How to Use SEO to Win More Hotel Booking Revenue

1. How to use SEO
to win more hotel
booking revenue
7 essential tips for online hotel booking sites
An Expedia Affiliate Network eBook

2. Introduction
SEO Matters
How many online hotel That’s why you need to We’ll cite some great
bookings start with a be good at search engine references and resources
search engine? More than optimization (SEO). And that’s for you to deepen your
you can rightfully ignore. why we have produced this understanding of SEO. These
eBook, outlining seven top are all gathered at the back!
Search engine performance tips to help you rank higher
has a big impact on your on the right search terms,
revenues. Traffic from search earn that traffic and convert
is more profitable than traffic it into revenues.
from pay-per-click ads. And,
since paid traffic’s getting Why is it so important?
more expensive, it makes a lot Because, done well, SEO
of sense to focus more on the is the most cost-effective way
organic kind. of generating traffic to your
website. These tips will
The good news: there are lots help you.
of things you can do to improve
your search engine rankings. Some of the tips may seem
obvious but, in our experience
The bad news: there are of working with hundreds of
thousands of travel websites EAN partners, many of them
hoping to win the exact same are still not widely practiced.
traffic you’re aiming for. For you, that’s an opportunity.

3. The golden
rule of SEO
Search Rank Average Click- This one is simple: the higher Conclusion?
Position Through Rate you rank on any given search You need to rank as highly as
term, the more traffic you get. possible on the search terms
1 36.4%
2 12.5% that matter the most to your
3 9.5% The top ranking listing on any business. Page one is a must.
4 7.9% search results page gets 36% Beyond that, you might as well
5 6.1% of the clicks. And the top three not be there.
6 4.1%
results get 58% of the traffic.
7 3.8%
8 3.5% (source: Zink)
9 3.0%
10 2.2% After these three coveted
positions, the traffic falls
off steeply.
Click Thru Rate
40%
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
Search Rank Position

4. The second
golden rule of SEO
Google and the other engines The big factors are: These factors indicate
invest billions ensuring they to Google how well a page
return the most relevant results Page and domain level on your site should rank for
to users. link metrics relevance towards a specific
Including your page and phrase.
The best way to rank higher is domain authority; the number
to deliver relevant content and of sites linking to it; the anchor We could write an entire book
make that content easy text of those links, etc. on each – and many have been
to discover. written. But the tips that follow
Keyword usage focus on the low-hanging fruit,
Trying to beat the system or Using keywords on the the quick wins that many online
trick the search algorithm is the page and in title tags, etc. hotel booking sites still aren’t
old way of doing SEO – it will getting right.
eventually be penalized. Social metrics
Sharing on Facebook, Twitter
Put the user first and you’ll activity, Google, etc.
always do better.
Page level traffic
It helps to understand the Reviewing click-through rates
factors that Google uses and bounce rates from Google
in its algorithm so you can for each keyword.
optimize your content.
SEOmoz summarises these in
an excellent report on search
factors [see the references
section at the back of this
eBook].

5. 1
Get your niche and
Tip:
keywords right
The most competitive search ‘Romantic Miami Honeymoon Keyword research tools
terms – like ‘cheap hotels’ – Hotels’ is a winnable niche – How do you find out how
are far too difficult to win. as long as you’ve got
many searches a given
a lot to say about romance,
Success in SEO depends honeymoons, hotels keyphrase has and how
on defining your niche so and Miami. competitive it is? There
that you can compete for are lots of tools to help.
keywords that have plenty ‘Montreux Jazz Festival
of traffic but aren’t too Hotels’ will be easier to win Google’s own keyword
competitive. than ‘Switzerland Hotels’. tool is a popular one.
SEO Book has also done
Look at your offer and Yes, the ‘long tail’ search an excellent collection
determine the things you’re terms have fewer searches of keyword tool reviews.
uniquely great at. Then than the big ones. But if you
SEOMoz has a good one
build your SEO strategy can rank highly and win a
around these. greater share of this traffic, too. You’ll find them all in
you’re better off than being the References section.
on page two for the monster
search terms.
Search Volume
Generic Terms Specific Terms

6. 2
Get your site
Tip:
structure right
A clear, intuitive site structure Three action points: Typical crawl errors
helps search bots (and Search bots can trip
humans) find their way around • Decide on the most
important information your up on things they can’t
your site so they can index all
of your content. users need – or tasks they read, like:
want to complete – and
• issing or
M
A clear structure will also make make them easy to discover
and reach. blocked pages
sure that the search engines
give your most important • uplicate page content,
D
pages the highest authority. • Submit a site map to Google titles, descriptions
to help make sure your site
is indexed properly.
• issing titles or
M
descriptions
• Test crawl your site to uncover • edirects or
R
any problems. Try SEOMoz canonical URLs
Pro Tools, Screaming Frog
or Xenu for this. •
Logins, frames
or input forms

7. Continued:
Get your site
2
structure right
Tip:
1. Personalisation – Allowing visitors 2. Filter results – Shoppers love to
to customise the presentation to suit tune results to suit preferences. These
their specific needs is a conversion can also be inspirational – “Party town!”
magnet.
Logo Flights Hotel Car Rental Travel Guides North America | Global Login
Flights Flights + Hotel
Continent Locations: Filters:
Prices:
Please select... Top 30 All Arts and culture
Canada Under £300 Beaches
Departure City
Mexico £300 - £350 History
Please select... United States £350 - £400 Party Town
Dates: Over £400 Scenery
Please select...
3.
Spectator Sport Visual presentation of
information – Information is presented
dynamically on a map, making it easy
for visitors to browse and select options
that are interesting to them.
Nuuk
£000.00
Moscow
£000.00
Vancouver London
£000.00 £000.00
Beijing
New York Casablanca £000.00
Tokyo
£000.00 £000.00
£000.00
Melbourne Alindao
£000.00 La Paz £000.00 Sidney
£000.00 £000.00 Christchurch
£000.00
Auckland
£000.00
Suva
£000.00

8. 3
Generate quality
Tip:
content
Links are the single most Original Add social content
important success factor in Search engines don’t like Reviews, ratings and
SEO. And the greatest way to duplicate content. You need to user-generated content
get good links is through fresh create your own. are great for SEO and
and useful content.
have the added benefit
Engaging
Great content is what people The goal is not just to get
of driving conversion
want – and what search people to read or view it; once people are on site.
engines value the most. it’s to get people to share it. Reevoo and Distilled have
published an excellent
We talk about this in more Relevant eBook on user-generated
depth in our eBook, How to The content has to speak to content for SEO.
use Content to Drive Hotel the specific topic or task that
Bookings but the key the user is most interested in.
is to create content that meets
four criteria: Keyword-rich
Use the exact terms that
prospects use in their
searches.
We can all pretty readily
distinguish between great and
poor content. Put in the effort,
add a lot of value for your users
and the search engines will
reward you for it.

9. 4
Tip:
Incorporate relevant
keywords on landing
pages
People don’t just come in Try creating dedicated Add urgency
to your site at the home page. landing pages by hotel Attracting traffic is half
Search engines drive traffic attribute:
the battle. Converting it to
to webpages across your site. ‘Spa Hotels’, ‘Romantic Hotels’
It’s always a great idea to help or ‘Pet-Friendly Hotels’ would bookings is the other half.
them (and your visitors) out by all benefit from a dedicated Make sure you build a
adding keywords on each page. page full of relevant content. bridge from your content-
centric landing pages to
For generating hotel bookings, your booking wizard –
think of content that’s relevant
with lots of offers and
About Us | Responsible Business | Careers | News | Contact | Blog
for someone who’s actually Spa Example
ready to book.
Home | Our Hotels | Conferences Meetings | Business Travel | Spa | Fitness | Golf | Weddings Occasions | Food Drink | Offers | Gift Vouchers
Spa Homepage | Spa Days | Spa Promotions | Spa Breaks | Leisure Clubs Membership
urgency messages.
A general ‘Travel Guide’ to
a destination is good content
but it will mostly attract people
in the earlier stages of research
– or people who have already Leisure and Spa membership
booked and are planning
their visit.
Spa Fitness
Spa Days Spa Offers
Spa Breaks Spa membership

10. 5
Earn
Tip:
backlinks
Backlinks to your site from Don’t do this
sites with high authority are This is bad link-building:
gold dust for SEO. But these
links don’t happen by accident, • Go for quantity over
they’re the result of your quality – or get too many
excellent content – the content links, too fast
that people are proud to link to. • Have similar, perfectly
optimized anchor text
Link-building shortcuts tend across many links
to fail. If your link-building • Have lots of links on
process isn’t natural, you could worthless or unrelated sites
get penalized by the search • Focus all your links on just
engines. a few pages
All of this will be suspicious
to the search engines – as well
it should be.

11. 6
Get your title tags
Tip:
and descriptions right
Every page on your website Example of great use of
has ‘meta-data’ that describes the keywords “Romantic
what each page is about. You Getaways”:
need to optimize this meta-
data so search spiders will Action points:
know exactly what each page
is about – and which keywords • Put the most important
it’s relevant for. keywords at the beginning of
the title tag
And your page descriptions • Limit the title tag to 70
are the snippets that come characters
up in the search result pages, • Give each page a unique title
so make sure these are clear and description
and compelling. They may • Make page descriptions
not matter much to the search short and active, with clear
engines but they’re the things calls to action
that convince people to click • Limit page descriptions
through to your site. to 150 characters
50 Best Romantic Getaways - Articles | Travel + Leisure
www.travelandleisure.com/articles/50-best-romantic-getaways-2010
Rediscover romance this year by getting away to one of these hot spots.

12. 7
Use well-structured
Tip:
URLs
A proper URL structure A good example:
helps the search engines
do their jobs better: indexing www.yourtravelsite.com/Las-Vegas-Hotels
your content under the right
keywords. A bad example:
So place the most important www.yourtravelsite.com/appperformMDLPDealsContent
keywords as close to the ?dealid=vegasvacationcnt=PKH–em_htLas-Vegas-Hotels
domain as possible in
your URLs. And if you change your URL structure,
make sure to set up 301 redirects from
the old URLs to the new – or you lose
all that SEO juice you’ve worked
so hard to earn.

13. A Five-Step
SEO Process
1. Perform your keyword research
2. evelop content for your most
D
important keywords
3. lan your user experience and
P
site structure
4. romote your content for
P
link-building and sharing
5. rack your performance
T
to keep improving

14. Conclusion
SEO’s best when it contributes to a great user experience on your
site – visitors coming to relevant pages based on their search
phrase. And that’s what the search engines are constantly working
to reinforce. Organic traffic is the gift that keeps giving (as long as
you stick to the right principles), while paid traffic gets more and
more expensive. We hope this eBook has given you some insights
that will lead to changes that improve your SEO performance.
And we’ll see you at the top of search results for
“_______ _______ Hotels”!

15. SEO References Tools About Expedia Affiliate Network
Google Webmaster Tools Expedia Affiliate Network (EAN) is part of Expedia
Google Analytics Inc., the world’s leading online travel company.
Google Website Optimizer
Google AdWords Keyword Tool EAN creates the tools and technology that help
millions of travelers find the perfect hotels for
SEOmoz their next trips. As the world’s fastest-growing
Search Engine Factors report private label travel affiliate network, EAN works
with over 10,000 partners in 33 countries to turn
SEO Book their web traffic into hotel bookings and happy
Collection of keyword customers.
research tools
EAN helps companies airlines, online travel
Reevoo and Distilled eBook agencies and search marketers maximise their
on user-generated content Total Partner Return™ through a combination
and SEO of the world’s best hotel inventory, an optimized
technology platform and the best partner support
The EAN blog – full of best-practice in the business.
advice for our partners
Find out more at ean.com.
Follow us on Twitter: @ExpediaEAN