The Background

Riverhouse in Bend, OR launched a new website and rebrand. Amid these changes the hotel needed a cost efficient post-launch strategy to establish the new website’s presence in strategic web searches in key markets.

The Objective

• Increase the hotel’s visibility in key search engine queries via SEO optimized blog content.
• Analyze search trends in key markets and identify opportunities to align this content with popular search engine activity in order to maximize the hotel’s efforts to capture qualified organic web traffic.
• Earn early brand exposure with travelers researching trips to Bend, Oregon by producing SEO-charged blog content that answers commonly asked questions about the destination.

The Approach

We conducted an audit of popular search habits in the hotel’s key drive-to and fly-to markets. Using this data, we identified twelve competitive opportunities for Riverhouse to stand out in strategic search engine results and built a one-year editorial calendar to produce and align content accordingly.

The search trends revealed a variety of interesting “long-tail” SEO opportunities to build blog content around. From research questions like “dog-friendly itineraries in Bend, Oregon” to local intrigue, like “the last Blockbuster” video store (a local landmark and viral internet meme), we identified a number of high volume search trends that were under-utilized in the SEO strategy of Riverhouse’s competitors.

Each blogpost published was supercharged with keywords and phrasing choices informed by our research intended to augment the chances of earning top ranked positions in search results.

The Results

To date, the program is only 75% complete, but it has already succeeded in achieving what it set out to accomplish. Of the ten blogposts published between April 2024 and February 2025, eight have earned first-page ranking in the results of our targeted search phrases. Search phrases this program targeted included:

• Packing Tips
• Dog Friendly Activities
• Bend Ale Trail
• The Last Blockbuster
• Family Itineraries
• Nightlife
• Smith Rock Weddings
• Getting to Bend/Bend Airport
• Group Ski Travel
• Conference & Event Tourism
• Bend Brewfest
• High Desert Museum

The eight successful pieces have all ranked among the top 5 results in each targeted search, with most appearing in the top 3 results. This outcome has helped Riverhouse outrank competitors like Tetherow, Brasada Ranch, Oxford, and McMenamins in the most important hospitality & tourism searches in the region. In all, this work has exposed Riverhouse to an additional 22,915 organic impressions per month by creating visibility for itself in these critical search areas.

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