How do I increase SEO traffic through online reviews?

A legitimate question into which we enter with a definition:

What exactly is meant by SEO traffic?

SEO is the abbreviation for “Search Engine Optimisation”. Often, SEO traffic is understood to mean the proportion of website visitors who reach the respective page via a search engine.
However, this term simplifies the result, since SEO traffic is a relevant measure when it comes to measuring success. It is better to call all visitors who come through a search engine “search engine traffic” and to narrow down the definition of SEO traffic, as part of this large group. After all, SEO traffic is also based on successful SEO work, such as the targeted optimisation of the contents of a website in order to generate a better ranking in the search results and thus more users.

How does SEO work?

Now there are plenty of tips and clever instructions on how to best use SEO to increase organic traffic and attract more people to your site. There is talk of broken link building and studies claiming that 70% of SEO traffic is generated by long tail keywords.
These strategies have their right to exist, no question. But it is true that the algorithm of the search engines, especially Google, is quite opaque and is constantly changing anyway. And it is not for nothing that there is a professional group of SEO managers who specialise in perfecting search engine optimisation of websites. Just as you, as a hotelier or restaurant owner, are specialised in offering your guests the best possible experience.

Save yourself from plunging into the impenetrable jungle of search engine optimisation, time and value are out of proportion – it’s rumored that the profession of an SEO manager is an endangered breed.
Instead, simply use the resources that are available to you and use them efficiently.

More SEO traffic thanks to online reviews

The reviews of your satisfied guests that you receive on public platforms such as Facebook, TripAdvisor, Google or HolidayCheck are content that makes your company interesting for the search engines. Every new rating is fresh content – search engines love fresh content. At the same time, reviews add value for other users, and are considered by the search engines to be particularly relevant.

With high-quality content, you do not only gain the search engines for yourself, but above all the users, to whom you provide valuable and useful information.
You benefit the most from this fact, if you do not only rely on the reviews of the major rating portals, but specifically ask your guests for reviews, collect them and integrate them into your own website. This can be done with the help of an XML integration. The inclusion of your guest reviews via XML has a positive effect on the visibility of your site on the Internet, because search engines rate websites whose content is regularly updated and supplemented, especially with good content. By integrating the reviews into your own web page, and as your guests write new reviews, you constantly update your web page content without having to invest time or money. And Google in turn rewards changing content Google with a better ranking.

For our customers, we provide all the necessary data for the integration of the XML feed – of course in an individual format especially designed for you. Decide for yourself which ratings, reviews and statistics you want to display. Just contact us and use your reviews to increase your SEO traffic.
After integrating the XML feed, please be sure to let our customer service know so that we can set the certificate to “no-index”. Thus, the reviews of the search engine crawlers are only found on your website.

By the way …

Noindex is a command that is placed in a website’s meta-information. This command prevents the respective website from being included in the index of the search engines.
Now, one might assume that it is more of an advantage to have your own guest reviews published on as many different pages as possible. Yes and no. Of course, your presence on the public platforms and the wide distribution of your reviews will have a positive effect on your online reputation. However, if the same reviews appear on different websites, it is considered “duplicate content”. And such things should be avoided, because it is more than counterproductive, if the same content is displayed on several different websites. Because the search engines like to filter out duplicate content and do not consider it when indexing – or, worse, rate it, and thus your website, negatively.

Search engines like Google assume that you have deliberately sprinkled duplicate content to positively influence your ranking and gain more traffic, and rigorously penalise this practice. The result: Instead of raising your ranking as you hoped, they are far less considered in the search results than before. You can then only find your potential customers through organic search, your page views will decrease – and ultimately your sales.

Conclusion

It is therefore essential and – from the company’s point of view – vital to publish the SEO-relevant content, ie your guest reviews, in a targeted manner and make it easily accessible to the search engines. So you do not only increase the SEO traffic of your website, but invest in your own future.

We are happy to help you to use your guest reviews to increase your SEO traffic. Make an appointment with one of our employees, use our solution for free and without obligation for 30 days and see for yourself!