used, the Keywords meta tag should not be ignored. It is a trivial matter to enter it, and cannot do any harm. There is evidence that some search engines still use it. The rest of the meta tags are of no consequence.
We’ve only touched upon the surface with some basic tips, including on-site SEO using Meta tags. Stay tuned for our next article, which will include other important HTML tags you should be focusing on in your B&B Hotel website to maximize your search engine potential.
Contact BedBreakfastTraveler.com or Instant World Booking for more on how to market your bed and breakfast, inn, or small hotel on the internet.
