Is your hotel trying to get more direct bookings? Or trying to reach certain types of travelers? Maybe you just want to share updates about the latest renewal? There are countless reasons why you might want more traffic for your hotel website, but there isn't always a clear answer on how to get it. Moreover, acquisition channels such as Facebook and Google Ads continue to rise year after year. Many marketers are guilty of trying to funnel money into problems they don't understand. The good news is that there are plenty of ways to increase website traffic for free with a little creativity.
Where do you start, especially if you don't have a marketing budget? In this article, we will outline 8 ways to increase website traffic for free. You don't need to be a computer expert or a professional writer to implement these ideas either; Our simple yet impactful solutions will help you increase website traffic while keeping costs down. But if your hotel has some marketing spend available, we also share some ideas for investment marketing that will give you a big bang for your buck.
Marketing Research
Many potential guests find hotel websites on search engines. They type in a search term, then click on a result that looks attractive. How does your hotel measure up to the competition? Does your hotel show up on search Try searching for some relevant popular keywords on your favorite search engine and see how your website looks in the search results. Does the title sound catchy and attractive? Is all text accurate? Optimizing your website content in search results is an easy way to increase website traffic for free!
Suppose you are a hotel guest trying to book a room in your city. What are the things you are looking for? Create a list of 20-30 terms and analyze the types of content that come up when you search for them. Identify areas of your website that can satisfy the searcher's intent for those queries, and if you don't have any, consider creating technical SEO pages to capture search traffic for those terms. For example, if your hotel is in San Francisco, you might want to create a page for "Restaurants near the Golden Gate Bridge" or "Hotels Nearest to Napa Valley and Wine Country."
You want to target low-volume, content-rich competition terms. Google is getting better and better at identifying the best content for searchers, so make sure you're writing for people, not bots. Create valuable content that actually solves customer and booking pain points.
If your hotel has some marketing budget available, you can take your search results game to the next level by purchasing pay-per-click advertising through platforms such as Google AdWords.
SERP Optimization
In order to improve SERP click-through rate and increase traffic, you need to optimize your meta descriptions and titles with keywords.
● Meta Description: Use between 155-165 characters, show the value the reader will get, and make it actionable.
● Meta Title: Use 60 characters or less, put the keyword near the beginning, and indicate value or interest.
Use links within your content
If you create and publish content on your site, be sure to include at least three to four links to other pages. Your ranking will improve, the traffic to your website will increase and your visitors will surf your site for longer earning you more value.
Improve your page speed
Speed is a key factor so the faster your site loads, the better. Make sure to optimize image file sizes, page structure, and third-party plugins.
With Google PageSpeed Insights tool, you can measure the performance of your website and see how it is developing.
Update your content regularly
You might be surprised what refreshing content can do even if your post ranks on the first page of Google. Even evergreen content loses its luster over time. You'd be amazed at what a new post can do for your website. You can improve your CTR and rank higher in SERP if you update your posting history.
Changing a few words and updating the post date will not necessarily increase your traffic.
Here are some strategies on how to increase traffic:
● Add or update information and statistics.
● Attach new pictures to clarify concepts.
● Update links with fresh sources.
● Make sure to fix broken links and images.
● Use the Search Console add new keywords.
● Ensure that your meta title and meta description are correct.Get Backlinks
The quantity and quality of your links are among the most influential factors for Google. The more links you receive from trusted sites, the easier the site domain authority will be and the higher your DA, the higher your site will rank and the more traffic you will get.
Here are some helpful strategies:
● Write guest posts on trusted websites and include a link to your site in the body of the post or author bio.
● Use a search engine optimization (SEO) tool that makes your website a replacement for broken links on other websites.
● Use original and high-quality content.
Use Google Keyword Search Feature:
The Search Keyword Feature of The Google Ads tool helps in finding keywords, as the tool suggests many related keywords.
● Google Trends: Google Trends provides access to a largely unfiltered sample of actual search requests made to Google. It's anonymized no one is personally identified categorized determining the topic for a search query and aggregated grouped together.
● KWFinder: KWFinder is a Keyword Research Tool for Search Marketing. It meets the need for keyword expansion: generating more keywords to position a site on. It provides a proprietary index value for SEO difficulty and insight into the competitive landscape in pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.
● Keyworddit: Keyworddit It's a digital marketing tool that extracts long-tail and seed keywords directly from subreddits, helping you find topics that people are searching for. Our Keyworddit review dives into this Reddit keyword tool to help you decide if it'll work for you.
● Google Keyword Planner: Keyword Planner helps you research keywords for your Search campaigns. You can use this free tool to discover new keywords related to your business and see estimates of the searches they receive and the cost to target them.
Online Reputation Management and Reviews
It's no secret that good guest reviews are essential to a hotel's success. But asking guests to write reviews isn't the only important part of managing your hotel's online reputation. No one wants to receive a negative comment, but these are the most important reviews a hotel owner should respond to. A negative review offers the hotelier the opportunity to explain his side of the situation, use the problem as a training opportunity, and reiterate the hotel's goal of providing excellent service. Responding to these reviews carefully allows the hotelier to turn a negative review into a positive impression for anyone who reads the review. And when a positive review is posted, be sure to respond to it as well, perhaps with a note of gratitude for the good feedback and that you hope to welcome guest for another stay soon.
While many general managers or other hotel leaders like to handle guest reviews of their properties, hotels that want to raise the bar on their reputation management can partner with a company that provides reputation management software, which provides responsive review services and insightful analytics.
Compelling website and Blog Content
Even if you have top-notch SEO and amazing guest reviews, people won't spend a lot of time on your website if it doesn't have engaging content. Whether you have a simple website or an existing hotel blog, you can incorporate new and interesting content without spending any money. Consider doing a little SEO research to determine what keywords people are searching for in your area, and then write an article about it. Maybe start an Employee Spotlight interview program or post a bunch of guest photos. You can also write an article about an event or celebration in the area and ask event organizers to share the post on their social media channels to receive additional traffic. The possibilities are endless for engaging hotel blog content!
Are you interested in more content for your website or blog? Consider hiring a professional writer or content agency to create content that really shines. Content agencies can also help you develop a strategic direction for your blog or delve into SEO. Major distribution and marketing players like TravelClick can offer everything from hotel websites to content marketing, video, and more.
Website SEO
We have already established that potential guests often use search engines to find hotel locations, so spending some time on search engine optimization (SEO) of your website can allow guests to find it more easily. It doesn't take an SEO expert to make impactful changes; Some of the SEO tips you can implement today include adding H1 and H2 formatting to your headlines, compressing large images to improve site speed, and adding internal links. If you edit your website with Wordpress, add free plugins like Yoast to see the SEO instructions for each page.
Are you ready to level up your search engine optimization? Partner with a professional SEO agency for more advanced expertise. An agency can help you decide which keywords to target, discover who your competitors are, and provide ideas for blog posts or content.
Social Media Posts
Your hotel probably has social media accounts, but are you using them to their fullest potential? Up your social media game by organizing a giveaway for a free room night, where people can enter the contest by following a hotel account, liking a post, or tagging a friend in a comment. The giveaway helps you build brand awareness without any marketing expenditure. Some other social media ideas include creating an attractive hotel hashtag that travelers can use or reposting photos of guests. You can also post fun things happening in your area, like holiday celebrations or sporting events.
If marketing funds are available, you can increase your social media presence by running paid ads on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. These advertising platforms allow you to target very specific guest profiles, such as families, foodies, or business travelers. marketing spending is flexible; You can set daily budgets starting at just $5 or $10.
Email Marketing
Hotels naturally build a database of guests' email addresses by sending out reservation confirmations and receipts, but the communication doesn't have to stop after a guest checks out. Leverage this list of email addresses with your email marketing, which will encourage recipients to visit the hotel's website and book directly. Instead of sending an email from Outlook with the entire database in a BCC field, try using a free email tool like Mailchimp to get analytics like open rate and link clicks.
Larger hotels or hotels with more sophisticated marketing strategies should consider upgrading their email marketing technology to a hotel CRM (Customer Relationship Management). Although these systems are not free, they provide more advanced options and analytics to take guest communications to the next level.
Video Marketing
Add video marketing to your content strategy, as statistics show that 77% of internet users between the ages of 15-35 use YouTube to consume video content.
You can create videos for Instagram or Facebook Stories, Live Videos, IGTV, Facebook Watch, YouTube, and more.
Learn From Analytics and Optimize for CRO
You might be thinking, "Enough with the acronyms already!" While you may not have heard of CRO or conversion rate optimization, you probably understand that it is important to convert someone browsing your website into someone who makes a booking. Hotel owners can determine their conversion rate by signing up for a free Google Analytics suite, which will show how many people have viewed their website and how many people have clicked on certain links, such as the "book now" button. If your website is getting a lot of traffic but not a lot of bookings, maybe the "Book Now" button is hard to find or the link is broken. Some improvements to your website can make big changes to your conversation rate.
Need help understanding all the analytics out there? Partner with experts from a company like Saber who can help with cutting edge web design services and engine booking technologies.
Knowledge of The Competitor
Your revenue management team looks at your group's competitive rates on a daily basis, but do you ever check their hotel websites? See the scope of the competition for ideas for content, keywords, social media posts, and more. Maybe sign up for our email newsletter to get the inside scoop on email marketing strategies. Best of all, gaining this kind of competitor knowledge is completely free!
Once you've mastered our eight ways to increase website traffic for free, it might be time to consider setting aside a dedicated internet marketing budget. Paid strategies can bring more guests to your website, which leads to more direct bookings, and prove that investing in your hotel website can pay off. When your hotel reaches this point, consider partnering with a digital solutions provider such as TravelClick for Demand360 and Rate360 who can share experiences beyond what free tools can offer.
Ways to Increase Website Traffic [Paid]
The methods that you pay for using them in order to increase the traffic of your website are:
Connect with influencers.
Marketing your website through influencers is a very suitable option to increase your website traffic. When influencers post links to your website, you take advantage of their audience to drive traffic to your website.
Use funded ads on social media
Funded ads on social media are very effective ways to reach a large number of target audiences and very accurately. This you can use it to increase traffic to your website.
Use Google Ads
Google Ads is an effective way that you can use to promote your website, and reach a large number of potential visitors, as it enables you to accurately reach people who are already interested in what you offer on your website.
In short, these are the best ways to increase traffic to your website. We hope it will be useful to you, and do not forget to share the article with others so that the benefit will spread.
التسميات
SEO