In this article, we will explain how to optimize your website in the best way for search engines such as Google. This is called SEO (Search Engine Optimization).



Fill in meta title and descriptions

For every page, you should fill in the meta title and description. These will be used in search engines to give the user an impression of what will be on the page. Make sure to include your hotel’s name in the title and description, as well as the main keyword and a call to action. The best practice would be to stay under the maximum amount of characters as shown in the Yoast plugin.

Read more about the SEO Yoast plugin and tips & tricks, in this article.



Create separate SEO pages

At OHM we believe that the main structure of the website (the homepage & main website pages such as rooms) should be focused on the best user experience possible and on conversion. If you want to target certain keywords, we would advise creating a separate page on which you put the specific content. These SEO pages should be excluded from the main menu, as their purpose is to attract visitors through search engines solely. You can use the keywords in the page’s URL to give it even more SEO power.



Choose one clear keyword per page

In order to make it easy for a search engine to decide what your page is about, you should focus on one keyword per page. If there are 2 or more pages focusing on the same keyword, search engines have trouble deciding which one is the best option. The result is that there are multiple low-ranking pages of your website for the keyword, instead of one powerful page that can rank highly.



Write for actual human beings

Make sure to always write for actual people – not for search engines. Search engines have become smarter and smarter, so you do not have to limit yourself to only mentioning the same keywords over and over again.

  • Use short sentences
  • Use easy to understand words
  • Use approx. 600 words
  • Mention the keyword in the H1 and in the first paragraph
  • Highlight the important words in bold
  • Use synonyms of the keyword
  • Make sure the information has added value for the user

Build links

The more quality links that point towards your website, the more important you are deemed by Google. Therefore, building links is an integral part of SEO. A quality link comes from a website that is authoritative and trustworthy. This could be a big online magazine, a nationally or internationally known newspaper, or a tourism board website. Make sure the link goes to the relevant page on your website (not necessarily the homepage) and keep on building links regularly. Old links lose their value over time.

On top of that, internal links are important as well. This way, Google can decide how the page fits in with the rest of the website and how important it is. An ‘orphan page’ (a page with no incoming internal links) is considered a bad practice.



Optimize imagery

Images and videos play a role in SEO as well. They can give extra strength to your page and they can show up separately in a normal or image search. They create extra entrances to your website. The best practice would be to name the image file with the most important keywords of the page, then upload and give it a title containing the keywords as well. Lastly, you can fill in the alt text, describing what is to see on the image for Google – and also visually impaired users.