SEO Hostel Health Check

Keeping your website SEO Friendly


We want you to make the most of your assets, and having a kick ass website is a great way to showcase them. Attract your perfect match with beautiful and relevant content, and a strong message to book direct at this amazing hostel. The purpose of good SEO is to get good positions in SERPS (search engine result pages) - make your website the best it can be for you, Google, and your customers - everyone wins! 

So how do you master this wizardry? Well, there are some basic steps that you can do for yourself before calling in the experts. Here's how to get yourself off the blocks.

Some key points to look out for:

• Make sure that your site is mobile friendly!! Depending on your audience this could be up to 89% of your traffic. Insane.

• Be Google friendly. Make sure you are on Google Maps and when you appear on Google business check that your reviews are responded to (nicely) and you have added your own photos and description. This will help your organic views push you to the top.

• Be user friendly. The user experience is important for bookings and and search engines - you need do to be easily navigable and have a website that makes sense - not a cat's picnic!

• Keep content relevant. Have your important content on your homepage, optimize it for keywords related to your hostel and destination, keep it interesting and unique. Don't bury the really useful stuff somewhere in the back. Like your address.

• Be aware of Good Practice rules to avoid penalties. Don't duplicate content or syndicate it to other websites; it has to be unique. And careful what images you use - it's not ok to borrow from Instagram unless you want a copyright fine - always get permission first!

• Get on top of your content by creating it yourself. Start a blog and try to add relevant topics. Blogs help keep material fresh and make Google bots re-visit and index your pages more. User content is also joyful, but this is something you have to have under your control.

• Make sure your website also loads quickly for anyone with a slow connection. Have your images and videos set to web pixel sizes and don't have huge files you don't need. Search speed is incorporated into rankings.

• Keep on top of your tabs. Pay attention to where pages are leading and what information is on them, and match up your content, titles and descriptions to the relevant pages. Just keep it tidy!

• Be social. Link to your social accounts and make sure they are active and relevant. You don't have to be posting all the time, but make sure when you do it is on brand, with your business tone of voice, and relevant, engaging or useful to your audience.

• Connect with bloggers and partners with your press releases or getting personal with them. This may be just through Facebook, but don't leave them out when it comes to connecting.

• Make sure those you do build a relation with have happy SEO and are not going to be bad for you to link with. Links aren't as important as they used to be, but you want to link with authority sites to be seen as one - so avoid a tour company with terrible reviews and dodgy certification - keep it classy!

• Secure you website with 'https' to give buyer confidence 

So those are your basic SEO health check tips from the Hostel Doctor! Make sure that you are helping yourself get direct bookings with the best organic search you can get. Get this right, and your hostel will benefit from an amazing website! 


We hope these tips help - get in touch with us at hello@hosteldoctor.com for more help with your hostel website. We're here to help keep your hostel healthy!

Why do I Need a Blog on my Hostel Website?

Or... Write A Blog Now!

You're probably thinking it's the last thing you have time to do - but a travel blog is really important for your website! It can also be a lot of fun if you involved your hostel staff - everyone has a recommendation for a favourite bar, coffee shop or place to shop. It's also a great way to get you thinking about your destination in terms of what it has to offer for visitors. You may live there, but to them it's a blank canvas and you have the power to make their trip awesome with your handy tips!!

Here are some key reasons why a blog can be good for you

• Google is your first reason - if you are adding new material regularly then the Google bots will be indexing your pages and a regular basis - which is good!

• Guests. Potential customers will see your helpful tips and think that you really care about them having a good time and making the most of their experience in your destination. Sharing is caring.
  

• Bloggers. They might want to share some tips with you or buddy up and provide some good material, inspiration and links.

• Inspiration. If you post amazing and inspiring pictures and videos then you are going to tempt visitors to come to your destination. We can't take the Balmer's Interlaken snow pictures anymore, we're booking our next trip already. Likewise with sunsets at Athenstyle Hostel, the pool parties at Hostel Pachamama in San Juan del Sur in Nicaragua, beach shots from El Misti in Rio, and the idea of Eurovision at Abrahams Hostel in Tel Aviv. We love you all and it's about time for another visit - watch out, we're coming to get you!!

• Social. You can keep sharing fresh material to your audience - and at the same time inform them of what's happening where you are. Win win.

• Get your staff involved in being a part of the hostels voice and inspiration - they can guest write if they are wannabe bloggers, or provide cool photos, or interviews, or just share some top tips. Get them involved with sharing what they love about the destination. That way everyone gets to know a bit more about each other. 

So these are some of the reasons we think it's worth having a blog on your website. If you think it's too tiresome and you don't have time, you can syndicate material to add, but remember to keep it on brand and relevant to your hostel and customers.

Some ideas for this could be general travel tips such as packing light or cool apps (and a way to promote other brands), or sharing local guides, activities in your destination or events that would be great to check out. It also will help with your SEO! So get organic with Google and start creating your relevant content yourself. 

Good Luck!

If you want any help or advise with your blog posts then get in touch with us at hello@hosteldoctor.com. We're here to help you keep your hostel healthy!!

Making the most of working with video marketing

How to make the most of working with video marketing

Having always been the most popular method of interacting with customers online, video exploded in 2017 with the live stories enabled by social media platforms meaning we were all inundated with short clips of real experiences. Here's how to make the most of it for your marketing for 2018.

Live streaming on social media platforms is still rising in popularity after dominating 2017. When it began it was a great way to interact with audiences and showcase your brand; now it’s standard, so hostels have to get behind this. Standing out from the noise is the biggest challenge with social media – there are more than 50 million small businesses using social media platforms - especially if you are trying to build your brand and attract new customers with limited resources. Live streaming is a really quick and attention grabbing way to do this and try to avoid brand fatigue of constantly selling something. It is also part of the move towards personal and local experiences as its shows an immersive experience.   

Facebook has made changes for Ecommerce and product focused ad formats to allow for more visually intriguing adverts; namely video. This is one way to attract new customers, now that Business Pages will see less placement in newsfeeds. 

Three quarters of consumers report that watching a video heavily influences their purchase decision on social media. We always encourage businesses to make videos whenever they can because it’s the best way to showcase their brand. Hostels have personalities, and reading about a hostel or seeing photos doesn’t compare to seeing the hostel experience through video. It also works in any language! Video is also great for using on different platforms. The other advantage is now everyone has video capability on their cell phones, you don’t even need them to be professionally shot. People expect a handheld live video to be unprofessional. And you can also take advantage of guests making video to create user generated content. Going ‘live’ on social media channels with videos of live music or bar antics always attracts a lot of attention and shows your hostel to be experiential rather than just a place to sleep.


Making the most of working with video marketing, by Hostel Doctor