Google recently launched (August 2022) a “helpful content update” to encourage more people-focused content. Due to this shake-up, many search rankings have changed and will continue to do so over the coming weeks.

What has changed?

Google does not want people to be gaming the system and merely producing content to rank well on search engines, they want people's first content, and they will reward and punish accordingly.

So people who write blog posts purely designed to get traffic and not focused on serving their audience will lose out.

Interestingly, Google has stated that the length of a blog post is not a definitive ranking factor, so quality over quantity of words will continue to be imperative.

What does this mean for hotels?

Hotel blogs should stick to subjects their hotel is positioned to be an expert in. The presence of a hotel within a community is in and of itself a strong indicator of authenticity and should be leveraged in content strategy.

Hotels seeking to maximize their SEO should seek niche opportunities relevant to their theme and purpose.

If a hotel is located in a trendy art district, for example, and is already integrated into that community, it has the credentials to produce original content around associated topics. This gives hotels the edge over opportunistic bloggers.

Tip: Your staff's input could be helpful if you, for example, were to base opinions on your chosen niche terms from their perspective.

Niching down is more important than ever.

Forget about ranking for generic search terms that contain hotels or accommodations, you will never rank at the top of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Instead, focus on your hotel's niche and keyword opportunities relevant to your niche.

The foremost opportunity with this update is that hotels will be better able to stand out with their content since they are credible local experts.

Hoteliers must repurpose their SEO content and get more niche focused on original insights and first-hand knowledge. A solid local SEO strategy should support this, which will help your hotel rank well in general.

How existing content is being affected

Content that Google considers unhelpful will start to become classified over the coming weeks and lose its rank status. The process is automated with Google AI sifting out websites that fail the new criteria. It could take months for sites that have subsequently made improvements to see a return to their previous status.

The update has started with English language websites and will be rolled out to affect other languages over the coming weeks.

You might suffer if your blog posts were written by a professional and did not have a unique touch or original content.

The critical thing to remember is the relevance of your posts in answering the questions for which the keywords are optimized. If the reader leaves with many unanswered questions and searches further, this will signal low relevance, which will hurt your SEO ranking.

What can you do?

Start removing unhelpful content from your site and focus on your chosen niche. Make sure you are credible within your niche based on how your hotel positions itself.

Think quality over quantity content, as lots of “unhelpful” content designed to get traffic will hurt your overall SEO even if you have a few gems in your content catalog.

Takeaways

Hotels are in a solid position to benefit from this update since they have an authentic claim to local knowledge and community ties.Hotels need to be strategic about the content that they are producing and ensure that keyword relevance is aligned with their strengths and expertise.

Keep your audience in mind when producing content, and ensure you answer their questions!

David Scott
Indy Hotel Management