How to Start & Run a B&B BandBED2eBook-1 | Page 101

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Work out what words and phrases your potential customers are most likely
to be searching on (try asking a few!) – these “keywords” are the basis of your
Google success. They might include “St Mawes B&Bs”, “St Mawes
accommodation”, “hotels St Mawes”, “Cornwall B&B”, etc.
Title every page of your website clearly, including with these search
keywords
Make sure the content of your homepage – the text - contains as many
relevant words and phrases as possible, including alternative combinations of
your location and “B&B”, “accommodation”, “bed and breakfast” etc., and
lots of relevant description, and including your top keywords
Make sure every picture has a relevant caption as “alternative text” (this is
part of HTML code), and that at least one has your B&B name and location as
its caption – eg “Rose Cottage B&B, St Mawes, Cornwall, UK”
Use the “meta-tag” descriptions within the HTML code for each web page
(apologies for all this jargon, and this is getting too detailed and technical for
this book, but the help from your hosting company or website template will
explain)
Submit your homepage to Google manually at www.google.com/addurl
Get as many other websites as possible (and ideally, popular and relevant
ones) to add a link to your website
Make your domain name relevant to searches where possible (that is a reason
for including the resort name within the domain name)
This is not always an exact science, and submitting your website can take several days
to take effect, but keep doing searches and seeing where you come in the listings, and
try to work out how you can improve your ranking.
Google “AdWords” advertising
The above was all about getting better rankings in Google’s free search listings. As we
said at the start, though, you also have another bite at the cherry, and this one is in your
control – but it costs money! This is paid-for “cost per click” advertising, or what
Google calls its “AdWords” programme.
Basically, this is very simple: you pay a set amount for every “click” – ie every time an
internet user sees your Google “sponsored link” (ad) and “clicks through” to your
website.
Which internet users are shown your ads is determined by “keywords” you set and
how closely these correspond to the search word or phrase that internet user has
“Googled”, and also by the budget you have set.
For example, you could pay for the keywords “St Mawes B&B”; every time an internet
user anywhere in the world (you can limit it to certain countries if you want) types “St
Mawes B&B” into Google, your ad should be shown alongside the search results –
provided your budget is sufficient.