The Keys to Optimize your Travel Content to Maximize SEO Success #TBEXPuertoRico #TBEX

Learn how to optimize your travel content to avoid rankings drop while maximizing organic search growth.

Transcript

2. The Keys to Optimize your Travel Content To Maximize SEO Success The 2024 Edition
3. ¡Hola! I’m Aleyda Solis, 
 SEO Consultant, Speaker & Author KEYS TO TRAVEL CONTENT SEARCH OPTIMIZATION BY @ALEYDA FROM @ORAINTI I’m Aleyda Solis * SEO Consultant & Founder at Orainti * SEO Speaker at +100 Events in +20 countries * Author “SEO. Las Claves Esenciales.” * Crawling Mondays Video & Podcast Series Host * SEOFOMO & MarketingFOMO Newsletters Author * Maker LearningSEO.io * European Search Personality of the Year in 2018 * remoters.net Co-Founder
4. https://digitaloft.co.uk/the-impact-of-googles-helpful-content-update-on-travel-publishers/ Last months haven’t been kind to travel publishers organic search performance
5. Since last year, many travel sites have been negatively affected by Google's Updates https://www.webintravel.com/travel-industry-urged-to-diversify-organic-traffic-flow-amid-google-seo-leaks/ 
 https://www.phocuswire.com/google-seo-search-travel-blogger-ota-core-update-march
6. From popular independent travel blogs with well optimized content for search
7. To established travel publications 
 part of media networks
8. https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2022/08/helpful-content-update It’s now not enough to feature descriptive, relevant content to win, it also needs to be people-first. 
 But what does this mean?
9. https://housefresh.com/david-vs-digital-goliaths/ It’s natural to have concerns! Is Google still a viable channel for travel creators?
10. HOW DID WE GET HERE? 1. HOW TO IDENTIFY YOUR OWN SPECIFIC CONTENT ISSUES AND SEARCH OPPORTUNITIES 2. WHAT CAN YOU DO TO GROW YOUR CONTENT SEO RESULTS AND AVOID GETTING HIT 3. Let’s go through it
11. How Did We Get Here?
12. This is Google’s reaction to industry trends and tactics used by sites to manipulate or monetize search while not always giving the best experience
13. The usage of AI generated content to produce low quality spam at scale to rank
14. Sites publishing content targeting queries for the sake of growing and monetizing traffic without real topic expertise or experience
15. Aggressive monetization via intrusive ads giving a bad user experience
16. This is why Google initially released their product reviews system in 2021 https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/reviews-system
17. https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2022/12/google-raters-guidelines-e-e-a-t + Added Experience to their EAT content principles to be checked by quality raters
18. https://developers.google.com/search/help/helpful-content-faq And also released the helpful content update that has been now incorporated in major Google core updates
19. https://blog.google/products/search/google-search-update-march-2024/ All this culminated with March Core Update, focused on reducing by 45% low quality content
20. But as an outcome, big brands & UGC grew to unprecedented visibility across sectors Advanced Web Rankings & SimilarWeb
21. Just take a look at Reddit’s visibility growth and results for popular travel queries Sistrix
22. Despite complaints about the lack of reliability and accuracy of UGC, Google justifies their inclusion
23. At the same time, many independent publishers have been losing visibility vs less deserving sites, without recovery so far
24. Google has answered addressing the difficulty of getting updates “right” for all at scale, while asking for patience and feedback
25. However, this doesn’t mean it’s not worthy to fix issues in case you have them and take all what has happened into account within your SEO strategy
26. There are independent travel publications that continue to grow despite this
27. How To Identify Your Own Specific Content Issues and Opportunities
28. Start by establishing your content organic search performance, especially increases/decreases correlated with the latest updates https://status.search.google.com/products/rGHU1u87FJnkP6W2GwMi/history
29. Google Search Console & GSC Guardian Analyze your Google Search Console clicks & Position Trends along with updates
30. Compare the before & after of the affected period to assess the gap in queries & pages Google Search Console & Google Search Console Enhanced Analytics
31. Export to assess the queries and pages 
 affected by real rankings drops & increases
32. Identify those with actual rankings drops/ increases, rather than SV or CTR changes The goal will be to Identify issues on pages targeting affected queries to fi x and avoid from now on The goal will be to Identify characteristics on pages targeting improved queries to learn and expand further RANKINGS DECREASE RANKINGS INCREASE
33. Sistrix, Semrush, Ahrefs, SE Ranking You can also use SEO tools to identify affected queries & pages by ranking drops
34. Sistrix, Semrush, Ahrefs, SE Ranking Context is important: Identify the pages 
 that increased while yours decreased
35. Advanced Web Rankings You can do this in bulk to identify those Websites & pages outranking yours for a group of queries with AWR
36. Similarweb As well as to identify where the clicks go in bulk for a group of queries with SimilarWeb
37. https://www.aleydasolis.com/en/seo-flowcharts/#2 Once you’ve identified that there has been an actual drop and affected queries and pages, you need to assess if it’s relevant to optimize further
38. https://www.aleydasolis.com/en/seo-flowcharts/#2 Don’t do anything. 
 
 The queries that dropped are not really meant to rank queries for your site, and not bringing any business value. You shouldn’t have ranked for them Create and optimize from a technical, content and experience perspective the pages that will ful fi ll the need of the relevant queries that dropped, making sure they provide a more comprehensive, authoritative and higher quality experience than the best ranked ones Optimize from a technical, content and experience perspective the pages that will ful fi ll the need of the relevant queries that dropped, making sure they provide a more comprehensive, authoritative and higher quality experience than the best ranked ones Don’t do anything. 
 
 If you are really already providing a better quality, comprehensive, authoritative experience than the best ranked pages with well optimized ones that are the relevant to ful fi ll the need and rank at that stage of the search journey… they should regain their rankings soon. Let’s go through the main scenarios Rankings dropped for non relevant queries for your site to rank You don’t have pages to ful fi ll the user search needs of meaningful queries You have pages to ful fi ll the user search needs of meaningful queries at that stage of the journey but they’re not optimized You have pages to ful fi ll the user search needs of meaningful queries at that stage of the journey and they’re fully optimized
39. https://www.aleydasolis.com/en/seo-flowcharts/#2 Don’t do anything. 
 
 The queries that dropped are not really meant to rank by your site and are not bringing any business value. You shouldn’t have ranked for them in the fi rst place. 1. Rankings dropped for non relevant queries for your site to rank
40. https://www.aleydasolis.com/en/seo-flowcharts/#2 Create and optimize new pages from a technical, content and experience perspective that will ful fi ll the need of the relevant queries that dropped, making sure they provide a more comprehensive, authoritative and higher quality experience than the best ranked ones. 2. You don’t have pages to fulfill the user search needs of meaningful queries
41. https://www.aleydasolis.com/en/seo-flowcharts/#2 Optimize the existing pages from a technical, content and experience perspective that will ful fi ll the need of the relevant queries that dropped, making sure they provide a more comprehensive, authoritative and higher quality experience than the best-ranked ones. 3. You have pages to fulfill the user search needs of meaningful queries at that stage of the journey but they’re not optimized
42. https://www.aleydasolis.com/en/seo-flowcharts/#2 Don’t do anything. 
 
 If you are really already providing a better quality, comprehensive, authoritative experience than the best ranked pages with well optimized ones that are the relevant to ful fi ll the need and rank at that stage of the search journey they should regain their rankings soon. 4. You have pages to fulfill the user search needs of meaningful queries at that stage of the journey and they’re fully optimized
43. https://www.aleydasolis.com/en/seo-flowcharts/#1-5 For affected relevant queries: It’s time to make your content the best in class!
44. What can you do to grow your content results & avoid getting hit?
45. Let’s start with a good base: avoiding automated, non- unique, thin or spammy content that goes against Google spam policies https://developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials/spam-policies#thin-affiliate-pages
46. You can use AI for ideation, outline and 
 the optimization process… Frase
47. Frase … but not to replace your own creator expertise and experience
48. Your content -text, images, videos- should be unique, useful, up-to- date, fluff-free, clearly showcasing your experience and USP as a creator Original Photos Original Video Helpful Related Content Trust Elements User Generated Content Helpful Insights Unique descriptive content Unique Offering
49. https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating-helpful-content Google has shared questions to self-assess your content quality, usefulness, experience
50. https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating-helpful-content Including those to assess if your content will be considered people-first
51. https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating-helpful-content The key is focusing on topics for which you have a real specialty, expertise and unique insights to fulfill needs
52. https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating-helpful-content It’s ok to optimize people-first content 
 for which you have a real expertise
53. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12-F9Z4NzDADOFRQtOiN-CtjY2aaqj-R5CcrJNCuTha4/edit?gid=0#gid=0 I’ve created this sheet with the questions so you can assess your pages vs competitors
54. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12-F9Z4NzDADOFRQtOiN-CtjY2aaqj-R5CcrJNCuTha4/edit?gid=0#gid=0 These will help to assess your content beyond relevance and popularity Helpfulness and People Satisfaction Quality Expertise and Experience Presentation and production Page Experience
55. https://chatgpt.com/g/g-WxhtjcFNs-content-helpfulness-and-quality-seo-analyzer Use the Content Helpfulness and Quality SEO Analyzer GPT to evaluate your pages vs your competitors in bulk
56. Assess your content as Google Quality Raters do following the rater guidelines https://chatgpt.com/g/g-WxhtjcFNs-content-helpfulness-and-quality-seo-analyzer
57. Remember Google is Mobile First and Quality raters assess the mobile versions of the site and take page experience into account, make your pages easy to read and browse despite ads
58. It’s time to look at the SERPs to assess how you’re targeting users search needs vs top ranked pages: From content type, format, freshness, comprehensiveness Advanced Web Rankings
59. Advanced Web Rankings Start monitoring your SERP visibility beyond rankings, to assess potential traffic impact
60. Compare your page vs competitors: Are you fulfilling users’ needs better & faster? vs
61. Target topics you have actual expertise and first hand experience for which you can feature unique, useful insights and advice
62. Identify relevant questions to address with your content via PAAs and social platforms AlsoAsked & Keyword Insight
63. Assess your own branded queries, 
 and your top competitors ones: What are the top topics that are relevant for you to address? Semrush, Ahrefs, Sistrix, SimilarWeb
64. https://www.aleydasolis.com/en/seo-flowcharts/#3 Consider pruning those pages targeting non-relevant topics for which you don’t have expertise and are not meaningful to target
65. As well as updating older outdated content that has decreased in performance seotesting.com
66. Showcase your site authority and expertise prominently featuring who’s behind your content and why they should trust it
67. Clearly disclose your criteria to advertise and refer affiliate products while following Google’s Product Reviews Guidelines, adding value to the user https://developers.google.com/search/docs/specialty/ecommerce/write-high-quality-reviews
68. Semrush, Ahrefs, Sistrix Grow your brand authority by developing free helpful resources, checklist, newsletter and tools, that attract backlinks and increase branded searches
69. Need inspiration? Take a look at the top pages attracting backlinks from your major competitors and best performing industry sites Semrush, Ahrefs, Sistrix
70. Invest in your community for experienced content, moderate it and optimize too
71. https://www.amsive.com/insights/seo/googles-helpful-content-update-ranking-system-what-happened-and-what-changed-in-2024/ Following these guidelines will avoid you falling into patterns found in publications with traffic drops in recent Google’s updates, like in this analysis by Lily Ray
72. https://zyppy.com/seo/google-update-case-study/ Cyrus Shepard also identified on-page characteristics associated with sites gains or declines after latest Google updates, aligned to these criteria too
73. https://zyppy.com/seo/google-update-case-study/ First person pronouns, first hand experience, cookie consent, featuring contacts, prominent social links are correlated with winners
74. https://zyppy.com/seo/google-update-case-study/ These provide a great user experience and showcase the site's trust.. it’s what established brands do
75. https://zyppy.com/seo/google-update-case-study/ Showing fixed ads in footer and fixed video ads, stock images, a high number of ads, notification and missing logo with mega menus, are correlated with losers
76. https://zyppy.com/seo/google-update-case-study/ These provide a bad user experience and make to distrust the site.. it’s not what established brands do
77. It’s also important to not only fix, but also build while avoiding recurrent SEO issues to maximize your resources
78. That’s how you’ll be able to be competitive FIXING IMPROVING BUILDING Creating content to target new relevant queries through user search journey Optimizing existing content for already targeted relevant queries Minimizing tech and content debt to avoid crawlability, indexability and page experience issues SEO SUCCESS
79. SEO ACTION PLAN ONGOING SEO EXECUTION SEO QUALITY ASSURANCE FRAMEWORK EDUCATION 
 To prevent SEO mistakes VALIDATION 
 To avoid launching 
 SEO Errors MONITORING 
 To catch SEO incidents fast Set an SEO quality framework through 
 the whole SEO process
80. Establish an SEO configuration checklist to validate when doing any blog update or release. Copy this one to start. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TSu_h9Hw-U0rLv0xO46jeV0w3o_LmIsRWMLI7WhLfNM/
81. PRE-RELEASE SEO VALIDATION: OK? SEO IMPLEMENTATION YES NO YES ON-GOING SEO VALIDATION SEO RELEASE NO FIX POST-RELEASE SEO VALIDATION: OK? YES NO FIX ON-GOING SEO VALIDATION: OK? YES NO FIX IN LESS 24H REVERSE IMPLEMENTATION Set a release validation workflow, before/ after launch, taking “what-ifs” into account
82. Continuously monitor SEO configuration of the different pages types to ensure status https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bU7yt3RnOAQ_FfhFidJgcaFKOnEaRm1bVvAF3UQzJE8/
83. ContentKing Little Warden SEO Radar Use real-time SEO crawlers to be alerted 
 of unwanted SEO changes fast ContentKing, Little Warden and SEO Radar
84. Configure your real-time monitoring to catch when meaningful tech & content change
85. Set the alerts for them as well as for rankings, search features, visibility, market share shifts for your key queries
86. WEB PLATFORM CONFIGURATION/SETTINGS CHANGES INTEGRATED VALIDATION ORGANIC SEARCH TRAFFIC & CONVERSIONS DECREASE/INCREASE ALERTS WEB RANKINGS DECREASE/INCREASE ALERTS QUERIES SEARCH POPULARITY DECREASE/INCREASE ALERTS WEB CONTENT & TECHNICAL CONFIGURATION CHANGES ALERTS CONTENT OPTIMIZATION & TECH SEO CONFIGURATION CHECKLIST FOR COMMON WORKFLOWS COMPANY CONTENT OPTIMIZATION & TECH SEO GUIDELINES/WIKI ONLINE SEO TRAINING AND Q&AS FOR TECH/CONTENT/[STAKEHOLDERS] TEAMS RECURRING / ONGOING SEO TECH/CONTENT VALIDATION PRE & POST WEB RELEASES EDUCATION VALIDATION MONITORING MENTIONS & BACKLINKS ALERTS WEBSITE SEARCH CRAWLING ISSUES ALERTS SPAM OR MANUAL ACTIONS ALERTS RECOMMENDATIONS AND REPORTS FEATURING SEO CONCEPTS & IMPORTANCE TOWARDS GOALS MENTIONS & BACKLINKS ALERTS MENTIONS & BACKLINKS ALERTS ORGANIC SEARCH TRAFFIC & CONVERSIONS DECREASE/INCREASE ALERTS WEB RANKINGS DECREASE/INCREASE ALERTS QUERIES SEARCH POPULARITY DECREASE/INCREASE ALERTS WEB CONTENT & TECHNICAL CONFIGURATION CHANGES ALERTS MENTIONS & BACKLINKS ALERTS This is how you say goodbye to continuous SEO issues that hold your execution back
87. https://speakerdeck.com/aleyda/goodbye-seo-fck-ups-learn-to-set-an-seo-quality-assurance-framework Learn more about setting an SEO Quality Assurance Framework in this presentation
88. https://learningseo.io/ Access more free SEO resources for Google Core Search Updates Analysis & recovery, and other SEO scenarios in LearningSEO.io
89. https://hub.seofomo.co/ Keep updated with the latest news in SEO for free with my weekly SEOFOMO newsletter, join +34K SEOs
90. It’s time to follow a user-first holistic SEO approach, to give the best experience & win
91. Do you think it's too much work? 
 It’s about prioritizing impact vs effort Recommendation Impact Effort To Prioritize Medium impacting with high effort 6 4 12 Low impacting with high effort 4 4 8 Low impacting with very high effort 4 2 6 Very low impacting with very high effort 2 2 4 IMPACT EFFORT 1. To Execute 
 Now Don’t Do 2. To Assess 
 & Prioritize 2. To Assess 
 & Prioritize
92. To help you assess this, you can use 
 my SEO prioritization template https://www.aleydasolis.com/en/search-engine-optimization/seo-recommendations-prioritization-presentation-templates/
93. This makes it all worth it!
94. But what about AI Overviews? Don’t worry! 
 I got your back. Check this presentation https://speakerdeck.com/aleyda/the-impact-of-ai-in-seo-ai-overviews-june-2024-edition
95. https://www.linkedin.com/in/aleyda/ and https://x.com/aleyda Do you want more like this? Follow me!
96. Thanks! Questions? KEYS TO TRAVEL CONTENT SEARCH OPTIMIZATION BY @ALEYDA FROM @ORAINTI I’m Aleyda Solis * SEO Consultant & Founder at Orainti * SEO Speaker at +100 Events in +20 countries * Author “SEO. Las Claves Esenciales.” * Crawling Mondays Video & Podcast Series Host * SEOFOMO & MarketingFOMO Newsletters Author * Maker LearningSEO.io * European Search Personality of the Year in 2018 * remoters.net Co-Founder