In this post, I will provide practical strategies that hotels can adopt to improve the chances of being displayed on Google’s topmost pages, driving more visits to their websites and increasing direct bookings. This SEO for hotel industry tactics assisted my hotel and other properties I advise to rank higher in local search results, proving financially beneficial in terms of bookings.
Let’s dive deeper into what you should do:
Google My Business is something that any hotel that is struggling to rank better locally should consider creating. To begin with, what I advise is to claim and verify your hotel’s listing. The basic settings, such as the address and phone number, as well as the different photographs, amenities, etc., should be filled appropriately. This in turn provides Google and customers with more information about your property.
Some features that can help hotels be unique are the ability to add professional photos of the room, the hotel lobby, the swimming pool, the conference and event space, etc. We continue to change them often, with new images focusing on the changes to our facility and seasonal additions to our campus.
I also recommend that other guests leave lasting and positive comments after they have left the hotel. More five stars increase the local SEO and reputation, in general, of a hotel, which receives higher ratings. When you are faced with negative feedback, please ensure that you reply politely.
How to make your website ready for local search
In addition to the Google My Business listing, hotels should also make their websites localized so that they rank well for local searches. First, check that your hotel’s name, full street address, and phone number are visible on the first page of your site.
You also find out that having a header showing where your business is located aids a search engine in finding out where your business is located and who your site is most suited for. Best practices for local optimizing of a website involve making it possible for the users coming to the hotel’s website to make bookings from any page they are on.
To my mind, it would also be useful to put more specific data concerning your neighborhood, most visited attractions, and points of interest near the “About Us” section. This demonstrates to the search engines that your business is an authority business in your city. Embed an online local map to allow for booking.
By finding out what the schema markup of the hotel, rooms, amenities, ratings, and real-time availability is like for our web developers, we got great improvements. Structured data can increase local recognition so that more people are likely to visit your site when planning for travel.
Publish Area-Specific Content
From the reports on the number of visitors to my site, a significant percentage of visitors type ‘things to do in our hometown’ which leads them to my hotel. That encouraged me to write and post blogs frequently that will feature attractions, restaurants, and events and experiences within our city.
These specific, detail-oriented posts are geared towards existing guests planning on visiting or planning an event in our destination. They do this by showing readers that they know what the area’s top attractions are, the latest museum exhibits, conferences, events, and seasonal activities, which helps people see us as the perfect place to stay.
Local listings: claim and manage
I recommend hoteliers own and guard all the business listings on sites such as Yelp, TripAdvisor, Booking.com, Expedia, and Trivago. Make sure that the profiles created on these sites are complete and use the same pictures and descriptions whenever possible. Respond to the guests who come to your hotel with comments, reviews, check-in, or even photos.
Sometimes used to refer to your building or business location, monitoring the things people post about the property helps to get some useful feedback for raising local profiles. It also provides hotels with chances to deal with complaints before customers reach a negative tone.
Our click-through rate in the local pack rankings this year benefited more from those third-party sites that contain more 5-star ratings. The positive reviews given by users reemphasize the need for those travelers when searching for a place to spend their nights to book in our hotel rather than the other hotels.
Use local PPC campaigns
In pay-per-click advertisements, it is possible to filter all the individuals who may be interested in a hotel and anyone who is looking for the hotel SEO service you offer in your city. We have constantly active Google Ads and social media campaigns for our digital marketing agency, targeting local users who might be thinking of staying at a hotel.
In it, we discover that locally optimized PPC yields higher website visits and direct reservations during peak periods. To some extent, the overall cost per click is offset by achieving better results from people who are searching for exactly what we provide—comfortable accommodation in our favorable location.
To extend hotel budgets, marketing departments can geo-target PPC during important occasions since traffic remains high. Our PPC manager increases geographic location during big conventions, concerts, events, and holidays for people passing by here.
Link Your Hotel SEO with Offline Advertising
Whereas online optimization creates a local presence, applying it jointly with offline tactics can work doubly fast. Our hotel uses geo-tailored information for brochures, flyers, direct mail, and print advertisements within the city. This is because what a traveler perceives from one channel has to be in harmony with what he or she sees from the other to establish your hotel as the one to visit when in that area.
For instance, offering hotel support to a gallery opening, tournament, or even a street festival gives hotels a place where they are whenever people are there. Thus, taking advantage of offline placements enables us to directly sell appropriate lodging and event offer combinations to an interested local clientele.
Applying local SEO standards is time-consuming but also increases a hotel’s reach, credibility, and guests at once. Small independent properties don’t get left in the dust; in small and large chunks, they can deliver far more direct bookings against these huge giants as long as independents target consumers everywhere consumers study travel on or offline.
I believe that the information extracted from my hotel case for real-life examples can be useful for other lodging businesses that want to improve their organic presence, perception, and direct bookings in local communities. Feel free to share in the comment section other local SEO approaches that I can implement to continue this growth!