Hotel SEO – Search Engine Optimisation Questions Every Hotel Web Designer Should Consider

“SEO or hotel Search Engine Optimisation should be an important part of the web design process, not an afterthought. Can you afford not to hire an SEO company to guide your web designer?”

Web designers are starting to understand the importance of Search Engine Optimisation and bringing in a hotel SEO company at the start of the design process. Your website design team no longer has to just deliver a beautiful website; it also has to achieve high Search Engine visibility. Here are specific questions to ask your SEO agency from a hotel website designer’s perspective.

How can a hotel website designer and hotel SEO company work together?

An hotel SEO company and hotel website designer should ideally work together to optimise a website. An SEO expert will analyse the technical infrastructure of the website and give their recommendations to the website designer. Depending on the development stage of the site, this may involve a navigation restructure, adding an XML Sitemap, adding Google Analytics to the site and changes to placement of copy on the page and call-to-action buttons and so on.

Will you be changing the website?

Unless a hotel website designer is well versed in the process of hotel SEO, the answer to this question will usually be a yes. An SEO company will not be able to provide any specifics until they have analysed your website in great detail but they should be able to give you a brief overview on what expected changes will be made, why the changes will be made, how they will be made and in what timeframe.

How do you achieve results?

This is one of the most important questions a hotel website designer can ask. You want to find a hotel SEO company that uses white hat SEO methods to achieve results. If an SEO agency mentions black hat SEO terms such as cloaking, doorway pages, invisible text, link farms and keyword stuffing, these are definite red flags. Black hat SEO can result in your website being penalised or even banned from Search Engines which can lead to lost revenue.

What is your link building strategy?

This is a very relevant question for hotel website designers to ask. The last thing you want is your website being linked from websites that are not credible or untrustworthy such as pharmaceutical and gambling websites. This is another black hat SEO technique to try and artificially boost your rankings in Search Engines. What you are looking for in a hotel SEO company is one that builds links naturally over time with quality, authoritative and trustworthy websites.

When can I expect to see results?

Unlike a hotel website design where it is possible to set a deadline, a new website may take three months or more to rank on a Search Engine. Be wary of any hotel SEO company who promises you that your hotel website will rank within two weeks or a short period of time as you may want to question their SEO practices that allows them to be able to guarantee this. It is up to a SEO consultancy to set realistic expectations at the start of an SEO campaign.

How do you measure SEO results?

One of the first things a hotel SEO company will ask a hotel website designer is to install Google Analytics on your site. Google Analytics is Web analytics software and will involve your hotel website designer inserting a tracking code on each page of your site. With this software installed, your SEO expert will have access to over 80 reports to provide feedback on SEO campaigns. An SEO consultancy should provide monthly reports and feedback on request from clients.

Do you guarantee rankings?

The answer to this question is very telling. A quality SEO firm understands what factors can help increase Search Engine visibility and improve Search Engine rankings but no ethical hotel SEO company can promise rankings. Search Engine rankings are dynamic and can change depending on Search Engine algorithm changes, your competitor’s activities, link building activities and so on. Be wary of any SEO agency that guarantees rankings at the start of an SEO campaign.

What is your fee structure?

A reputable SEO agency’s fee will most likely to be in the realm of $2000+ per month. You are paying for an SEO expert’s time, training, expertise and years of experience. If a company is offering to optimise your website for anything lower than that or promising to build 100 links for $100 for example, this may be a warning sign that they are not a reputable hotel SEO company. Like anything in life, you get what you pay for including SEO services.

There is little point in hiring a brilliant Web designer if your website has low Search Engine visibility and cannot be found easily on a Web search.  A website designer and SEO expert should ideally work together to ensure that your website starts off the SEO process, begins ranking while generating traffic and sales leads to contribute to your online return on investment. Contact us so we can  introduce our sister company, SEO Works and you can find out more about hotel SEO.

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