Hotels and hospitality industry folks listen up: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is your absolute best marketing tool and failure to engage in SEO efforts will cost you dearly. Shall I elaborate? I believe so.

Let’s say you’re traveling to a distant land on a magic carpet ride, and decide to splurge on a luxury hotel to rest your head. What’s the first step? If you’re like me, and 90% of other people, you will jump on a search engine and lookup keyword phrases that relate to hotels and a specific location. For example, “Luxury Hotel Los Angeles” or something along those lines. And this — this my friends — is where the magic happens (not where you’re thinking).

Potential guests searching for a luxury hotel in Los Angeles, or any other area, will almost always use a search engine then select a hotel from the first page of results, which includes positions 1-10 (unless a modified search is enabled). This means hotels must rank on the first page if they want to bring in new guests that are seeking them out. If front page placement does not occur, guests will simply be lost to competitors who are found right away, in positions 1-10 of search engines.

The moral of the story is to hire an SEO consultant to ensure one’s hotel website ranks high in search engines, gains exposure, and revenue is increased.

Aaron Schoenberger
The Brainchild Group