Search engine optimisation is art of manipulating your website or web content so that it will appear higher in the search results than your competitors for a specific search term or phrase. For the majority of the readers of this article, those terms and phrases will center around skiing, and ski chalets, or perhaps mountain biking or climbing.
SEO considered to be a bit of a dark art. Since search engines keep their ranking algorithms a closely guarded secret, it is difficult to tell with any certainty which factors have direct influence on your ranking. However, there are several elements that are widely regarded to be influential in deciding the ranking of an individual page.
In this article we're going to highlight the changes that you can make to increase your search engine ranking. We'll start with your content, otherwise known as 'on page seo', and then focus other factors or 'off page seo', and finally some opportunities that are especially relevant in the chalet industry.
Before we start with the SEO process it's important to know what keywords or phrases you want to optimise your page for. Try and think about your chalet from the perspective of a customer searching on Google. I'd recommend that you choose relatively small set of keywords that are highly relevant to your property. The following are examples of good keywords:
- luxury ski-in ski-out chalet
- catered chalet with hot tub
- chalet with child care
Now you've identified your keywords you can turn your attention to optimising your page.
On Page SEO
The key when considering how to optimise your content is to remember that a search engine is a machine trying to behave like a person. It 'reads' the content of each page and attempts to ascertain subject matter by analysing the content. 'On page' SEO is all about trying to ensure that the content of your page is as relevant as possible for your target search terms.
When google analyses the content of a page it assigns different weight to different areas of a page. The key to having a well optimised page is to ensure your desired keywords appear in the areas of the page that hold the greatest significance. The following is a list of elements that you should pay special attention to - make sure your keywords appear in each of them:
- The title of the page
This is the text that appears in the bar at the top of your browser. It is also the default text used if a visitor bookmarks a page. - Page headings
Page headings are enclosed by html header tags (<h1> to <h6>). The bigger the heading, the more relevant the text. - Page body
The main body of your page contains the majority of the information about your subject, so should ensure that you use your keywords liberally. Google assigns more relevance to content at top of a page than at the bottom. You should ensure that your keywords appear in the opening few paragraphs. - Images
More and more people are arriving at sites after performing an image search, for example a user may search for images of a 'ski chalet with hot tub'. To capture as many of these searches as possible you should ensure that you have a relevant file name (chalet-hot-tub.jpg and not ht2737.jpg), and that you provide 'alt' text (a description of the picture content).
Off Page SEO
Off page SEO is quite simply all about generating links to your content. Google sees each link to your page as a 'vote'. If your page has more votes than a competitor you are likely to rank higher then them.
- Link your different web sites together.
If you've got lots of different places in the web that you control, you should consider linking them together. As a chalet owner you probably have your own website, as well as being listed in several directories. If possible you should ensure that the directories link to your own site, but also that you should link to the directories. - Link from relevant site
All links are not created equal. Search engines value links from related subject matter sites as more relevant, and hence they cast more votes. You should link two sites together if they are both about chalets, skiing, mountains etc, but probably not if one is a chalet listing and the other is about knitting. - Link text
You should try to get your key words in the link text of any links to your site. A link that says 'click here to see my wonderful chalet' with the link on the word "here" will be less relevant that if you made the clickable text "luxury chalet in Chamonix".
SEO for the Ski Chalet Industry
The final piece of advice, and probably the most important, is particularly pertinent to the ski industry given the prevalence of sites a chalet can be listed with. The average chalet owner will likely have their own website as well as having a listing in a number of ski chalet directories (such as chaletpro.com). In addition they may have a facebook page, a twitter account, or a blog.
To maximise your SEO opportunities it's vital that each of these sites have unique content. It is vital you don't copy and paste the description of your chalet from one site to another. If you do copy and paste content between sites, Google will simply ignore all but one of them, so you might as well not have bothered with multiple listings at all. By taking a little time and effort to create unique content for each site, you will greatly increase the chance that your chalet will appear in a search engine result.
Last Updated: 2009-10-12