A Look at SEO in 2019

A Look at SEO in 2019

SEO is constantly changing. With a steady stream of Google updates changing the way search engines read content, it’s important to have a team of professionals on your side that can help you understand the updates being made while implementing any required changes to your overall SEO strategy as needed.

We can be sure to expect new and exciting SEO updates in the year to come. Our team of SEO researchers at Leonardo are continuously learning and adapting the strategies they build for hotels based on search engines’ changes and updates. Our content team is kept up to date with any new information regarding SEO best practices, and work to create the kind of stories that not only make your site more visible to travel shoppers, but are also producing compelling content that provides guests a peek inside your hotel’s unique story.

When discussing the upcoming SEO trends in 2019, here are a few buzzwords you’ll be seeing over the next year, and what we’re doing to stay on top of them all:

High Quality Content

In the last few years, Google has made a greater effort to crack down on websites with low-quality content that could be perceived as spam. In doing this, they ensure every website they crawl provides high-quality content that answers the question a user is looking for.

At Leonardo, our team of Storytellers work with each hotel to produce high quality, informative content that allows travel shoppers to understand each element of the hotel and area attractions. All of our pages include the high quality and quantity of content designed to meet SEO best practices and to convince a travel shopper to book directly.

Page Speed

When you’re trying to make a purchase online and the website lags for an extended period of time, the likelihood of you clicking out of the website and browsing for something new is incredibly high. In addition to creating a poor user experience, a slow page speed will negatively impact your overall SEO ranking.

We continuously improve our Vizlly platform to increase the speed of our websites. As part of our ongoing efforts to improve our product, we have recently implemented an advanced caching system which has improved our Vizlly site’s speed. We have also addressed the issue of images slowing down a website’s page speed. High quality images are crucial to creating a positive user experience for travel shoppers, but they can also slow down your website. Our image optimization engine allows high quality images to load seamlessly on your website without impacting your page speed.

Security

A recent study found that 82% of respondents claimed they would leave a website if they saw a “not secure” warning.

Clearly, website security is a top ranking factor for Google as they crawl websites, even going so far as to rank any websites without an SSL certificate lower than ones that do. In 2018 we went through a process of issuing SSL Certificates for all of our Vizlly + SEO customers, ensuring each Vizlly website offers a secure experience for users.

Voice Search

Voice search has been on the come up for a number of years, and 2019 is believed to be the year this particular style of search will become common practice. Voice search is used when people speak to their mobile or portable device to search for something on the web instead of typing in a query. This new style of search is changing the way businesses present their web content, as content writers begin to adjust to a more conversational tone for pages that will be optimized for voice search. 

At Leonardo, we are working on creating new and engaging ways to create keyword opportunities and voice search-friendly content for our websites, allowing us to rank higher for guests who are using voice search to find a hotel in the area.

Mobile-First Indexing

Google’s mobile-first indexing algorithm means that the mobile version of your website will be the first thing the search engine looks at when crawling your website. After indexing your mobile website, Google will then begin to crawl the desktop version of your website.

This means that you may see your website ranking higher on a mobile device compared to its desktop counterpart if you have a responsive, mobile-friendly theme. With the trend of mobile browsing only expected to grow in 2019, ensuring your website is optimized for a mobile device or tablet is crucial for SEO success.

All of our Vizlly websites are mobile friendly, meaning guests can easily navigate and locate the same information when they’re browsing your website on their phone as they would on their laptop at home.

As we head into 2019, we look forward to another year of dynamic innovations in the world of SEO. Want to learn more about your hotel’s overall SEO strategy and our constant efforts to maximize results for your property in the form of ongoing monitoring? Give your Success Coach a call! They’ll be happy to provide you with a refresher on your hotel’s SEO strategy, as well as our approach to SEO here at Leonardo.

Written by Rachel Devitt, Storytelling Specialist at Leonardo