Ah, blogging. As the editor of this blog, I live with constant anxiety. Am I posting often enough? Why is no one sharing this great post? Are any of these comments not from my mom?
Despite the heavy list of personal inadequacies running a blog can stir up, many hotels still want to have one. That’s totally fine, but it’s not necessary. This post I’m slaving over right now is about to tell you why.
Creating strong website content is more valuable
If you have a lot of stories to tell and time to invest, a blog can be a great way to engage with guests and drive interest in your property. But from an SEO perspective, it’s more valuable to invest your time and energy in creating quality content on your website in the form of articles. This way, you’re growing and fostering a single source of content that allows you to drive traffic to one website.
If you have the resources to produce content, you should be giving that organic benefit to your domain because it gives Google more excuses to rank you. Each time you publish something new Google comes back and looks at it again.
Why don’t BookingSuite’s websites include a blog?
Some do—it’s just not called a “blog”.
BookingSuite’s WebComplete plan offers unlimited pages and an advanced content management system that’s super simple to use. You can create articles about your property’s many amenities and promotions as well as your area’s attractions—and anything else your heart desires.
WebComplete websites set you up for SEO success because when you create a new article our system automatically creates title tags, a meta-description, and URLs. Then, we use Google Webmaster Tools to index the content once its been published.
WebComplete partners can also enlist the services of our performance managers, who can order keyword research reports to help partners understand how to prioritize their content.
What if I’m a WebDirect partner who wants to add more content?
We created WebDirect for partners who don’t have the resources or content requirements for maintaining a more robust website. WebDirect is ideal for Booking.com partners in need of a property website consisting of just five essential pages: homepage, locations page, reviews, rooms, and photos.
If you’re already a WebDirect customer and you want more content, there’s a couple things you can do.
For starters, you can devote more time to social media posting. Use your social media platforms as your “blog”. People are less likely to read a block of text from a bed and breakfast owner than they would a Facebook post with pictures and short copy that comes up in their newsfeed. Get creative with posts about all noteworthy happenings in your town.
Writing about what’s going on in your area will tie you to that event and make you more relevant in your area; over time this adds up. Our user Janet, for example, is particularly awesome at this. Steal some of her tips in this post.
You could also upgrade to WebComplete if it becomes clear that you have a lot of content you want to share, or if you have a ton of content already and are new to BookingSuite, this is the plan we suggest for you.
For more tips on how make the most of your website content, check out the following posts from our archives.
A Tale Of Two Types Of Website Content
So Your Content Is Live. What’s Next?
