Everything else in this course assumes your pages can be found and loaded. Sometimes they cannot.
The line that hides a site
When a site is built, it usually sits on a private version first, blocked from search so nobody finds the half-finished thing.
Sometimes that block never gets removed.
From the front, the site looks perfect. It just never appears anywhere. There is no warning and no error. This is worth ruling out before you spend a month on anything else.
Two checks, five minutes:
- Load
yoursite.com/robots.txtin a browser and read it. It should not say Disallow: / - In Google Search Console, open the Pages report. Your real pages should be listed as indexed.
A page for each thing you rent
If you rent six room types, you want six pages, each with its own address.
One page listing all six is one page. When someone asks which rooms have a balcony, there is nothing specific to point at, so the answer goes to a place that has a page about the balcony.
It also gives you something to send a guest directly, which is worth the work on its own.
Name your pages properly
Most small sites have pages called Home, Rooms, and About Us. Those tell nobody anything.
“Ocean-view rooms with balconies, Harbour House, Port Douglas” says what the page is, what is special, and where. It reads like a sentence and it answers a question.
Speed, on a phone
Open your own site on your phone, on cell data with wifi off, and book a room from start to finish. Note every place you hesitate or wait.
Most slowness on small hospitality sites is photographs uploaded straight from a camera. Compressing them is an afternoon and usually fixes it.
Next: the pages you are missing, which are sitting in your inbox.
