More than ever potential guests are searching for rich media content to help them make travel decisions. This is your chance to connect with your customers on a personal level. Don’t let videos of your hotel get lost in the SERP shuffle. Follow these steps below to make sure your hotel video ranks. Plays and bookings will follow.

Optimize for search before shooting and editing, not after. Hoteliers should decide what keywords and phrases they want to rank for before production even begins.

Write a script. Once these target terms have been established write a cohesive script. Take keyword density into account, but don‰’t overdo it.

Self-host videos or use a secure third-party. With YouTube you lose all control of the video. You have little control over the links or ads on the page. You also risk the video being deleted or stolen. Feel free to place a teaser of your video on YouTube to leverage inbound links that will increase search rankings for the full version of the video.

Create a video sitemap. This makes it easier for search bots to crawl your video content. With a sitemap, your video also has the opportunity to rank with rich snippets. Google gives more rank to these snippets because click-through rates are often higher.

Encourage embedding and sharing. The more embed and shares your video receives the higher it will rank with search engines. Make sure this function is enabled and promote these options to your guests and partners.