Local SEO For Hotels - Get More Customers | Localo

Local SEO For Hotels - Get More Customers

Optimize your Google My Business profile for your hotel and enjoy more booked rooms. Learn how.

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The hotel industry is facing a very critical situation at the moment. This was due to the pandemic that swept through almost the entire world last year. Now, things are slowly getting back to normal - one sign of this is the loosening of restrictions. Hotel owners can breathe a sigh of relief as they have been allowed to reopen their facilities. Are you one of them? That’s great - read the article and learn how to increase your hotel’s online visibility and attract new customers! I will present you the only effective alternative to promotion on paid portals like booking.com, tripadvisor, trivago etc.

Where to start with local search engine optimization for a hotel’s brand?

The vast majority of Internet users, looking for a comfortable stay in the Google search engine, first want to see photos, offers, pricing, directions, and reviews from previous visitors. The latter is especially important because, as research shows, almost 2/3 of people treat online reviews as a recommendation from a friend. Furthermore, everyone wants to have all this information at their fingertips. A properly completed Google business profile will allow you to provide your customers with comprehensive information about your hotel in one place - at their fingertips. What is important, it is a completely free tool available for every entrepreneur!

If you don’t have a Google Maps profile yet, visit our dedicated article that will help you set one up and come back here when you do. If you already have a Google business profile, I invite you to read the rest of this article, where you will learn how to increase the visibility of your business card, which keywords to choose, and how to optimize your hotel profile.

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Choosing the best keywords for the hotel’s local SEO?

Once you have your business listing on Google search engine results, you should optimize it properly. In this step, it is necessary to choose your keywords correctly. You need to identify them so they:

are searched by your customers and can generate organic traffic,
show up in the search results after entering a local package,
correspond to your hotel property offer.

When analyzing keywords, you can use Google’s Keyword Planner, Google Trends, and Localo keywords suggestions.

Important! When choosing the right keywords, pay attention to geotargeting, i.e., adding the city where your hotel is located to the keywords, e.g., “hotel New York”, “cheap hotel New York”. This is how most Internet users search.

Technical optimization of a local hotel location

Once you’ve chosen the best keywords, you can proceed with actions aimed at increasing traffic. Here, similarly to SEO optimization of your website, it is worth starting with checking all technical aspects of your business card. Why? Because the incorrect functioning of any of its elements can lead to a decrease in conversions. When optimizing your business card, check:

the name of your company - whether it is correct,
consistency of your categories with competitors’ ones,
correctness of your contact information,
correctness of areas you have set up,
opening hours,
links to the website,
opening date,
attributes.

Localo - the ideal tool for auditing your Google business profile

Hotel’s local SEO on Google Maps is not a simple matter. Fortunately, I can help you with that too. Let me introduce you to a great tool that will help you generate a ready-made audit of your business cards - Localo. It will tell you what your title should look like and tell you what categories to add and how many reviews you are missing from your competitors. You will also receive information on what words your customers should use when leaving a review after their stay in the hotel, in order to maximize its visibility.

The SEO benefits don’t end there, as the tool allows you to generate position grids for a given keyword. This way, you don’t have to travel all over the city, checking positions in every single corner of it. Now you only need a few clicks and you will get a clear view of how your hotel compares to others within a 50 km radius of your company’s headquarters.

Statistics before and after doing SEO for hotels

I have recently optimized online listings for hotels using Localo in organic search results. We didn’t have to wait long for the effects, the result was incomparable - within a week, we saw more than a 10 times increase in visibility!

Careful Link-building (Local citations)

The next step is to successively acquire external links and links from local online directories and other websites to your hotel. While you are doing hotel positioning, you need to focus mainly on the so-called NAP (name, address, phone). Remember that links are one of the most important ranking factors in Google Maps and that it is the quality of the links that counts - not the quantity. When choosing a portal where you are going to add data with hotel location, check its traffic and authority among Google.

Perfect online positive reviews from local clientele with relevant keywords

Local SEO can’t happen without a good review acquisition strategy. This is a key element that not only influences the position of your business card but also helps potential customers to choose the best-rated companies.

If you want to learn more about reference management, read our dedicated article on Google Maps reviews.

Professional high quality photos

You should also start positioning your hotel website on Google Maps by including good, sharp, and properly exposed photos on your profile. Photograph all the interiors that you offer and add them to your business card. Your customers will be able to judge the quality of your offer based on them.

Website optimization

While doing hotel positioning you also need to focus on your website. It should be user-friendly, mobile-friendly, fast, and informative. Only this way, your potential customers, who will go from your business card to your website, will choose you.

Page load speed is one of the most important elements of a website, affecting its functionality and ranking. Your hotel website should be fast.

User-friendly user experience (UX)

This is another important factor that affects the SEO of a hotel website. Check for:

the website is adapted to several language versions of searches,
the internal linking is correct,
the contact form contains all the necessary fields,
the website has friendly URLs,
meta tags are correct,
domain authority is appropriate,
potential guests will receive all the necessary information,
and whether it is possible to book quickly with online payment.

Optimal content on the website

Once the technical optimization of your hotel website is done, you can proceed to the next step, which is optimizing the content for the keywords you chose earlier. Make sure to provide factually correct contact information and describe the location of the property, accommodations, amenities, and attractions that await your guests.

A website and a Google business card

A hotel website and a Google business card are a perfect pair that together can conquer search results - both local and standard. They should focus equally on both.

The benefits of promoting on Google Maps after a couple of months

Finally, I present you with another proof that hotel positioning in Maps really makes sense. The stats after positioning my hotel show impressive results.

About Author

Sebastian Żarnowski
Co-founder & CEO
I have been involved in local marketing for years, focusing on authenticity, a practical approach, and effectiveness to support the growth of local businesses.