How to improve your site’s search engine optimisation, by link building.

This hasn’t changed in all the years that search engine optimisation (SEO) has been a ‘thing’… It’s still as true today that Google takes into account how many links are in existence that point to your website. Over time, links are built naturally… eg from places where you may advertise (who allow a link to your website) or via social mentions or social accounts – eg the link you have for your website in the ‘About’ section of your Facebook business page for example.

It used to be much easier for accommodation owners in years gone by. Do you remember the days when there was a multitude of directories for accommodation? Each creating a listing for your accommodation, and providing a link to your website. These directories have mostly disappeared now, replaced by big booking sites that don’t allow links to owners websites. This makes it very hard for owners to get a good number of quality links.

But fear not, you can still do it the old fashioned way…by making contact with neighbouring accommodation owners (or restaurants, pubs etc – anyone who is in the hospitality / tourism industry). Simply ask the site owner if they wish to swap links with you – if they agree you simply add their website address to your website’s links page (you may need to set one up if you haven’t got one) and they will in turn, add your website address on their own website’s links page. This is called reciprocal linking.

Consider each link as a positive thumbs up. The more thumbs ups you get, the better your site will be perceived by search engines, in regards to this aspect of their algorithm.

Just don’t be fooled into buying links. This can do more harm than good.

We have a site called Discover Accommodation that will allow you to add your accommodation for free, and the simple listing includes a link field – so get started and get your first link back without any effort at all: CLICK HERE

A step up from just having your website address as the link text would be to use a useful search engine phrase as the anchor text. This means that instead of the website address being the visual text instead the search phrase would be the text linked with your website address. It’s easier to show you what I mean! This link is using anchor text: Dog Friendly Holiday cottage sleeping 2 near Kendal, Lake District – when you click on this link it takes you to the owner’s website. This is more useful (as Search engines will see that the text that is hyperlinked is highly relevant to the link it’s going to, rather than just this where it’s just the website address that is the link: https://www.lakes-cottages.co.uk/. Do you see what I mean?

It may be useful to start up a group for accommodation owners who are looking to pro-actively link build – finding owners who have the ability / knowledge to edit their own website can be hard. If anyone thinks they would like to get a group together (on Facebook for example), let me know and we’ll get one set up! Get in touch here

UPDATED 11 June 2020: As a result of readers’ requests we have set up a Facebook group for link building

Have you joined our Facebook Group yet?

Our new private Facebook group has been set up to create a community of accommodation owners, who can ask for help for any online topic; regarding websites, social media marketing etc.