Have 15 minutes to spare?
Since search engine optimization (SEO) brings you free traffic, giving your site a quick tuneup could be one of the best uses of your time. (Note: this requires basic knowledge of HTML editing, so if that’s not your thing, send this to your web designer.)
Without further ado, here is my SEO Checklist for hotel websites:
Keywords
- In the site URL?
- Density between 2-5%?
- In H1 and H2 headings?
- At the beginning and end of your page?
- In image ALT tags?
- In Meta tags?
- Avoid: keyword stuffing
Links
- Keywords in anchor text of links to your site?
- Quality sites (high pagerank) linking to you?
- Similar sites linking to you?
- Links from .edu and .gov sites?
- Avoid: too many outgoing links
- Avoid: linking to bad websites (low pagerank or link directories)
Meta tags
- Description tag created?
- Title tag – with a few top keywords?
- Keywords tag?
- Avoid: the Refresh tag
Content
- Is your content frequently updated?
- Is it unique?
- Is the code standards compliant?
- Avoid: old content
- Avoid: invisible text (keyword stuffing)
- Avoid: duplicate content
- Avoid: flash content
Some more resources to help you build a search-friendly website:
- SEO tools by SEO Chat
- SEO tools by SEO Book (great Firefox browser extension)
- Pagerank checking tool
- Web Standards
- Costly SEO mistakes you must avoid
- 21 Essential SEO Tips & Techniques
- 55 Quick SEO Tips Even Your Mother Would Love
Related posts:
- SEO for Hotel Websites – Best Practices for (re)Starting Right
- SEO tips for new websites
- The #1 Mistake Most Hotel Websites Make
- What hotels can learn from ecommerce websites
- Top SEO Myths Exposed
Need More Hotel Marketing Ideas?
Our new Savvy Hoteliers Guide to Hotel Marketing Ideas contains hundreds of tested tactics that work.
