Hospitality Search Engine Marketing

Microsoft’s new search engine—er, decision engine—is slowly capturing market share from Google. According to comScore, Americans conducted more than 13.9 billion searches in August. Google sites captured 64.6% of the search market share, while Microsoft sites represented 9.3%—about a 1% increase since Bing went live in June.

Just goes to show what you can accomplish with an $80 million-plus ad campaign!

No doubt, Bing will continue to nip at the heels of Google, and optimizing your site for Bing will become increasingly important. The good news is that there do not appear to be any secret formulas for SEO success on Bing.

Rajesh Srivastava, Principal Group Program Manager of Bing, reports on his blog, “The type of SEO work and tasks webmasters need to perform to be successful in Bing hasn’t changed—all of the legitimate, time-tested, SEO skills and knowledge that webmasters have invested in previously apply fully today with Bing.”

So now would be a good time to review your site optimization and see if it’s time for a tune-up…

Do you have great user content, rich in relevant keywords?
Content is king in the eyes of the search engines. Try this quick trick: type your targeted keyword or phrase into any search engine. On the search results for your site, click on the “cache” version of your page, and you’ll see the keywords highlighted on it. This is how the search engine sees your page.

Show them the way.
Make it easy for search engine bots to read the content on your site—through strong site architecture, sitemaps, navigation text instead of images, and descriptive file names for images. Monitor your site for broken links, 404 pages and other roadblocks.

It IS a popularity contest!
Inbound links are an important factor in determining search engine rank, but not all links are created equal. Links from sites that are relevant and have a strong reputation are considered higher quality links then those from unrelated sites. Look for opportunities to exchange links with strategic partners. Submit your site to the directories. Develop content for web editors in your industry (white papers, research studies, etc.) that can provide links to your site.

The landscape in the world of search may be changing, but one fundamental truth about search engine optimization remains unchanged. SEO is not a one-and-done effort. It is an ongoing process that requires monitoring, tweaking and constant attention.

At Dana, we have the expertise and tools to help strengthen your SEO effort. In need of a tune-up? Contact jhawley@danacommunications.com.