Hotel SEO Tips for Attracting Nearby Guests
Smart local SEO for hotels makes your hotel synonymous with your location. In other words, when people are searching for a hotel in your city, your hotel will be the first one they find.
Investing in local SEO is important for lead generation. It is just one part of a larger SEO strategy but one that is vital for increasing bookings and growing your brand name.
Find the best hotel SEO tips in our quick guide to local SEO for hotels. We take you through all the essential steps for making your hotel the most popular accommodation in your area.
How Local SEO for Hotels Boosts Rankings and Reservations
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and local SEO refers to the search engine ranking for a specific location. In other words, local SEO for hotels is about making your hotel the top results for accommodations in your city or area.
Good local SEO rankings highlights your hotel on Google Maps results, places a direct booking system on Google search results and increases your Hotel Location Score. All these elements better promote your hotel and make you stand out amongst the competition.
1. Maximize Your Google My Business Page
Local SEO for hotels starts with an excellent and highly informative Google My Business (GMB) Page. This is the information that is shown below Google Maps location.
Essentially, the GMB page is a mini-website. It has all the basic information that a potential guest might be looking for such as contact information, directions, reviews, photos of the rooms, availability and room rates.
The more up-to-date and high quality information is available on the GMB, the more Google favours your hotel. Your goal is to make it into the Google Maps 3-pack, the top 3 highlighted location results
2. Find the Right Keywords for Your Hotel Type & Location
Hotel SEO tips always start with keywords. Your digital marketing team probably already has a list of important keywords but do these keywords also relate to your location? In local SEO for hotels, it is important that you find the most researched keywords for your specific location.
For example, if you are in a popular honeymooning area then one of your keywords could be ‘most romantic honeymoon hotel in [your area]’. Similarly, if you mostly cater to business trips your keywords could be ‘best business hotel in [your area]’.
3. Improve Title Tags, Meta Descriptions and Alt Texts
Title tags, meta descriptions and alt text are the basics of local SEO. Although these texts should be creative, there is a strong technical element to crafting them.
Do you need more hotel SEO tips specifically about these webpage elements? We recommend contacting an SEO expert for these tasks as they can make all the difference in your ranking.
4. Create Local Content
In local SEO for hotels, content should not only closely link with the hotel brand, it should also build links with the location. In other words, create content that is relevant for the type of visitors your area attracts.
Going back to the earlier example, if you are in a honeymooning area you should have content about honeymoon activities on your website and social media. For example, write a local SEO-optimized blog post about the most romantic restaurants in your area or why your city is the perfect destination for a honeymoon.
5. Promote Your Location Perks for Google’s Hotel Location Score
Next on our list of hotel SEO tips is a newer Google feature: Hotel Location Score. This score rates your hotel location based on 3 factors: proximity to activities, proximity to transportation and airport access.
Of course, you won’t be relocating just to get a higher Google location score. What you can do is make sure that you are highlighting all the advantages of your hotel’s location with these 3 factors in mind. Do this in your website copy, your GMB page and online content.
6. Correct Local Citations
Another local SEO factor is hotel listings in online directories. Just being included in these directories is not enough, your information must be identical across all directories for Google to recognize it and add it to your SEO ranking calculations.
Do this by registering your hotel on directories such as Yellow Pages, TripAdvisor and Yelp. This lets you correct the NAP (Name, Address, Phone number) and other basic information.
7. Link with Relevant Websites
Hotel SEO tips sometimes involve more than you have direct control over. One such example is backlinks – in other words, links to your website on other websites. Backlinks help the credibility of your brand and signals to Google that your hotel is a legitimate business.
There are two ways to gain more links from other websites. The first is collaborating for features, for example working with influencers, online travel guides etc. The second is becoming an online authority by posting credible and relevant content that external content writers will want to reference in their own publications.
8. Make the Website & Reservations App Mobile-Friendly
The strength of local SEO for hotels is that there is often already a buying intent behind the search. Meaning, people looking for a hotel in your area are likely already planning a trip there. This improves your ROI.
Most location-related searches are done on-the-go which means people are less likely to be sitting behind a desktop. That is why it is essential that both your hotel website and reservations app is mobile-friendly.
Make sure that both your website and reservations app is easy to navigate on all mobile devices. You’d be surprised how many more last-minute bookings you get with this single adjustment.
These hotel SEO tips are nothing new for the Prospekt Digital team. It is our job to know what drives your brand visibility and boosts your hotel reservations.
Need help with local SEO for hotels? Send us an e-mail and find out how we can collaborate.
Marketing your hotel doesn’t have to be difficult. Contact us, you won’t be disappointed.
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