Your Hotel is Missing Out on Almost Free Search Traffic

Attention, hotel owners and hotel companies! Listen up, because we're about to unveil a glaring oversight that's costing you thousands of web visitors every month. It's time to face the truth: your hotel is missing out on valuable traffic by neglecting low volume, long-tail, low competition keyword searches that are relevant to your region and hotel type.

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"What the hell are low volume, long-tail, low competition keywords?"

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These are the hidden gems of the search engine world—specific, niche phrases that may not have the highest search volume but are highly relevant to your hotel and have minimal competition.

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Think about it: when travelers are planning their trips, they're not just searching for generic terms like "hotels" or "accommodations." No, they're getting specific—they're searching for things like "boutique hotels in [your city]" or "pet-friendly resorts near [landmark]." And if your hotel isn't optimizing for these long-tail keywords, you're missing out on a goldmine of potential guests.

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But here's the kicker: because these keywords have lower search volume and competition, they're often easier to rank for. That means with a little bit of strategic optimization, you could skyrocket to the top of the search results and start attracting targeted, high-intent traffic to your website.

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The sexy, high volume searches that everybody wants to rank for aren't where your efforts should be going. For example, unless your last name is Hilton, trying to rank in the top ten for "San Francisco hotels" is practically impossible because of budgets, time and web traffic.

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However, a quick search reveals that "San Francisco hotels with balcony" sees 590 searches a month in the US and is very easy to rank for. So if you run a hotel in San Francisco with rooms that have balconies, that's over 500 potential visitors a month you can get just by getting your marketing team to put in some work with content and landing pages.

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And that's just one possible search. A few minutes of research for this article alone showed over 27,000 monthly searches around San Francisco hotels that it's possible to rank for.

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You know what? With that amount of untapped traffic, we kind of want to start our own SF hotel now. But we digress.

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So, why does this matter? Simple: because it's free traffic (largely). Unlike paid advertising, which can eat up your budget in no time, ranking for low volume, long-tail, low competition keywords won't cost you a dime besides the time and cost of creating the content and landing page.

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It's like getting free advertising for your hotel—directly in front of travelers who are actively searching for what you have to offer. And you don't have to have an Expedia-size budget to get it.

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Ask your marketing team this - why aren't you capitalizing on this opportunity? Why are you letting potential guests slip through your fingers every month, simply because you're neglecting these highly targeted keywords?

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The answers we most often see are 1) we don't have the bandwidth to do this, 2) we don't know how and 3) we didn't know this existed. The first is the most common, and we certainly emphasize with our travel marketing industry colleagues in this position.

This isn't the sexiest, highest visibility tactic that gets board of directors in a joyful frenzy. It's often-overlooked, shunted to the end of the priority list, time-consuming and grinding. But it works brilliantly. These reasons are precisely why you need to do this - because others don't want to, it presents an even more compelling reason for your team to bite the bullet.

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It's time to stop leaving money on the table and start optimizing your website for low volume, long-tail, low competition keywords. Invest in strategic keyword research, optimize your content, and watch as the traffic—and bookings—pour in.

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Your hotel — and your bottom line — will thank you for it.

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But fear not, because we're here to help you reclaim your rightful place at the top of the search results. With our extensive experience in quickly finding niche keywords for you to rank for, we'll optimize your hotel's online presence to ensure that you're ranking higher, attracting more organic traffic, and ultimately, driving more bookings.

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Sound interesting? Let's chat.