2013 Top Hotel Internet Marketing Strategies
This year saw major changes in the search arena with algorithms being constantly tweaked to provide the best results for consumers and to reduce the impact of spam. It is because of these changes that Milestone felt compelled to put together the following
Nature abhors a vacuum. The same holds true for search engines. This year saw major changes in the search arena with algorithms being constantly tweaked to provide the best results for consumers and to reduce the impact of spam. It is because of these changes that Milestone felt compelled to put together the following eight recommendations for hotels as they develop their online marketing plans for 2013.
1. Changes in Search Algorithms
- Search engines introduced several key changes in 2012 to the search algorithms through Panda and Penguin updates. Most of the changes were focused on getting higher quality, original content to rank high, as well as to focus on the freshness and engagement of the web content.
- In April 2012, Google launched Knowledge Graph, which was a major update to their search algorithm. Knowledge Graph puts the emphasis on semantic search and provides additional contextual information for the searched keyword using information from Wikipedia, Freebase, and websites.
- Search engines also launched the use of schemas for tagging website content making it easier for search engines to index the website more efficiently.
For 2013, we recommend upgrading your websites to include schemas, adding different engagement features, and focusing on high quality original content that can constantly be refreshed. Engagement and freshness can be driven by including polls, contests, events calendar, blogs, and user generated content such as reviews on the website. Milestone recently launched the latest version of our Content Management System Platform Galexi CMS 5.0, which enables hoteliers to include several of these elements with relative ease.
2. Mobile
With 97.3 million mobile users per month logging in on the Internet, and experts predicting that almost half of the U.S. population will be using mobile Internet by 2015, it is critical for hotels to have an optimized mobile site plus have a presence in key channels that consumers are accessing through mobile. These include hyper-local channels, such as Yelp, and social media channels.
To read the full article, visit Milestone Insights.
About Milestone Inc
Milestone drives online discovery and customer acquisition with our digital presence platform and performance marketing services. Over 2,000 companies in Hospitality, Retail, Financial Services and Automotive industries use Milestone to drive online growth. Our customers include global brands in hospitality, banking, retail, automotive, including Marriott, US Bank, One Nevada Credit Union, VMWare, Nissan, Motel6, Preferred Hotels, Sun Outdoors, mid-market companies, and SMBs.
Milestone platform includes Website CMS, Schema Manager, Local listings, Reviews management, FAQ Manager, and Analytics. In addition, Milestone offers Performance Marketing Services - Content, Design, SEO, Paid Marketing, and Analytics to our clients. Annually, over 300 million visitors use websites developed on Milestone CMS, 540M consumers click on content powered by Milestone Schemas, and 3.7B consumers search for businesses powered by Milestone Local. Milestone platform is amongst the highest-rated Martech platforms with awards and recognition from Forrester, G2, Adrian Awards, US Search Awards, Search Engine Land, CMS Wire and many more organizations.
