Why Image and Video SEO Matters for Hotels
Videos and images are an essential piece of any hotel marketing. Proper representation of images and videos displays a variety of experiences that potential guests can enjoy. For a travel website, quality images of the interiors and exteriors along with other facilities and surrounding places would certainly help in the better placement of possible bookings, while videos like virtual tours and guest testimonials even add more interest and provide engagement to the visitors.
But it is not enough to have superb images and videos. You should also optimize your images and videos in order that they will be included in the image search and help your SEO. In this guide, we are going to cover the most efficient ways of optimizing visual content in order to ensure that your hotel has more visibility on the internet, brings more visitors, and measures more bookings at the end.
The Role of Image and Video SEO in Hotel Marketing
Visual elements form the backbone of a hotel’s digital marketing strategy. Before making a reservation, potential customers wish to look at your hotel, the available services, and the surrounding areas. Well-optimized images and videos can:
- Improve user engagement and make your site more interesting.
- Assist your hotel rank in Google Image search and video resources like YouTube.
- Improve the dwell time of your site as it shows the search engines the worth of the content.
For tips on creating high-quality visual content, check out How to Use Content Marketing to Attract More Guests to Your Hotel.
Optimizing Images for SEO
Optimizing images properly is good for the user experience and loading speed of the website as well as for its SEO. It is important to realize that search engines like Google do not “see” images the way people do. Thus, improvement of image file names, alt texts, captions, and any other features related to images will ensure that the search engines get the desired message about the images that are included.
- Using Appropriate File Names
The filename of an image should give a clear understanding of the image’s content and should contain important keywords relevant to which the image is analyzed. Do not use generic file names like “IMG_1234.jpg” but rather use specific names such as “luxury-hotelroom-nairobi.jpg” or “rooftop-pool-view.jpg.”
- Add Alt Text to Every Image
Alt text is basically a written description of an image that helps search engines understand what is being visualized in the image. This is important when considering web accessibility. Your alt text should describe the image while incorporating relevant keywords.
- Alt Text Example: “Ocean-view suite at a beachfront hotel in Mombasa with private balcony.
Compress Images for Faster Load Times
Large image files can slow down your website. It leads to a bad user experience and lower rankings. You can always rely on online image compressors such as TinyPNG and ImageOptim to decrease the size of the images while still maintaining their quality. This will help in enhancing the speed of your site, most importantly for the mobile users.
Use Captions to Provide Context
Image captions are usually read more than the main text on the page, so they are a good way to engage viewers. This can be done with captions that help give surrounding information or some meaning to the image. For example, “Enjoy a relaxing evening by the rooftop pool with stunning city views.”
For tips on improving your website’s overall load times and performance, see Technical SEO Tips to Improve Your Hotel Website’s Performance.
Optimizing Videos for SEO
Videos are a great way to engage potential guests. You can attract them with virtual tours of your hotel, guest testimonials, or promotional videos. You must adhere to certain optimization best practices in order to ensure that your videos are discoverable and improve your SEO.
- Host Videos on Your Website and YouTube
To increase visibility, host your videos on both your website and platforms such as YouTube. YouTube is the second-largest search engine, so hosting videos there allows you to reach a larger audience. Make sure to link back to your hotel’s website in the video description.
- Use Descriptive Video Titles and Descriptions
Search engines use textual information about your videos as they do about your pictures to understand the content. Titles should give information to the reader clearly and concisely and include keywords. For instance, ‘Virtual Tour of Luxury Hotel in Nairobi’ describes exactly what the short video is about and is likely to attract relevant traffic.
Use keywords and a brief description to state the intent of the video posted and add other calls to action such as visiting the website or booking a stay.
Create Video Transcripts
Apart from increasing the accessibility of your video, transcripts allow search engines to crawl more content. If you are uploading a video on YouTube, you may add the transcript in the description of the video or on the page bearing the video.
Embed Videos on Important Pages
Make sure to add videos on important pages such as blog posts, room listings, and the home page. For example, enhance visitors’ engagement and encourage bookings by adding a virtual tour of the resort on the homepage or ‘The Rooms & Suites’ page.
For more ideas on how to incorporate video into your content strategy, check out How to Use Content Marketing to Attract More Guests to Your Hotel.
Implementing Structured Data for Images and Videos
Schema markup, also referred to as structured data, is one such technique that aims at providing additional information to search engines regarding the content present on a website. For example, structured data in images or videos improves their chances of appearing in rich search results, as well as appearing in Google image/video results.
How to Add Structured Data for Images:
Provide more information to the search engines related to each image with the help of the ImageObject schema, such as:
- Image URL
- Caption
- License (if applicable)
- Content URL (the page where the image appears)
How to Add Structured Data for Videos:
With the help of VideoObject schema, provide search engines with more particular information about your videos such as:
- Video title
- Description
- Thumbnail URL
- Duration
- Date of Upload
Adding structured data to a website can increase the likelihood of images and videos appearing in search results, and, thus, increase website traffic.
For more technical optimization tips, see Technical SEO Tips to Improve Your Hotel Website’s Performance.
Leveraging User-Generated Visual Content
User-generated content (UGC) is content created by a diverse group of people, usually in relation to a brand or its media. As in this case, user-generated content such as images and video clips uploaded by guests prior to, during, or after their stay significantly improves the hotel’s marketing opportunities and attracts potential customers.
Here are Some Tips for Encouraging User-Generated Visual Content:
- Create Your Own Hashtag: Whenever possible, encourage visitors to use a hashtag specific to your brand (for example #StayAt[YourHotel]). This minor detail would help a lot in locating their posts and sharing their content easily.
- Feature UGC (User-generated content) on Your Website: Incorporate visitor photos and video content on your website through either the direct integration of social media picture posts into pages on the home screen or by including a separate page called “Guest Experiences”.
- Run Contests on Social Media: Offer incentives to customers who share the best photos and videos during their stay at the hotel. The incentive can be a free night’s stay or a discount on the next bookings.
Utilizing User Generated Content (UGC) allows you to create genuine content that speaks directly to prospective guests thus facilitating increased direct bookings.
To learn more about the benefits of reviews and guest feedback, check out Off-Page SEO Strategies to Boost Your Hotel’s Search Rankings.
Conclusion
Enhancing your hotel’s images and videos is a must for increasing customer satisfaction, improving ranking in search results, and ultimately increasing the number of reservations. Image and video optimization techniques for SEO purposes such as using descriptive file names, compressing images for faster load times, and using schema will make sure that the visual content is of benefit to you.
Next Steps:
- Internal Links Recap:
- Learn how to improve your site’s load times in Technical SEO Tips to Improve Your Hotel Website’s Performance.
- For more ideas on how to integrate video into your marketing strategy, see How to Use Content Marketing to Attract More Guests to Your Hotel.
- Discover how user-generated content can improve your SEO in Off-Page SEO Strategies to Boost Your Hotel’s Search Rankings.
Internal Linking Recap:
- Link to Technical SEO Tips to Improve Your Hotel Website’s Performance for more technical insights.
- Link to Content Marketing for Hotels for using videos effectively.
- Link to Off-Page SEO for Hotels to explore user-generated content and reviews.