We recently posted about the emergence of SGE and its potential to significantly impact and amplify the search landscape for hotels and resorts.
To help hoteliers take action, we’ve identified four essential strategies for hotels and resorts to optimize for SGE, including meticulous profile maintenance, proactive reputation management, strategic content updates and leveraging structured data for enhanced visibility and engagement.
Let’s dive into each.
Profile Maintenance
Profile maintenance plays a pivotal role in the optimization strategy for hotels and resorts aiming to excel in SGE. It's key to maintaining accurate and uniform information across all online profiles, including:
Google Business Profile
Tripadvisor
Yelp
Given that Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) are prominently featured in SGE local results, forging strong partnerships with major OTAs such as Expedia, Hotels.com and Tripadvisor becomes essential to capitalize on SGE visibility. Additionally, optimizing Knowledge Panel data is crucial as SGE text is sourced from the Knowledge Graph, directly impacting search results. By claiming and managing Knowledge Panel data in accordance with Google's policies, hotels and resorts can ensure accurate and relevant information is displayed, enhancing their visibility and credibility in the eyes of potential guests.
Reputation Management
Positive reviews play a crucial role in SGE’s ranking algorithm. Encourage satisfied guests to leave positive reviews on platforms like Google and Tripadvisor, or even share their experience on Reddit.
SGE prioritizes content from high-authority sources, including reputable review platforms. You can build trust and credibility with your guests by monitoring and responding promptly to reviews and addressing any concerns or issues to demonstrate your commitment to customer satisfaction.
Consider implementing strategies at the property to consistently deliver exceptional guest experiences. Positive reviews and a strong reputation contribute to a positive user experience, increasing the likelihood of users engaging with a hotel's SGE-generated search results.
Content Updates & Optimizations
To prepare and optimize content for Google's SGE, it's essential to build diverse content using various formats such as text, images, videos and structured data. By catering to different user preferences, you can ensure that your content resonates with a broader audience. Continuously delivering fresh content with varied messaging is key to engaging all segments of your audience effectively. This approach not only fosters engagement but also delivers value to each user, enhancing their overall experience. Own the narrative in the hospitality industry and go beyond targeting money-earning keywords by creating content that expands your topics in-depth. It’s also important to enhance the authority of your priority pages by building internal links.
Additionally, focus on creating content that is based on human experience. In this new era, Google’s search algorithm values first-person narratives that AI can’t replicate. This is where E-E-A-T signals—experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness—will take center stage. You’re the expert! Structure your SEO and content strategy on long-tail keywords and regularly update your FAQ pages to address user queries comprehensively.
Capitalize on “low-hanging fruit” opportunities by implementing tactics like technical SEO, schema markup and on-page optimization. Leveraging innovative SEO tools can streamline optimization efforts and help scale initiatives effectively, ensuring your content is optimized for Google's SGE and drives maximum visibility and engagement.
Leverage Structured Data
Identify all relevant entities within your content to enhance comprehensive entity identification. This may include room types, amenities, events and more. By enabling rich snippets like ratings and reviews, you can further enhance your search visibility. It's crucial to ensure that your structured data is not only relevant and accurate but also aligned with the content on your website. This alignment helps Google better understand and interpret your content, ultimately leading to improved visibility and relevance in search results.
Key Takeaways
Moving beyond traditional SEO strategies, hotels and resorts must continuously evaluate and optimize their content to provide value from a real human perspective. Because of this, reputation management remains paramount, emphasizing the importance of maintaining a positive reputation through proactive engagement with users and attentive response to customer sentiment. By embracing these key takeaways, hotels and resorts can position themselves for success in the future of search.
Need help with implementing SGE strategies on your website? Contact us to talk to one of our hospitality marketing experts.
This blog was written in collaboration with Summer Coughlin and Nancy Wiles.
Summer Coughlin, Paid Media Analyst
When Summer isn't busy tracking and reporting on the performance of media campaigns for the hospitality performance team, she's hunting down the latest trends and opportunities for improvement. A passionate traveler, she loves to explore new places, spend time with her German shepherd, Gunner, and spend time outdoors.
Nancy Wiles, Director of Marketing & Operations
Nancy is a detail-oriented researcher, manager and ambitious learner when it comes to SEO and digital media advertising knowledge. As the fearless leader of the hospitality division performance strategy, Nancy keeps a close watch on overall marketing performance when she's not busy making memories and enjoying the best of Colorado—live music, great outdoors and craft beer.
