Hotels Hotels Hotels... Let's case study

10 replies
Greetings,

I just landed a job with a company that owns 5 hotels In New Orleans, LA.
New Orleans is a great tourism city and we sell a ton of hotel rooms a year.
Like anything tho, tourism is a season, and we have slow times.

In taking this job I have acquired control of a slew of websites. 1 for each of our hotel properties, and 2 other websites that are awesome domain names - which generate about 60k a year in hotel commission sales - not related to our own properties.

Those 2 url's are
FrenchQuarter.com
NewOrleansHotels.com
Now when it comes to domain weight, tourism, and hotel sales, it doesn't get any better than those 2 url's.

Now the problem is, these sites are sooooo old. I mean so old they are built on tables and not div's. We use travelocity as our affiliate, and we get a very good commission structure from them.

The sites have been on "auto pilot" for years. They do pretty good on organic traffic. I have been tasked with re-building the sites, and basically I have to make them generate the maximum amount revenue possible.

I come from a background where I only had to make websites pretty. Now I have to get it to produce money. So this is a new territory for me. I've been doing my research and ended up here.

I have to get some goals and plans together for the first quarter of this year. Design, SEO, Coding... the whole nine. So time is of the essence.

I'm fairly confident with using GA, but there are so many facets of it that I don't know about.
How can I best leverage it to provide the data moving forward, to help us make better decisions in the future.

I would like to use this opportunity for everyone in this community to participate in the journey.
From SEO progress, design decisions, and coding techniques.
Hopefully it will provide others the opportunity to learn from the process, as well as me.

So I'm asking, could anyone point me to the best resources on SEO, And planning out a year for a successful campaign.

Thanks,
Nola
#case #hotels #seo #study
  • Profile picture of the author BrashImpact
    Nola,
    My thoughts are, you need to bring in a Good IM marketer who understands your new Industry. Not trying to be cold here, but it sounds like you are in way over your head...

    Is the company asking you to handle everything? If that's the case as i think i understand it your going to need tons of education. The only way you get that is by Investing time or Paying for it. We are actually a big player in this Industry...hotels, however if i was stepping in too help i would expect to be paid accordingly for it.

    The SEO side alone is Huge... from Cost projection analysis to traffic projection, keyword research, Domain Search Reach and a host of other facets that make up SEO.

    My advice...Get connected with someone who can help you pull off the project and be prepared to compensate them for it...

    Just my 2 cents... Good Luck no matter what
    Regards,
    Robert
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    • Profile picture of the author 504nola
      @Brash,

      I guess I should have mentioned I would be taking more of a project management role in this situation. Not just doing everything alone.

      But with that being said, what kind of monthly budget would I expect to spend on SEO alone?
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      • Profile picture of the author heevyhivy
        find this niche very interesting. Brings back the fond memories how how I researched hotels on my first ever lone wolf vacation.
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      • Profile picture of the author BrashImpact
        Originally Posted by 504nola View Post

        @Brash,

        I guess I should have mentioned I would be taking more of a project management role in this situation. Not just doing everything alone.

        But with that being said, what kind of monthly budget would I expect to spend on SEO alone?
        Nola,
        That will depend on the actual keyword phrases, the type of competition for those phrases...and the time period that your client is looking to get results in.

        If you want to PM me with a Phone # I can try and help you over the weekend. There is a lot more too it than meets the eye. The challenge is, knowing exactly what the target outcome is...creating the plan, the Implementing and Executing the Plan in a timely manner.

        It's not easy, but the results can be amazing.
        Regards,
        Robert
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  • Profile picture of the author HeySal
    I have no way of knowing what your budget is, but it seems that considering the description of the business, you should have plenty for that.

    You can hire people of all disciplines in the "Warriors for Hire" section. Many are extremely talented - but do some due diligence, because these people come with no WF guarantee.

    You need to have a site blog. In a seasonal tourism climate, you really don't need as much push to get a hotel filled up during the main events and/or season. What your main goal should be is drawing them in off-season. You need to either hire someone knowledgeable in your own local area to write for your blog and to take local pictures or be ready to accomplish this task yourself. The good news is that you can get writers with sufficient talents fairly cheaply - I wouldn't go under $20 per article, though. You want someone with a little savvy beyond grammar skills.

    You can do the research yourself if you are local there. Find ANYTHING going on or existing there that would attract a tourist off season. Fishing, nature, boating, hiking trails, stores, museums, events. I've never been to the area and the only thing I know about it is great food and the Martis Gras. You need to know about swap meets, rock shows, trade shows, festivals, museums, historical tours, etc.

    You will need people to lay up static pages inducing people to stay at your hotels, of course. The pages have to feature reasons why your hotel is the best choice. Along with those pages, someone has to set up static pages covering local attractions and annual events - make them sound exciting and then add a reason why your hotel is so great for people visiting those events. Location? Special prices? Transportation? Whatever you can push.

    The cost of these pages will be a one time cost. You can find techs that can do this job for a staggering range of prices. Make sure, again to do some due diligence. If you can find one hundred attractions for people that might decide to visit for one of them, that's 100 pages to pay for - the copywriter and photographer may cost extra. I would think a well written and well designed page can be done for 40 or 50 bucks each. A site with all those pages covering so many interesting area features has some organic SEO on their own. I'm not saying you will find a full hundred things to put pages up about - but you get the idea - stuff that website with pages about things that happen all year round - as many as possible.

    Then you will want an SEO expert that can do things such as setting you up in yellow page directories, putting links on relevant sites, set up social media accounts and get those started. You will want to be able to tweet and post in social media about every attraction and every event and every special year round. Those people can work intermittently when needed and are only usually a few bucks a pop for short notes and links to the attraction pages. You can even post on your own once everything is set up and save the company those dollars.

    You also want to hire a high level writer to write articles at least now and again for syndication. There are a few members in the main forum that are syndication experts and can be hired to syndicate written materials. You would have to check their prices, I'm not sure what they charge - but get a $50 per article level writer (a local one who is really familiar with your location) to do the writing.

    You can also get back linkers cheaply - but don't automate that because you can end up with trash and that will hurt rather than help. Whoever you hired for SEO might do that in the first place, if not, find someone who can write something truly relevant to whatever medium they are posting your links on so you don't come off as a spammer or idiot.

    Article syndication, backlinking, and social media will be an ongoing effort, so adjust how much work you can get done within your budget and if you have a well done site, your costs will remain minimal and the RI will be high.
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    Sal
    When the Roads and Paths end, learn to guide yourself through the wilderness
    Beyond the Path

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  • Profile picture of the author mrketing.me
    For SEO

    - Research what are the main keywords that your organic traffic is coming form

    - Write more targeted articles and reviews on the new sites with these keywords

    - Make sure that the old pages retain their URL so the links indexed in google stay valid. However if the naming format is not optimized and you think it can be better, keep the old pages and make them redirect to new pages with optimized URL's that you create till the new pages are fully indexed

    - Make sure to create a site map that has all pages and links

    - Internal linking is very helpful

    - Publish stuff on social media and forums with back links

    - Avoid auto traffic generation and bots

    For coding

    - Try to stick with the standard so indexing bots can go through all pages on your new website easily, and make sure that the content is easily visible for the indexing bot i.e. not too much internal calling from encrypted or unacceptable pages

    - Avoid fully flash websites, they cannot be easily indexed

    - Make sure that every media (pic, photo, audio) is named with the related keyword, some text description under or beside it would be helpful.

    - During the build use tools like google webmaster tools to send bots to your website and see what they can retrieve, enhance were no or partial retrieve is happening

    Also, read around SEO topics and experiences in the forum, check what SEO plugins do in CMS systems like WP and Jooma especially in terms of URL formatting and website hierarchy.

    Best of Luck
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  • Profile picture of the author mrketing.me
    For SEO

    - Research what are the main keywords that your organic traffic is coming form

    - Write more targeted articles and reviews on the new sites with these keywords

    - Make sure that the old pages retain their URL so the links indexed in google stay valid. However if the naming format is not optimized and you think it can be better, keep the old pages and make them redirect to new pages with optimized URL's that you create till the new pages are fully indexed

    - Make sure to create a site map that has all pages and links

    - Internal linking is very helpful

    - Publish stuff on social media and forums with back links

    - Avoid auto traffic generation and bots

    For coding

    - Try to stick with the standard so indexing bots can go through all pages on your new website easily, and make sure that the content is easily visible for the indexing bot i.e. not too much internal calling from encrypted or unacceptable pages

    - Avoid fully flash websites, they cannot be easily indexed

    - Make sure that every media (pic, photo, audio) is named with the related keyword, some text description under or beside it would be helpful.

    - During the build use tools like google webmaster tools to send bots to your website and see what they can retrieve, enhance were no or partial retrieve is happening

    Also, read around SEO topics and experiences in the forum, check what SEO plugins do in CMS systems like WP and Jooma especially in terms of URL formatting and website hierarchy.

    Best of Luck
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    • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
      Sal has it nailed. It doesn't take much to fill a decent hotel during the season.

      For the off-season, take what Sal suggested and substitute the words "corporate event" or "association national meeting", etc., for "tourism."

      Your target is attracting meeting and convention planners, and the executives who hire them.
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  • Profile picture of the author hustlinsmoke
    My only plug is, please use Wordpress as the base, I do not think wordpress will ever outdate as it is updated constantly and adapts to the times.
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  • Profile picture of the author tpw
    For SEO, the most important resource you can use to learn it is: JigglingTheWeb.com
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    Bill Platt, Oklahoma USA, PlattPublishing.com
    Publish Coloring Books for Profit (WSOTD 7-30-2015)
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