Searches that direct people to your brand online from all the possibilities confirm that your brand awareness campaign is working. Online users know your brand, type it into the search box, and are ready to take the next step.

The term “branded search” describes a search engine query that includes your name or brand. Branded keywords are similar to branded searches. Therefore, search terms used for this purpose are called branded keywords. However, due to most search engine optimization efforts being focused solely on non-branded keywords, companies usually choose not to rank for such brand mentions, even though these mentions are easy to rank for.

It is important to note that simply because customers search for your brand names, it does not mean they will find your branded keywords on Google, Bing, and other search engines. A branded search strategy results from anticipation and preparation that leads to optimizing a brand’s position. After raising brand awareness, optimizing relevant site pages to rank #1 for brand keywords, and herding prospects toward the bottom of your sales funnel, you anticipate a surge of high-intent leads.

How do Branded Search Strategies work?

The branded search strategy is usually framed as half the competition, e.g., branded vs. non-branded keywords, but is meant to integrate into SEO strategy. It improves your web presence across major search engines and maps, in addition to online marketplace listings and shopping results.

The branded search involves both organic and paid search tactics, according to SEO experts. It may provide some insight into how your SEO marketing strategy can be improved.

Organic Search

Keywords associated with a brand, such as personal brand keywords, should be claimed and optimized right away. To attract consumers in the consideration, decision, and action stages, they will need to dominate search engine results pages (SERPs). These customers have already done their research and have begun window-shopping. Consequently, they are ready to purchase the right product. Branded keywords should be incorporated into your content strategy for SEO and let them build towards your target.

Paid Search

PPC or paid searches are examples of branded keywords. These are also organic keywords, including those that refer to your products, services, and representatives. However, you must bid for and own them before you can build a brand search campaign. Then, when your target audience searches for your brand name, you can show relevant ads above organic search results. This strategy helps you increase conversions by improving click-through rates. Paying for brand mention services like Google extensions will boost ad performance in addition to winning bids. By applying these tactics to a brand search campaign, you can take advantage of SEO services. To do so, you first need to develop a keyword-based strategy that guides your SEO efforts.

Why do we need a Branded Search Strategy?

Although your organic listing is prominent, it is still beneficial to bid on branded keywords using part of your budget. However, the benefits are not as apparent as bidding on non-branded keywords.

Branded keywords and brand search strategies offer many benefits

Messaging

Organic listings do not allow you to control your messaging. The messaging and links that search engines, like Google, display are determined by their algorithms. An SEO strategy and a healthy site can help, but you can’t control what shows up on Google. Having your brand keywords provides you with the control you need, from how you want your brand messaging to appear for your keywords to add links that may be interesting to your current or prospective clients. Branded keywords can also increase conversions on landing pages since they can be sent to those with the highest conversion rates.

Competitors

Competitive bidding on your branded keywords can result in competitors approaching your customers. Competitors who bid on your company’s branded keywords will appear in plain organic listings alongside your competitors’ best ads. Keep in mind that competitors can choose not to have their ads appear in certain areas. Advertisers can choose to not display ads near similar business establishments or near particular offices. The fact that you don’t have any competitors currently bidding on your terms doesn’t mean they can’t bid in the future. There can be a delay between the moment the bids start and the moment an advertiser notices it, and then there is the average ramp-up time to set up a campaign.

Incremental Clicks

It could be assumed that those clicks would have occurred if there hadn’t been an ad if there had been a prominent organic listing. In their extensive research, Google and Bing found that brand ads supplemented organic listings increased click-through rates. Google states that “On average, 50% of ad clicks that occur with organic results at the top are incremental, meaning they won’t be recovered organically if the ad campaign is paused.”

Bing report states that organic results at the top of search results drive 91% of all clicks while ads drive 60%. Based on these results, we conclude that displaying a brand ad reduces organic click-through rates but increases overall click-through.

Using branding keywords can improve conversion rates and engage your audience while controlling your company’s messaging. The SEO benefits you get may be seen to help lower your click-through rate and conversion rates, although there may be other options to consider.

An organization’s brand awareness has always been boosted by SEO. However, the role of SEO has changed over time. Those were the days when advertisers could simply give their website’s landing pages a high SERP rank by flooding them with their brand name and top keywords. To increase your company’s brand awareness, you need a strategic SEO strategy that targets local and international visibility.

Technological advancements have made search engine algorithms more complex, intelligent, and user-centered. In addition, brands now have to compete on a global scale in a boisterous environment. SEO can, however, help you gain an advantage over your competitors.

SEO Tips for Boosting Brand Awareness

1. Building links

Using high-quality edu links from other websites to yours has never been more crucial than it is today, especially in the digital landscape. There are multiple ways to obtain connections, and for many people, link building is the most challenging part of SEO. However, the great thing about getting it right is that you’ll be miles ahead of your competitors. Search engines use links to discover new web pages to determine a web page’s ranking among search results. Therefore, link popularity has a bearing on your status as a search result.

2. Search Engine Optimization Keyword Phrases

To drive qualified visitors to your brand’s website, you should identify optimized keywords before launching it. Then, create the online content that your potential users search to drive them to your site. Next, analyze your industry and research your competitors to find these keywords. Analysis of keyword popularity gives you a better sense of the market’s potential by measuring the level of traffic it might generate. This allows you to understand your customers’ behavior, enabling you to provide them with the content they need. Make it work the right way, and your brand will be seen correctly.

3. Using long-tail keywords

Short tail keywords and long-tail keywords fall into two categories. Search volumes for short-tail keywords are higher, so competition is also higher. However, short tail keywords have a lower conversion rate, so they are more expensive. Keywords with a long tail are believed to be more specific. Although lower search volumes may be associated with them, they allow you to increase traffic to your site, increasing conversion rates gradually. The use of long-tail keywords will enable you to target a more motivated audience and help you stand out from the competition. 

4. Channel integration

Implement an overarching SEO strategy that integrates all your marketing channels. Spend some money on paid media campaigns to improve the visibility of your content, but incorporate social media as often as you can. Social media is one of the biggest allies of SEO.

Create content to create link opportunities through social media. Ensure that you generate evergreen posts that can be promoted for a more extended period. Improve this content by including your keyword research, so you’ll be reaching qualified leads. The use of social media is an excellent method for boosting positive brand mentions, which in turn will increase your website traffic.

5. Optimizing your brand’s content

Data and leads are generated more efficiently with optimized content. Your content must always be fresh and engaging to build brand awareness. Make quality content a priority and allocate a budget to it. Make your brand the hero by blogging, posting on social media, and posting on your website.

SEO and content marketing go together like peaches and cream. Each contributes to brand awareness, and they depend on one another to be successful. The creation of relevant content is impossible if you do not understand your audience. Content pillars can be fed from your SEO strategy and vice versa.

6. Develop a positive brand image

Controlling your brand image is the end boss in the game of brand awareness. Positive branding will increase your profits if you can develop it successfully. Content optimization should focus on keywords that your brand is most likely to be associated with. As long as your keyword strategy aligns with your brand strategy, SEO can become a tool for shaping the perception of your brand.

Conclusion

Having known that SEO is powerful for brand awareness, we will conclude. SEO is not only about organic traffic; as you now know, it contributes significantly to branding. Thus, SEO can help your business reach different Marketing objectives, and it can do so with organic and efficient media. It is one of the most comprehensive Digital Marketing strategies. Furthermore, SEO is one of the most effective ways to boost brand awareness. Combine both elements effectively to drive results exponentially. Influence brand awareness and leverage SEO to get ahead of the competition.

Overview of SEO

These days Businesses are gaining a lot of exposure from search engine optimization, or SEO. The term “search engine optimization” refers to the process of improving a website so that it appears when people search in Google, Bing, and other search engines for products or services that are related to your business. As a result, you will more likely attract prospects and existing customers to your business if your web pages are visible in search results.

How does SEO work?

The web crawlers used by search engines like Google and Bing find the content on the web using bots, also called spiders and bots. These crawlers start at a known web page, then follow external links to other sites and internal links within the website itself. The content on those pages, along with the context of the links it followed, provide the crawler with insight into each page’s subject matter and how it’s semantically related to others in the massive database that the search engine maintains.

A search engine determines the most accurate and useful results for a query by using complex algorithms. The organic results may include web pages with full text, news articles, images, videos, local business listings, and other more niche content types.

The search engines’ algorithms are affected by many factors, which are constantly changing as user behavior changes and advances in machine learning are made.

Why is SEO important?

Taking a look at our definition of SEO in three parts will help us to comprehend its value better:

Organic search results

Search engines determine the most relevant unpaid listings in their search engine results pages (SERPs). In many SERPs, advertisements occupy a large part of the space. These ads differ from organic search results because they are positioned based on the search engine’s organic ranking algorithm instead of advertiser bids. Unlike paid search results, organic search results can’t be increased by paying.

Quality of organic traffic

The relevance of the search query to the content on your website. In case of visitors coming to your website with Google telling them you are a resource for Apple computers, even when you are a farmer selling apples, those visitors will not complete a conversion. The traffic on your site should be of high quality, meaning it should represent visitors interested in the products, information, or other resources you offer. SEO quality uses the search engine’s effort to match users’ search intent with the website listings.

Quantity of organic traffic

The number of organic search results that lead to your site. Since many users click on results near the top of the SERP, it is important for your SEO strategy to rank relevant pages highly. Increasing the number of high-quality visitors to your website will increase the chances of seeing conversions.

Types of SEO

SEO is divided into different types. It may involve black hat techniques or other tactics. Here are the categorizations of SEO that are used most often. The classification depends solely on the type of SEO that is required for organic marketing.

Technical SEO

Technical SEO refers to optimizing a website from the technical side. The entire website must be optimized. HTML codes, backends, data structures, site structures, site maps, etc., are just a few of the many technical aspects of this project. These factors are all included in technical SEO. Any SEO campaign that you run will not be as effective as it could be without optimizing these technical aspects.

On-Page SEO

Meta tags and keywords are crucial in this endeavor. Every piece of content on your website will be optimized with these tags and keywords. By creating comprehensive on-page content, you will be able to gain more traffic. On-page SEO is, therefore, the most common type of search engine optimization. Google Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) can’t appear higher on your content without On-Page SEO.

Off-Page SEO

An off-page SEO approach is the complete opposite of an on-page SEO strategy. It refers to the content published on other sites that mention your website. During this type of off-page SEO, your content will be optimized with a variety of SEO tricks. To redirect traffic to your website in an effective manner, you need SEO. Off-page SEO uses different tricks. Off-page SEO encompasses many factors, from social media sharing to backlinks. It provides businesses with authentic and proven results.

Benefits of SEO for Businesses

Increase Customer Base

Standing out from the competition and increasing your customer base are two primary reasons for having a website. An SEO-optimized website brings businesses more customers and grows twice as fast as those with a non-optimized website. Today, Search Engine Optimization is one of the most efficient and inexpensive marketing strategies. Moreover, it will only attract customers who are actively looking for your product or service!

It costs little time, energy, and money to implement SEO techniques. Still, you’ll be able to bring more “targeted” traffic to your site and more customers than you can imagine through any other marketing method.

Improve Conversion Rates

SEO-optimized websites load faster, are easier to read and surf, and display appropriately on almost all types of devices, including mobile and tablet devices. Readers and visitors who find your site easy to read and navigate is more likely to become loyal customers, subscribers, and return visitors – so don’t forget to design it that way.

Build Brand Awareness

Being ranked higher on the search engine results page increases brand awareness. The chances of potential customers trusting your brand when they search for a particular term are higher if your site appears on the first page of search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Small businesses who wish to gain greater brand recognition need to invest in SEO and begin achieving rankings for KEY terms related to their business.

Summary

Search engine optimization is beneficial not only for traffic but also for brand awareness. A strong brand will help your business become more authentic. Customers will regard your business as more trustworthy and accurate if you have a strong brand. Website optimization is possible even on a tight budget. Branding will be achieved organically through SEO campaigns. Scalability is not an issue either. SEO can benefit small businesses as well as larger corporations.

Marketing and branding are separate concepts, though they are often used interchangeably. Mastering both aspects of your business requires understanding the differences between them. The success of your business cannot be achieved without both branding and marketing. Likewise, having strong relationships on both sides will support your company’s success. Depending on who you ask, you might hear various answers about the difference between the two, and some might even tell you they are the same. This section explains the differences between them as well as how to leverage them both to your advantage.

Branding vs. Marketing

Marketing involves a company promoting its products or services through various activities. Marketers aim at generating interest in the company’s products or services. The purpose of marketing is to convey to its targeted consumers the benefits of a business and what it offers.

Depending on the number of potential customers that each specific marketing activity can reach, marketing can be done in many different ways and cost varying amounts of money. A business must first determine which message it wants to convey and which target audience it wants to reach to develop and manage a successful marketing plan.

Branding is internalized more than marketing. This involves defining one’s identity. Developing your brand is critical to the success of your marketing efforts and the success of your business.

Brands, including names and logos, should make it easy for consumers to identify your business and differentiate you from competitors. But, it goes further than that, the colors and fonts you use will become part of your brand, so don’t overlook the little things. A brand’s consistency, clarity, and concision are essential. Consistency will allow your brand to be recognized and will allow you to build a strong reputation easier.

Defining your brand is all about defining your company

First and foremost, branding is about defining your identity as a business. For this reason, the words “brand” and “company” are sometimes used interchangeably. Branding determines how your audience views your company. Brand loyalty is driven by branding. Promotion or marketing campaigns can effectively bring new customers through the door, but how they view the brand determines whether they will return. A recent study revealed that 59 percent of buyers prefer buying a new product from a familiar brand rather than one they’ve never heard of. The first step to building your audience is creating a strong brand and understanding your brand identity.

Messages are driven by marketing

In simplest terms, marketing is the process of communicating your brand’s message to your target audience and growing your audience. New customers are attracted by your marketing tactics, which then generate sales. Marketing is done in a variety of ways, including traditional media and online digital marketing. In developing a marketing strategy for our clients, we often combine different marketing methodologies. In other words, these are tactics to get your brand in front of the right eyes and, if done right, to convert leads into sales.

In other words, marketing is how you get to your audience, and branding is who you are or what you offer. In terms of marketing campaigns, your brand creation will heavily influence how you design them. A campaign must remain consistent from the written copy to the visuals to be successful for your business. Branding must stay consistent while marketing may, and should, change. This marks another significant difference between marketing and branding.

Marketing efforts usually have a start date and an end date, which allows you to analyze how a campaign’s performance is performing and find ways to improve the campaign. Generally, a marketing strategy can be changed much more quickly than a brand can be redesigned. Marketing teams must adapt to evolving digital landscapes to be successful. The brand and the message should largely remain the same. You may need to present them differently.

Marketing and branding are interdependent

If someone sees you’re branding, for example, your logo on a truck or your packaging in a store, and is intrigued, this rarely generates enough interest to lead to sales. To attract customers, you must market your brand properly.

The two components of a business are marketing and branding. While they take different approaches, when they are applied correctly, they complement each other.

Marketing efforts will be most effective if a solid branding foundation is in place from the beginning. This will enable the marketing to showcase the brand’s characteristics by highlighting the products and services. As a result, consumers will get a better sense of what the brand represents. Setting up a marketing campaign based on good branding will produce maximum results.

Branding and marketing need each other

Through the different stages of a business, both marketing and branding will play an important role. A solid foundation should be laid early on in a business’s life to achieve consistent and clear branding characteristics. Branding is the foundation from which marketing will grow, as a company already has a strong branding foundation in place. When a brand approach is combined with well-planned marketing campaigns, any business will be in the right place for continued success.

Understanding the differences between branding and marketing is essential. By understanding each component separately, you will be able to combine them correctly and efficiently. As a result, the business will run smoothly.

Conclusion

Marketing and branding are not the same – branding is the core of your marketing strategy. Therefore, it is essential to establish authentic and transparent brand values within each of the previous steps to allow your target market to quickly identify with your brand’s personality and values.

It is essential to remember that branding is not something you do once. The process permeates your culture, processes, and development as a business, and to reflect it in your work, you must be dedicated and loyal. Brand success is ultimately determined by attracting loyal customers who become brand ambassadors in future.

Website Usability Overview

The usability of a website is an indicator of its “user friendliness.” This refers to the ease of use of technology in general, but it is particularly applicable to online media, such as the Internet. Websites should be user-friendly and accessible to those who use them.

Web usability is heavily influenced by responsive design. In responsive design, the idea is to make websites accessible from multiple device displays, including laptops and mobile phones with smaller displays. Website administrators use the responsive design approach across the Internet to make their sites more accessible and user-friendly for a broader range of visitors.

Web designers also adhere to accepted best practices when it comes to website usability. For example, the number of factors determines how well content can be read or scanned, such as the size of the font and the color of the text. Several usability test methods can also be applied to a website.

Enhancing a website’s usability is about more than just the layout of the text and broader design issues like responsiveness. It is also about how the site promotes a particular use and how it reaches its visitors. In addition, the quality of a website’s usability plays a crucial role in creating high-quality web projects and efforts in search engine optimization and visibility.

Website usability principles

1. Accessibility and Availability

If your website is not accessible – for whatever reason – it becomes pointless. Having an unreliable site will frustrate users and result in losing out on new customers and revenue.

Listed below are some essential accessibility and availability principles:

• Availability of servers

When your visitors try to access your website, you want to ensure that they do not get an error message. Make sure your site is hosted correctly. Make sure you invest in a good hosting company. Our web hosts are the best in the business, so we never cut corners.

• Broken links

Ensure that your website does not have any dead links. A website crawler like Ahrefs or Screaming Frog can find all the broken links on your site for you.

• Accessibility on mobile devices

A website must be able to handle a wide range of screen sizes and slow connections. The Google index also has a “mobile-first” philosophy, which indexes mobile-friendly versions of sites. A mobile-friendly site helps you to rank higher in the Google results.

2. Clarity

Clarity is at the core of usability. You might need to spend more time guiding visitors to what they came for, or they might forget what they came for altogether if you confuse and distract them. The user will not perceive your website to be user-friendly either way, and the chances are that they will leave dissatisfied and without intent to return. Your website’s visitors come with specific goals in mind. As a website owner, your objective is to help them achieve their objectives. Having managed to accomplish that, your visitors will be pleased, and you will have laid the foundation for a positive experience.

Designing for clarity and usability involves:

• Simplicity

Don’t lose sight of what matters. Avoid distracting your visitors, and they will do what you want them to do. Please keep it simple.

• Consistency

Stay out of the cutesy territory. Instead, keep your visitors at ease by creating an experience that’s consistent across every page of your website.

• Directions

Don’t be afraid to hold the hand of your guests. They aren’t going to find your site by themselves. Show them what you have to offer instead by guiding them through your site.

• Effective information architecture

Understand how your visitors view your site and how you can structure your content accordingly.

3. Learning Capability

Another important aspect of usability is learnability. Your goal should be to design intuitive interfaces – interfaces that don’t require users to follow instructions or go through a trial-and-error process. Designing intuitively means using what people already know or creating something easy for people to learn. The concept of web design has been around for quite some time now, and most people are familiar with it. It is essential to use these concepts consistently in your web design. This will assist them in achieving their goals more quickly. Humans are drawn to patterns and recognition, so we are better at managing familiar situations than unfamiliar ones. Make sure you use new concepts consistently throughout your design. During the initial learning phase, give people a hand if they need it. The first time they use your site or product, you can provide them with additional information or instructions. Keeping things short and straightforward will aid in people’s retention.

4. Trustworthiness

An essential aspect of any website is its trustworthiness. No matter what content people look for, if they don’t trust you, that content has no worth. There are various reasons why website visitors might be skeptical of your business, from whether you exist to whether your content is of good quality. Having real people on your team is essential for people to feel like they are dealing with an honest company. You should have an “About Us” section that includes contact information and a physical address if you can. The content of your site also plays a significant role in its perceived trustworthiness. Make sure that your content is accurate and honest. It would help if you avoided errors like misspellings or incorrect grammar. It would help if you were not modest about your knowledge. Make sure others know how well you know your subject. Your site visitors may be influenced by third-party testimonials, references from your job, or links to your social media accounts.

5. The Relevance

Relevance, last but not least, contributes to a good user experience. The content on your website must be relevant to your visitors, along with being precise. Knowing your users and why they visit your website is essential. Defining your customers is the first step. It would help if you also talked to them about what their purpose is for visiting your site. Next, decide which type of content your visitors might search for in different situations on your site. Any design decision you make should give your users an easier time navigating your website.

Benefits of Website Usability

Conversions are improved by usability

Your website will perform more conversions if it’s easy to locate all the information and make a conversion. Increasing your sales, subscriptions, form submissions, and other business goals is good for you. Usability has a significant impact here. A shopping cart or checkout abandonment caused by complicated forms and incorrect error handling would be illustrative.

Customer loyalty is enhanced by usability

The more users feel like they belong on your website, the more likely they are to return. Potential customers may also share their impressions with others.

SEO rankings are improved by usability

It has never been easier to combine SEO and usability like it is now. The search rankings are based on Google’s ability to determine which websites are helpful and not. Bounce rates are prominent examples. Sites are abandoned after a first visit, which is usually caused by poor usability.

Factors should be considered to create a user-friendly website

Easy to understand & Simple

Keeping things simple is the gold standard of usability. Throughout your website, your visitors should always experience a positive and productive experience. Your website does not have to be designed for educating, converting visitors to customers, or just promoting your personal brand. A simple website design should have minimal clutter to draw attention away from your brand. The design should be straightforward.

User-friendly

Visitors can easily find their way around a user-friendly website by employing menus, headings, and topic-specific pages. These navigational features also make the site more search engine-friendly. Search engines search content that is engaging and original. Other indicators of an organized website include headings and subheadings. They are apparent indicators of an organized site. The buttons and links on your website should be easily accessible, and the content should not cause any confusion for your users. As a general rule, you always want to assume that your visitors are pressed for time when they browse your website. Make your design straightforward.

Website accessibility

It is imperative to design websites accessible to people with complex disabilities, including sensory and motor impairments. In addition, visitors to your site may have vision impairments, while others will have trouble using a mouse. Adapt your site to meet the needs of all your visitors. Providing your website visitors with a challenging browsing experience will result in you losing prospective customers.

Conclusion

A user will be more likely to enjoy their experience on your site if its usability is better. Therefore, it is imperative to have a website with an excellent design, unique content and is easy to navigate.

To achieve the best possible results, you should keep these three foundational principles in mind clear navigation i.e. Performance, responsiveness, and readability.

Local review building is a powerful way to help your local business rank high on Google and become more discoverable. In addition, local reviews are an important factor for local organic searches that also help you amplify word-of-mouth marketing.

The number of reviews, star ratings and time of posting, etc., all together impact your ability to rank for queries. But, above all, it impacts how people look at your business and helps converts them into your business.

If you believe Google will penalize you for getting reviews for your business, here’s what it has to say: 
“You can request reviews from customers through a short URL that’s specific to your business.” – Google.
 
So, there is no restriction from Google for asking for reviews from customers, and that’s only a policy at Yelp.

However, ensuring that you ask them for the review in the right way is essential. For example, offering monetary or other incentives in exchange for reviews may get you a dishonest or biased review.

Don’t ignore the potential of first-party reviews

Reviews play an important role in converting leads. A lot of people engage in reading reviews about the product or service they would want to buy. And that seems more genuine on the brand’s website than any third-party application.

So, make sure you embed your first-party reviews on your local pages to compel your potential customers to take the next step and trust your brand.

Moreover, schema markup can help display the star ratings in the search results to enhance your credibility.

Here are some tips for Encouraging Customers to Leave Reviews on your page:

Don’t Delay

Customers are more likely to give you a detailed review when they have a fresh experience and not after days or weeks or experiencing your services. So, make sure you follow up with them timely.

Be User-Friendly

If your emails go unread or non-responded, look out for other ways like SMS messaging as it has high opening rates.
Do not sound too salesy or approach them directly for reviews. Instead, add the same in other important emails related to their order or follow-up.

Make the Reviews Efficient.

Make the review posting process quick and easy for your customers by providing the option in a way that is straight to their eyes.

With Google My Business, users can rate by signing in to Google, selecting the stars, and leaving a comment.

You can paste the short URL or QR code for your GMB on your invoices and service emails to make the process seamless. It would show your interest in receiving feedback and work on customer satisfaction.

Local review building is underrated, but it can help you grow exponentially by building the trust of your potential customers. However, you must know how to do it the right way.

As the travel restrictions have started to ease around the US, the tourism industry has started to return to normalcy. Now, people have started traveling for leisure purposes, and more people will look up to the summer tourism season.

Because of this season, local SEO for hotels has become essential to kick-start their income.

According to Think with Google, the searches for “resorts near me” have grown globally by over 80% year over year. Furthermore, searches for “hotel booking apps” have grown globally by over 100% year by year.

The travelers have been looking up for hotels and other things for accommodation. Hence, it is important to develop reassurance for your guests regarding their health and safety, and amenities. For the same, posting relevant information online, along with Local SEO, is quite essential.

Here are a few of the best practices to include in your brand’s local SEO strategy:

Maximize your visibility with Google My Business attributes

In late 2020, Google updated GMB to optimize it better, based on the new requirements like safety, masks/temperature checks, hygiene, etc.

Make use of all its attributes, add all your features and amenities, discounts, etc. and optimize it to its best.
 
Convert the users into your customers

Even though your profile might be visible and drive traffic through Google My Business, not everyone would be interested in booking. Instead, a lot of them would want to compare prices or look for more details.

This is where you need to convert them into your customers by providing them with all the information and pictures they need.

Add answers to all the relevant questions you think they might face, whether related to Covid protocols or their safety and cleanliness.

Also, showcase your testimonials and room pictures to convince them that booking your hotel may be one of the best choices on their tour.

Keep up with Google’s Latest Travel Features.

Your hotel can benefit from the constantly evolving tools and features of Google, such as filters and customized searches.

Google can enhance the experience of its users by providing them with up-to-date information related to the restrictions and requirements (due to COVID).

More features like finding their ideal destination, such as terrace, pool, bar, etc., are available for the users, which can also benefit your hotel with proper optimization.

Stay up to date with Google’s changes as they continue to establish themselves as an all-in-one planning tool for travel. So your hotel business can benefit from optimized online traffic. 

Post High Definition (HD) Images

Pictures play a crucial role when it comes to attracting tourists to a hotel. So make sure you add new pictures regularly and keep your profile up-to-date. Also, add pictures of your hotel’s amenities like the garden, decoration as per festivals, restaurant, and the measures you opt for their safety.

Adding a watermark to your images will help prevent them from being misused. Similarly, do not use stock images as it would cause customer dissatisfaction.

Optimize your business for Local Search Terms 

Try to target various types of keywords on your website, local pages optimization, and Google My Business, as you never know what your target audience might search for.

Your ideal customer may be looking for a nearby hotel, but the ways in which they express that need in search are as varied as your guests themselves. Try targeting different types of keywords in your Google My Business, website, and Local Pages optimization.

For example, include the keywords related to local events, festivals, celebrations, and ceremonies like weddings, bachelor’s, kitty, etc., to let people know what your location is best suitable for.

Explore the current trends and changing requirements

Since the pandemic, the needs and requirements of people are constantly evolving. However, work from home and the need for comfort has stayed and is to stay for long.

So, optimizing your profile as per the current needs of people by adding keywords like working spaces and strong Wi-Fi connections can be highly beneficial.

Similarly, sustainable living choices like reusable stuff, avoiding plastic, saving electricity, etc., can help target a specific audience.

The same can be done by surveying the existing or previous customers about their choices and experiences.

As hotel brands have got back into the market, it is time to increase their presence and visibility by optimizing their website using Local SEO and attract their target audience.

When it comes to On-Page SEO, Keyword research is unquestionably essential. While it is important to do keyword research well before drafting content, the concern “whether to use short-tail keywords or long tail” is quite common.

To let search engines detect the content of your web page, you need to use relevant keywords in various parts of the content such as the title, headings, slug, alt text, and several times within the content.

If you are unsure which keywords (Long vs. Short Tail) can benefit you more, read ahead, and you wouldn’t need to look up to any other resource.

What are short tail keywords?

Keywords that are not longer than three words are termed short-tail keywords—for example, Italian cuisine, Oxford University.

What are long-tail keywords?

Keywords that are over three words long are known as long-tail keywords—for example, Italian cuisine restaurant near me, Oxford University Admission 2021.
 
Long Tail Vs. Short Tail Keywords

Here’s a crystal-clear distinction between short-tail and long-tail keywords:

Nature

Short tail keywords are primarily general. Example: Italian food. On the other hand, long-tail keywords as specific. Example: Italian food under $10.
 
With that said, long-tail keywords can determine a user’s search intent. However, the same is uncertain with short-tail keywords.

Cost

Short tail keywords are costlier to rank as the demand is high. In comparison, it is inexpensive to rank long-tail keywords due to its low demand.

Conversion

The chance of conversion (making money) is high with long-tail keywords, as those are specific to the user’s search intent. The same is the opposite in the case of short-tail keywords.

Volume

The search volume for short-tail keywords is high. Therefore ranking for them can lead you to high traffic. However, it is the opposite in the case of long-tail keywords.

Competition

Short tail keywords are highly competitive, and thus ranking for them requires high Domain Authority, among other factors.
Long-tail keywords, on the other hand, are easier to rank for even with low Domain Authority.

Are long tail keywords better?

Long-tail keywords are a game-changer if your website or business is new. By ranking for long-tail keywords, you may get lesser traffic as the search volume is generally low. However, since they are pretty specific, the chances of conversion are high.
 
For websites with high domain authority, it is easier to rank for short-tail keywords. But, even if you drive a lot of traffic, it would be generic, and most of them may return unsatisfied as they may be looking for something specific that your article may not talk about.

For example, if you rank for the keyword “domain” for an article with the cheapest domains for sale, and you rank high for it and drive huge traffic. But if users intend to understand what ‘domain’ means, the search for “domain,” they may return unsatisfied.

So, if you rank for a long-tail keyword like “buy cheap .com domain,” you might get less traffic but a high conversion rate.
 
Endnote

Both long tail and short tail keywords have their advantages and disadvantages. Ultimately, you need to decide which one to use, depending upon your objective and domain authority.

The rollout of Google’s page experience update was completed today, Google confirmed. However, a week will pass before Google reps say the changes to the Google News app have been completed. On mobile search, this includes updates to the Top Stories carousel.

Announcement

“The page experience prelaunch includes updates to the mobile carousel for Top Stories”, it was stated that the rollout was complete now. Google announced on Twitter that it has begun rolling out changes to its News app.

No major changes occurred in the rankings

As a reminder, you probably didn’t notice substantial ranking changes as a result of this release. According to Google, the update has been rolling out slowly, and the company initially warned websites not to expect drastic changes: “While this update highlights pages with great user experiences, page experience is just one of many factors we consider. As such, sites should generally not expect dramatic changes,” said Google.

Contrast with a core update

Page experience updates do not share the same signal with core updates, such as web vitals. There is no relation between them and no influence between them. Just yesterday, a core update for June 2021 was released. Usually, a Google Search ranking fluctuation is felt more often than a page experience update.

What we should care

Most users have awaited the last update for more than a year. Now it has been rolled out. Those changes will not be as significant as those caused by the June core update, so you should not confuse them with those from this update.

End of August rollout

By the end of August, Google plans to complete the full rollout of this ranking change. This set will include all the critical web vital metrics, including the LCP, CLS, and FID.