To say that hotels in Morocco are going through a difficult time right now is a bit of an understatement. Occupancy levels are low, in guesthouses, Riads and independent hotels alike. There are various reasons:
There is obviously the current financial crisis, which affects the hotel industry anywhere in the world. Hotel reservation specialists or GDS providers complain about a 10 to 71% drop in hotel reservations in comparison to 2007.
The reason why it specifically hurts hotels in Morocco is that their expectations were so high. The mantra of "10 million tourists by 2010" had reached the most hidden corners of the country, and instead of preparing for a financial crisis everything had been put in place for a boom In the past 3 years literally hundreds of new guesthouses opened their doors. It is estimated that there are no less than 800 Riad guesthouses in the Medina of Marrakech.
And now the tourists do not follow. At least not those tourists that can afford luxury accommodation as a Riad.
Added to this situation there is the fact that Marrakech is not really a GDS market. The GDS are a very good channel for the corporate public, but with Marrakech not being a corporate destination and GDS connectivity still coming with quite some investment and work load, its is a marketing strategy without too much potential for most hotels in Marrakech. Some smaller or perhaps illegal guesthouses also gave Marrakech a bad reputation with the IDS, who now are not always eager to promote such accommodation.
Agadir set aside, Morocco is not Tour Operator land either.
So it is little wonder that many hotels in Morocco focus on their direct hotel website and internet marketing. Whenever I visit a hotel in Morocco, I am always amazed by the knowledge of, or enthusiasm for, SEO. Sometimes it seems that even the smallest guesthouse is studying or experimenting with techniques to get its websites higher in the rankings of the search engines.
But is it always good SEO? The Internet is definitely a great tool to find free information but according to my experiences it is not always fully understood.
In many hotel websites you can see that the old but unethical technique of key word stuffing is still alive and kicking, not to mention the key word confusion . Just visit your own hotel website, point your cursor on a spot in a page and right click on the mouse and choose source code . Perhaps, when you have a look at the title, description and key word tags you will see what I mean? Do all three tags truly provide information on one single and perfectly targeted key word?
Or is it a mixture of just about anything? For example: Riad Madrugada | Luxury Riad Marrakech. Welcome to your Ryad guesthouse in Marrakesh... Our telephone is....
In such a situation, how can any search engine detect for which key word your website is truly relevant? Is it for Marrakech or Marrakesh? For Riad or Ryad? For Luxury or Guesthouse?
Targeting one single and unique key word per page greatly helps the search engines to detect whether your website is highly relevant for that search term their own customer, the online searcher, is using.
Targeting a multitude of key words only means that the wine is getting thin and your page is not relevant for any of those key words.
You might also want to verify whether the key word you will target stands a chance. After all, if there are thousands of websites all targeting the same key word, for example Riad Marrakech your website will still end up at the bottom of the pile. For this particular key word Google.Com returns over 600.000 pages, which means it will be not only an uphill battle, but a fierce one too.
A search term such as Riad Souk Marrakech returns only 60.000 results. Here your chances are far higher.
SEO often comes with finding the right niche, or that spot in the online market where it is easier to settle.
Or why not combining both? Set yourself a long term goal, for example to rank high for a very popular key word, while at the same time trying to find a very good niche to attract traffic in the short term? A very good niche helps in attracting more visitors in the short term, and very relevant visitors too. It goes without saying that such niche key words or key phrases are not researched as much as the very popular ones. But at the other hand, they provide you with the possibilities to attract very relevant visitors.
Riad Marrakech is a very broad term. Sure, a searcher using this key word is looking for a Riad in Marrakech... but that can just about anything. Is he or she looking for a big, small, cosy, luxury or budget Riad? For a riad with or without pool, roof terrace, baby sitting for children, single or triple rooms, jacuzzi, dining options, central location or not, online reservations or not, and so on. So what good does it serve to rank high for this key word, if 90% of your online visitors immediately discover your Riad is not what they look for and immediately turn elsewhere?
That is not good for your reputation in the eyes of the search engines either. What they see is a website where visitors leave after not even having visited a second page, or did not stay longer than 2 seconds.
Relevance and niche are very important words when it comes to Hotel SEO.
The very good news is that the more you learn about SEO, the more you experiment, the more you focus, the better you are prepared for the future. Even if you just take a baby step, that is again a baby step forward in the search engine results. And even more important... you are learning. You are going through a learning process, almost an education if you wish, for the future.
The Internet is here to stay. That we all know. If anything, it will become more important with the day. So the more you focus on online marketing, and especially a free marketing strategy as SEO, the better you are prepared for the future. You can already congratulate yourself for being interested in online marketing. That is the very first en most important step that any hotel can take.
Because it can result in direct reservations, that do not come with commissions to third parties.
For a hotel, the website can be its ideal sales representative.
Especially when that long expected boom finally happens... which it will. From decoration to music to the cuisine, all things Moroccan are becoming more trendy with the day, and tourism will follow.
This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire