The hospitality industry, like other related tourism and catering sectors are very competitive markets. It is not uncommon to find affiliate pages, comparators and others competing with the same or greater tenacity by certain brands that their owners. By so popular platforms such as Booking.com, TripAdvisor among many others.
How these pages affect hotel brands?
Simple: competing for the same keyword (hotel name) monopolizing, in most cases, the top positions in organic search results. Given this reality, our online marketing agency has decided to conduct a study Social Link Building (as in the past has made the sector Fashion Online) environment analysis taking as the hotel sector.
Because in a context where the big chains stand out in the market by having a long history and strong name as well as online, we decided to pay attention to this niche in everyday many hotels trying to find their niche in a competitive market.
The question we ask is: boutique hotels use its presence and potential in social networks to get more traffic and sales? The hotel sector in general and boutique hotels in particular lends itself to creating quality content: videos of facilities, galleries, offers seasonal, hosting packages, etc. But they do publish this content on their social networks? And the links? Do they have links your social networks?
This study, “Social Link Building: Study SEO social networks in the hospitality industry” developed by the agency Onetomarket, analyzes two quantitative factors to discover the influence of social networks in positioning and online visibility of companies this sector. The two quantitative factors are:
- Domains linking to social networks of hotels. External websites that link to your blog, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram of these hotels.
- Audience share in results pages related to Google in a hotel name search. When searching for these brands on Google are made, well positioned out their profiles on social networks in addition to the official website of the hotel itself?
The Social Link Building is committed to a strategy links to social networks so that they achieve a good positioning brand searches. What is the OBJECTIVE? Co-par maximum search results to give greater brand visibility, attract more number of quality traffic and therefore increase the chances of conversion / sale.
In a context where the hotel sector features high competition, it is important that brands bet on its various corporate social platforms since these are the best workhorses when cornering positions in Google.es. Why?The explanation is simple: Google does not allow many results of a domain for a search phrase, even brand (query deserves diversity), this means that the screen quota is limited theory. However, with social networking it is possible to go above that limit. Social networks are corporate profiles, extras, susceptible corporate domains to compete for the brand in question.Thus, brands have other domains which position in the top positions when branding (hotel name / brand) is concerned reinforcing the screen quota brand on Google.
Like any SEO strategy, not only should generate relevant content but also must also have a good profile links. So we’ve created the Social term Link Building, through this strategy marks can plan key actions link building quality with the aim of getting links relevant to social networks of the brand to improve its position in search brand.
Boutique hotels still unknown SEO business possibilities and social platforms. Many of them are with almost little update, which means that without quality content there is no opportunity to generate external links.
However we stress the importance to Facebook and Twitter , both social networks are used by boutique hotels, and therefore linked from external sites but due to low updating content and targeting of community is not exploited as it should. However copar Facebook often results in the Top10 ranking search Twitter but whoever get as many links from reference sites.Twitter is the second social platform copar search results (between 2nd and 3rd results page), surprising considering other social platforms weight as Corporate Blog and YouTube whose flexibility is greater to the generation of content: articles, interviews, videos of facilities, etc.
Given this reality, where the audience share occupied by social networks is very low, it becomes an excellent strategy to follow the social link building in order to strengthen the online presence of profiles as blog, YouTube, Pinterest, etc. and, thus, increase brand visibility of the hotels and the probability of conversion.
Sector context
Despite the crisis that is immersed not surprised to read headlines like this: “The sector of luxury hotels grew 15% since the beginning of the crisis.” As reported a few days ago a report by the consultancy DBK, the sector of the luxury hotels in our country experienced an increase of 15% from 2008 to 2012 in income. This has meant a turnover of 1,500 million euros (5 star hotels), 1% more than in the previous year.
The strategic use of social networks becomes increasingly important in the current context of high competitiveness among the sector hotels, affiliates, price comparators, etc., because social networks allow increase online visibility.
Main Outcomes
The social boom continues: many marketing and communication departments of companies and organizations want to enhance their online visibility and business. However, in the sector of boutique hotels a lack of strategic planning in terms of uses and SEO goals is observed, as in the case of trademark protection in search results.
Within the analyzed universe, it highlights the widespread use of Facebook and Twitter use, occupying an important role corporate blog, YouTube, Pinterest, Google Plus. Expanding the use of social networks has also invaded the hotel sector, with the difference that in this sector is still much untapped order to exploit advantages SEO and sales level.
The data show that social networks boutique hotels do not have too many external links. Twitter crown the list as the network with the largest number of external links, but not the one that occupies the screen quota name search on Google hotel. Facebook is the network par excellence that in most cases has a place in the Top10 organic results.
Conclusions
This study has focused analysis and research in the field of boutique hotels in order to determine what role do social networks in the online strategy, basically: position the corporate social networks on the first page of results Google for searches brand?
The answer is basically: no. Facebook is the social network with the highest position in the top positions of the ranking (Top10). This means that 52% of Facebook profiles boutique hotels are located on the 1st page of results, while 29% is on the 2nd page. Rarely other social profiles are found on the first page of results: Twitter YouTube 11% and 6%.
Analyzing the boutique hotel sector in which use of social networks concerned, we note that they are not exploited when more traffic and sales.In terms of content, most hotels do not invest energy in generating content , and that is reflected in both the positioning of social profiles in search brand (share) and the amount of external links received from web / domains other sites.
At the level of share, ie search results: just make “noise” Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. This situation is totally improvable doing link building of quality,the name of the hotel, to these social platforms. Thus hotels may have more than one alternative outcome to self-control on the front page of Google results.
Opting for a strategy Social Link Building can make corporate social networks such businesses greater visibility online when searching brand, resulting in the domains of competition and others to go backwards up to 2nd and 3rd pages results.
The stakes are clear: to review social strategies to enhance the boutique online visibility and SEO positioning as the possibility of business by packing the top of the search results hotels. Both in the boutique sector as in other sectors where brand identity is highly valued and “spoiled” it is important to protect it, and the Social Link Building is an excellent choice hotels.
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