HOTELMARKETING.COM

How “fresh” is your hotel website?

November 15, 2011 | Hotel Marketing

The Google Panda Update made many hotel websites obsolete. Bare, sparse copy stuffed with keywords can no longer sustain a respectable SERP ranking. Google's latest Freshness Update created the need to add fresh content to the website on an ongoing basis. Time for hoteliers to re-evaluate their website re-design strategies.

Every year, Google makes more than 500 updates to its search algorithm. The most significant update in 2011 was the Google Panda Update, now in version 2.5, which made most hotel websites obsolete by introducing very strict requirements for content, interactivity, and page download speeds. This required sites to generate engaging and unique website content (as opposed to bland, old and tired content) that would intrigue users and increase the site’s “stickiness.”

After frustrating hospitality digital marketers with the seemingly never-ending Panda update saga, Google went a step further by releasing the broadest, most-impactful algorithmic change to date, just to keep us all on our toes. Last week Google announced that they had rolled out an update now known as the “Freshness” update, which was said to affect 35% of total searches and would allow for more relevant, current information to be displayed for a bevy of high-volume search queries.

Why are these updates important for the hospitality industry? Between 50%-70% of hotel website visitors and website bookings originate as leads from the major search engines.

Get the full story at the HeBS Digital Blog

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