5 Easy Ways to Expand your Web site Content
No matter how many times Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! change up their search algorithms, one thing always remains the same: their appetites are insatiable. Search spiders love content, they crave content, and in their digital bellies there is always room for more.
Logic follows, then, that your best SEO bet is to give it to them. The trick is knowing where and how to boost your Web site’s content for maximum effect. Just slapping a few extra paragraphs on each page is the equivalent of fast food, but what the spiders really want is a gourmet meal.
In this post, we’ll look at some basic techniques to keep those spiders coming back for seconds. Here are 5 easy ways to expand your Web site content:
Add Landing Pages
What’s a nice juicy steak without a baked potato to go with? Landing pages are the side dishes of the Web – they round out the meal and your SEO strategy. The latest SEO wisdom tells us that over-optimizing is just as dangerous as not optimizing at all. Landing pages provide an opportunity to target niche keywords, leaving your main pages free to optimize your major keywords without becoming cluttered.
For hotel Web sites, local attraction landing pages are ideal, especially if you can arrange a link-trade with the target attraction. (Side note: when requesting the reciprocal link, try to negotiate a home page position on the attraction Web site. The better the placement, the better the link).
Other easy landing page topics include:
- Area Events
- Local Services
- Hotel Partnerships
- Pet-friendly (if applicable)
- Business Travel
- GLBT Travel
- Green Programs (if applicable)
Be careful. The only thing worse than too little relevant content, is too much irrelevant content. Don’t force landing pages onto your site. If the topic has no value, or the keywords are not strong, don’t bother!
Break Out Large Pages
Ah, the inevitable crux of online content: how much? Too little is bad, and too much is bad, but what does that even mean? It probably won’t surprise you that there are no steadfast rules for proper page length. However, there are some common sense rules that are easy to follow and please the spiders well enough.
If the written portion of a page is longer than a “screen” in length, look into breaking that page out into smaller pages. You can go a little longer, but if the content ever stretches so far that all signs of navigation are lost, it’s time to make the break. Separating your large pages into smaller, relevant pages increases your site’s cohesion and offers an opportunity to optimize more niche keywords.
Common “break out” opportunities include:
- Accommodations, good suites deserve their own page
- Dining, consider a page for each venue
- Meetings, overview your material then break up the specifics
- Local Area, break out attractions, events, area dining, etc.
This is crucial: your break out pages must themselves be worthwhile. Any benefit you stand to gain by breaking them out will be lost if you skimp on the content and SEO.
Incorporate a Blog
Our first two suggestions offer abundant content, but also static content. What search spiders really have a taste for is fresh content. If they know there’s always something new to eat at your Web site, they’ll keep you in mind when displaying search results.
You can keep content fresh by performing site audits and updating keywords, but a well-written blog is really what you need. Blogs have a number of benefits: they’re fast, they’re easily optimized, they encourage in-bound links and they’re deep without bogging down the user experience. If you update your blog regularly, say 2-3 times a week, you can double your site content in the first 6 months.
If there is a secret to hotel blog writing, it’s not over-thinking it. Not every post has to be the digital equivalent of Finnegan’s Wake. Here are some easy blog topics:
- Promote a new package
- Announce an employee promotion
- Suggest a local restaurant (trade links?)
- Review an attended event
- Run a contest
- Encourage following/fanning (Twitter/Facebook)
- List travel tips
- Call out a nice Tripadvisor review (thank the writer)
And the number one most important thing about blogging: be yourself!
Publish your Press
This one is so easy, it’s practically a freebie. If your hotel Web site doesn’t have a press room, stop reading right now, call up your developer, and get one in the pipeline. Don’t leave your press releases solely to the mercy of lazy journalists when they could also be earning your site valuable content-wealth.
A simple press page will most often include a list of your press releases, perhaps with short descriptions or content previews, that link off to each individual release in a PDF. This is fine, and if you pay for development by page, this is an affordable option.
However, you can gain even more value for your (hopefully optimized) PR by creating a new content page for each release. This is because new content pages are more search-friendly and certainly more optimizable than PDFs.
Other things to consider adding to your press page:
- Fact sheets and brochures
- Media kits
- List of awards won
- Relevant links from ownership/brand
Share your Testimonials
Tripadvisor, comment cards, Yelp, even formal reviews – these people are writing your content for you! Create a “Testimonials” or “Guest Reviews” page and feature recent reviews and comments you’ve received. Obviously, you’ll want to focus on the good news, but even a negative comment can be a positive thing if you follow it up with a reasonable response.
Like blogs and press pages, Testimonials pages generate the most benefit when updated often. If you’re just getting yours started, don’t overdo it right up front. Identify the comments you want to feature on the page and then parse them out over time. And unlike regular site pages, it’s okay to let this page get long. The more testimonials the better, but be conscious of the dates. Would you be impressed by a four year old testimonial?
Ready to Get Started?
Don’t think you have to do it all at once. In fact, spreading your updates out over time is more effective, because it gives the search spiders more days of fresh content to chew on. That’s what expanding your site content is all about.
For a personalized look at what can be done with your content, as well as content writing services for all of the above, contact WRS at info@wrsol.com or visit our Web site for more information.
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