How should the hotel website respond to Google's algorithm updates?

Google updates its search algorithm more than 500 times a year, the most significant update in 2011 is Google Panda Update (currently in the 2.5 edition), which makes most hotel sites obsolete by its stringent requirements for content, interactivity, and page downloads. This requires interactive and unique content in order to attract users and enhance the "viscosity" of the site.

The hotel's electronic marketing managers are already frustrated by the endless Panda feature updates, and Google has further launched its most influential algorithms to date, making them even more unprepared. Last week, Google announced the launch of the new algorithm "freshness", a number of more relevant, more immediate content will be shown in some of the flow of large keyword search results, it is said to affect 35% of the total search results,

Why are these updates important to the hospitality industry? Because 50%-70% 's hotel site visitors and website bookings are from Google.

The update is a revised version of the caffeine update (caffeine is Google's 2010 algorithm update), its sole purpose is to let the total search query results of the latest content to reach 50%. So when you're searching for a score on last night's sporting event or who wins the election, you'll see the latest articles or comments. The problem is that search volumes have risen sharply in just a year, while the number of online media has continued to grow. Each story and everything can be repeatedly talked about, reported and analyzed, just because this platform can provide these, coupled with the media and the Internet support, so the new algorithm was born, it has been in North America upsurge.

What kind of company will this new algorithm affect?

Every online enterprise. It will be difficult to separate blogs, new sites, and content sites that provide the latest local information, including local events, events and promotions for the hotel's website.

In news sites, for example, articles on political news, global information, sports and celebrity news are changing all the time, and the Search engine results page (Engine Results page, hereinafter referred to as SERP) is updated more frequently than ever. For example, a search for last night's sporting event-"The Arizona Cardinals beat the Philadelphia Eagles"-shows the following figure on the home page:

　　

This shows that there is no specific date of the results of the search feedback is within 24 hours of the release of the news, and some were released an hour ago. Its amazing is not the news source, but its organic arrangement order. Of course, sports competitions score the freshness period of this kind of event is very short.

How does Google's latest algorithm apply to hotel inquiries?

The hotel website usually lacks content and information, including information about the hotel's products and services, from the guest room to the conference room, covering all aspects of the hotel business. These "static" content has been around, but the "fresh" content is rare, which is the biggest problem facing the current hotel website after Google launches its latest algorithm.

If the hotel site can not be kept fresh, how will hoteliers respond to Google's latest freshness Updates?

Case study: HeBS Digital CMS Plus with Google Panda and freshness Updates

HeBS Digital's website Content management System (HeBS Digital CMS Plus) is specifically designed for strict Google Panda and freshness, and is designed to allow hoteliers to keep content fresh in a variety of ways, including:

Establish a promotional landing page for real time specials and packaged products (for example, March product packaging promotions, which are available in advance for the year 2012)

Establish landing pages for hotel and destination activities

Banner ads showing special products and events on the website

For the hotel's products (such as room and restaurant promotions, conference packaging, wedding promotions, etc.), the main window of each page to display these promotional information.

Add new content to the theme events: Seasonal promotions, sporting events, local festivals, and products for different customers (such as family travel, weekend trips, and romantic tours).

The "Mini format" is set for each local promotion or activity page, which is rich in data for search engines, because each activity is independent and the duration of the activity is clear, ensuring the timeliness of all our activities, not duplication.

All time-limited activities landing pages and other pages (such as restaurants, accommodations, hotel services, facilities, etc.) will also incorporate the structural codes (Schema code).

What is the result of this? Typically, the content page that a hotel website is retrieved by Google is 40-60 pages, while the Hebs Digital CMS allows customers to continuously provide new login pages and content, and the number of pages retrieved by the search engine is as high as 2,500-4,500 pages.

Besides, what else can hoteliers do?

Blog

We usually integrate our blogs on the hotel website, which enables the hotel website to provide new information and regional theme activities continuously. It usually provides high quality content that allows consumers to add and share these links, and the site is not good at content manufacturing. The blog highlights the hotel and restaurant specials and promotions while displaying General Hotel news. Talking about local events, a guest's lodging experience, seasonal events and the hotel's featured pictures can quickly attract user interaction. The hotel can also quickly disseminate certain information via blogs. We recommend the hotel website to use blogs because there is no better platform for creating content.

Integration with social media tools

We also recommend that the hotel site integrate real-time Twitter and Facebook interactive information to ensure the timeliness and relevance of the interaction. The transparency of the action allows us to adapt to the new algorithm standard freshness.

Building strong brand influence on Twitter and Facebook will ensure that your brand news is widely disseminated, whether it's new promotions, holiday packages, group travel deals, lottery and giveaway events, or upcoming events in the hotel or surrounding areas. This kind of subject information can bring frequent interactions to your business. This information should be deeply integrated with your site, that is, the hotel site should reflect your social platform usage, whether it is Twitter's instant messaging, Facebook's "like" button or google+1, and interaction can ensure freshness.

Make sure your XML sitemap is up to date.

When a search engine measures the depth of a site, XML Sitemap is critical for search engines to quickly crawl your page information. But many sites may be in a painful position: when new pages or new activities are introduced, the corresponding XML Sitemap is not updated. Be sure to update your XML sitemap,google at all times to see your latest backend information.

Any updates on the hotel's website are reflected on the XML sitemap so that the search engine measures the depth of the site and crawls the site information better because the content is closely related to the degree of exposure and update.

About schema Code

"What is schema Code?" Schema code is the new coding element that Google launched at the end of June 2011, which is simply enhanced metadata. Schema code gives you a deep description of each page, promotion, or activity. For each restaurant page, packaged product page, active page, hotel page, and other content-rich pages, Schema code allows you to embed explicit code information such as geographic location, start/start time, organizer, promotional cycle, source, and other information of all kinds. These backend code can enhance the information function of each page, make the search engine better understand the information, background and meaning of the page, these are the topics around the search query.

Conclusion

Google Panda Update makes many hotel sites obsolete. Dry content and key words no longer bring good SERP rankings for your hotel site.

The latest freshness update requires the site to keep adding fresh content.

In response to these two algorithms updates, hoteliers should reassess their website design strategy and budget and launch an optimized website in early 2012. Proactively handle your site content and activities, highlight your hotel strengths, and reflect these advantages on the hotel's website, social media and blogs. Just stick to it and you'll see good results.