If you’ve anticipated and answered all of your guests’ questions through the content in your guest-centric website, then does your hotel need an FAQ page? The answer is yes for several reasons. Not only is it helpful for your hotel guests and your customer service team, but an FAQ page can also help your SEO—when done correctly. Keep reading on how to get the most out of your hotel’s FAQ page and use it to increase your bookings.
Hotel Website FAQ for SEO
Including an FAQ page on your hotel’s website is common sense when it comes to SEO. Many of the frequent questions guests are asking your staff will be the same questions they are searching for online. Providing answers for those questions proactively could potentially rank your website as a resource or, even better, place your response as a featured snippet that appears in Position 0 on Google as an answer to a popular question. For example:
Achieving this dream position not only increases traffic to your website but puts your hotel in a position of authority while making your hotel appear as a trusted resource. What better way to foster loyalty and increase bookings?
Because featured snippets appear as answers to questions, ensure your FAQs are written in the form of a question. In fact, 25% of SERPs are also in the form of answering questions! The conversational search trend is a natural progression in response to how people are using the internet with the increase in voice search due to devices like Google Home, Alexa, and Siri.
Within your FAQs, be sure to link off to other areas of your website, whether that be about room amenities, pool hours, or a specific blog post. Not only are contextual links helpful in providing more information to your guests, but they also lead them to more pages and keep them on your site longer—signaling to search engines that your website provides value and interest to visitors, which helps you rank higher.
Streamline Customer Service
Your hotel’s FAQ page is also an excellent resource for your customer service and front desk team. Use an app or ask your web designer to install anchor links to specific FAQs and direct your guests to the answer to their question with a link in your correspondence. Directing them to your FAQ page on your website may answer additional questions they might have as well, instead of sending them a templated email answer.
Anchor links also work superbly with website chat boxes or chatbots. Bots and boxes are available to your online guests 24/7 and provide rapid responses to your most asked questions. While a chatbox can link to or display FAQs within the chat, a chatbot can be developed to utilize information on your website to answer guest questions.
Having FAQs at hand, either via chat or anchor links, not only provides fast answers for guests, but it saves on time, freeing up your staff for other tasks. It’s like having your own online concierge.
Delight Guests
The goal of effective web design is to remove as much friction as possible for your guests. Slow load times, hard-to-find online booking, and being left with questions are all barriers that can prevent web visitors from becoming hotel visitors. When your guests have questions they can’t find answers to on your website, it creates friction that stands between guests and your booking engine. Think of your hotel’s FAQ webpage as your virtual WD40 that can smooth out the process and keep the customer journey moving through to booking.
While you may have anticipated and answered questions in your website content, don’t make your guests search for answers. A prominent link on your website to your FAQs will save guests time and can even create delight in the process. Straightforward answers provide value to guests, especially if they are concise and written in a friendly tone.
Content Clues
Paying attention to what guests are asking is the exact place to start when building out your content strategy. Every single question is a gift from a guest because it tells you exactly what visitors want to know. From there, you can build out content for your blog, website, emails, and social media! For example, one of your FAQs could be, “is your hotel pet friendly?” If you are, in addition to providing a concise FAQ response, you may include a blog post that you can link to that goes into more depth about your pet-friendly offerings, along with guest stories or testimonials about their pawsitively perfect pet-friendly vacation. You can then link to that blog post in an upcoming newsletter, and pull paragraphs and quotes for your social media. If this is a very prominent question from guests, consider a webpage devoted to even more information.
What comes first, the chicken or the egg, the blog post or the FAQ? We recommend building out your FAQs first so answers are available to guests immediately. Then build out deeper content when you need to. Don’t forget to update your FAQs and link to any new content development!
What Should You Include on Your Hotel FAQ Webpage?
Format your FAQ in Q&A style, with the question in bold and the answer in normal typeface. Ask your web designer for any other design essentials, such as grouping FAQs into sections for easy reference instead of one giant, long list.
Remember to write all questions in a conversational (question) format for your guests who rely on mobile devices and voice searches. If you’re not entirely sure of what question to write, ask your web designer for tool recommendations that can help you determine the most asked version of your question and its related keywords, such as Google Trends, People Also Ask, SEMRush, and Answer the Public.
Include questions and answers not only about your hotel but frequently asked questions about staying in the region, from a list of the top attractions to linking to a blog post about the area’s top restaurants.
While it may be already worked into your template, confirm your booking engine and email signup are accessible on your FAQ page.
Whether it’s compiling information already on your site or drawing attention to areas where you need to provide more information, an FAQ page for your hotel website is the information hub your hotel guests are asking for. While FAQs may seem old-school, they’re very on-trend due to the emergence of conversational searches across a variety of devices and platforms.
Streamline customer service, provide guests with valuable content, and remove friction with FAQs while building important SEO opportunities! You’ll build credibility, increase your SERP rankings, and have a chance to be a featured snippet on Google. Most important, you’ll smooth out the customer journey to turn lookers into bookers.