The top question among this site’s blog readers and subscribers, is unsurprisingly, “how to get my hotel to rank on Google.”
So! If you’re new around here, you should know that SEO for hotels is kind of my jam. That’s because SEO represents the beautiful intersection of content writing and digital marketing strategy. ☺️
But true story: I used to hate SEO.
As a marketing manager sitting on property, it felt like this big, challenging, technical task hovering over everything I did…
Corporate built our hotel website and I added the content, but was it any good? Why couldn’t we rank for anything other than our brand name? How was I supposed to optimize for search with limited editing ability? Why was this expensive keyword tool they made us use so dang complicated??
Oh, and why did it all take so long? Patience is not one of my virtues, friend — and SEO rarely offers any “quick wins” or instant gratification. Unlike social media advertising, it takes time before you’ll see any real results from your search optimization efforts.
What also took me a while to understand was that SEO is not a one-and-done task to be crossed off your to-do list and never looked at again.
Any time you create content for a new hotel promotion or try to capture new organic traffic with a blog post, optimizing for search engines should be baked right in, from ideation to publication.
If you’re a marketer, you’ll want to learn how to do hotel SEO in a way that doesn’t make you pull out your hair in frustration. So let’s get the ball rolling with a few simple SEO tips for hotels.
Wait, what the heck is SEO for hotels anyway?
So glad you asked! 😉
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization — simply put, it’s the practice of improving your website to gain more visibility from top search engines for hotels like Google, Bing, etc. (Heads up, I’m mostly going to refer to Google.)
Organic search is still the #1 driver of all website traffic.
In fact, case studies have shown SEO drives 1000% more traffic than social media (BrightEdge).
And yet… which one do you think more hoteliers spend their time and resources on?
That’s not to say social isn’t valuable for brand building, but if you’re not thinking about your hotel SEO strategy, you’re leaving bookings (and revenue) on the table.
Or worse: Handing them over to the OTAs, because trust me, those guys DO care about SEO.
Here’s another eye-watering stat for you: The top result on Page One of a Google search gets 31.7% of the clicks! (Backlinko) So how do YOU get a piece of that prime page-one real estate? 🏡
SEO for hotels has a lot of moving parts, but I like to focus on three key areas:
- Pick a race you can win — Don’t waste your time going after broad, generic hotel keywords. Niche down. Look at more specific searches that relate only to what YOU actually have to offer.
- Create content your guests will love — Pleasing search engines actually starts with pleasing your potential customers. Create high-quality, relevant, and helpful content that answers their questions and provides genuine value.
- Get your house in order — Content is king, but your website needs to function well, too. Prioritize speed, security, and a structure that makes sense.
More on each of these in a moment…
One thing that hotels don’t have in common with most ecommerce businesses is that you’re a brick-and-mortar building.
So hotel SEO also requires an understanding of how local businesses rank on Google. You have a physical location. You want folks in your proximity to be able to find you and your other services, like your restaurant or bar, spa facilities, meeting spaces, etc.
Alright, so that’s a quick overview of what SEO for hotels means. Let’s get to the actionable tips!
More on each of these in a moment…
One thing that hotels don’t have in common with most ecommerce businesses is that you’re a brick-and-mortar building.
So hotel SEO also requires an understanding of how local businesses rank on Google. You have a physical location. You want folks in your proximity to be able to find you and your other services, like your restaurant or bar, spa facilities, meeting spaces, etc.
Alright, so that’s a quick overview of what SEO for hotels means. Let’s get to the actionable tips!
Part I. Make your hotel website easy to use
One of the best things you can do for your hotel website is to improve the user experience.
Before I lose you – no, you don’t need to know HTML or coding to do this. I’m not talking about hiring a developer to redo the whole thing.
(Unless you really need to, so make sure to review these must-have hotel website features first.)
It’s true that many hotels at the chain level don’t have much control over the look and feel of their website. And if you’re independent or a small operator, you might have more say but not necessarily the ability to edit the design yourself. Don’t fret!
Search engines like Google consider a lot of different ranking factors when deciding which pages get top placement on organic search engine results pages.
- Does your website load quickly?
- Does it function well on a mobile device?
- Is it easy to navigate around, find the right info, and importantly, book a room?
Ideally, whoever is responsible for marketing your hotel should have access to your content management system (CMS) and the ability to edit your hotel website.
Even if what you can edit is limited, there ARE things you can do to make it easier for potential direct booking guests to find and use it — without a developer.
Oh!
And in case you haven’t heard, there’s a Google algorithm update coming soon and, spoiler alert: Your hotel website’s speed and user-friendliness will be more important than ever! 👀
So here are three things you can do to prepare:
1. Compress your images and video files
Big media files slow everything down!
Compressing them means making the file size smaller without sacrificing quality. Ask your photographer or videographer to give you compressed files, or do it yourself using a service like TinyJPG.
In the meantime, you can always check your hotel website’s page speed here. As a general rule of thumb, your pages should fully load in under 2-3 seconds.
2. Use formatting wisely
Formatting contributes to overall user experience, but it also tells Google what your content is about.
Most pages will have a primary header (aka Header 1 or <h1>) in a larger font. Most of the time, this will be your main page title or blog post title.
Additional header tags (Header 2 <h2>, Header 3 <h3>, so on) decrease in page hierarchy, but are useful in breaking up your text. Use these sub-headings to group similar content and to make the page easier to read.
To see this in action, notice how I use headings and sub-headings on this blog. I mainly use three types:
There are other things you can do with your page formatting that help your hotel rank higher on Google.
- Include your primary keyword in Header 1.
- Try to get variations of your keyword into H2 or H3, as well as throughout the text itself.
- Add links within your content, both internal (other pages on your website) and external (relevant other websites).
- When you add internal links, use anchor text with THAT page’s target keyword. (What’s “anchor text?” Check out this helpful glossary of SEO terms.)
- Don’t cluster huge novel-length blocks of text. Break it up! Use negative space, bulleted lists, simple design elements, or images throughout the page.
As is often the case with search engine optimization, you don’t HAVE to use your keyword in all these different placements to be effective.
Always consider whether the keyword sounds natural and makes sense to use there.
Formatting is important on desktop, but it really makes a difference on mobile, where users are scrolling or skimming content on a small screen or browser window.
3. Check for broken links
When a potential guest or meeting planner lands on your site, you don’t want them clicking on a link that doesn’t even work!
If you’re already familiar with Google Search Console, you can check for broken links there. Otherwise, run your hotel website through a free broken link checker like this one from Ahrefs.
Anywhere you’ve linked out to another website that has moved/removed their content, simply update the link to the correct URL, take it out entirely, or find a new source to link to instead.
If you’re linking to an internal page, double-check that you’ve added the right URL.
Bonus tip! You can always create your own error page to redirect folks back onto your website. Here’s my custom 404 error page, which includes an internal search bar and links to my most popular blog posts.
4. Give each page a purpose
You don’t need to sign off every page screaming BOOK NOW PLEASE PRETTY PLEASE, but yeah, your page ought to have a singular purpose.
Other calls-to-action might be “Explore our destination guide” or “Download our meetings ebook.”
The “action” you want your website visitor to take doesn’t always have to be “make a purchase.” Heck, they might not even be ready to buy anything from you!
If someone is browsing around for a hotel room, they might land on your Rooms page but are they ready to make a decision? Probably not. They’ll likely want to explore your different room types first — maybe they want a big suite for the whole family or a room with an ocean view?
“Book now” isn’t the purpose of this page.
The purpose is to introduce your room types and get the visitor to click deeper into your website to view them in more detail.
Ultimately, each page should revolve around a clear purpose that moves your customer into the next stage of their decision journey: showcase your hotel rooms, explain your function space, introduce your local area, etc.
Part II. Create content your guests will love
We don’t always have much power over our website design, so if you do one thing to improve your hotel SEO strategy, let it be this: Create content your guests will love.
There are a lot of spammy folks out there offering hotels SEO services — my own email inbox is full of messages like “pay us $1000 for 50 high-DA SEO link building!” Clearly, these guys don’t really care about good content.
But guess who does? Yep, Google.
(And so do all the other top global search engines, by the way.)
Before you get caught up in hundreds of different search engine ranking factors and assumptions, all you really need to know is that Google just wants to help people solve their problems.
Ask a question. Get the best possible answer. That’s what a search engine algorithm really boils down to.
So how can your hotel be that “best possible answer” for a potential guest?
Here are two things you need to do:
5. Focus on high-quality content
Sometimes, less is more. Hotels don’t need to publish a 3,000-word blog every day or create a landing page for every single keyword you hope to rank for.
What you SHOULD be doing is focusing on making your content as high-quality as possible.
Ask yourself what someone looking at your Rooms page is looking for. What do they want to know? What questions might they have? What are their concerns or pain points?
Personally, I think most hotel websites should have a blog, especially if you don’t have a strong chain brand name behind you.
But if you have a blog, you need to have a hotel content marketing strategy: What kind of content will you publish? What do your guests want to know about your destination? How can you answer their questions better than TripAdvisor or the OTAs?
This brings us to the next tip…
6. Be smart about keywords
Keyword research is important, but you need to pick a race you can win!
I’m sorry to break it to you, but your chances of ranking #1 for something super-generic and competitive, like “new york hotel” or even “best new york city hotel” are slim-to-none.
SEO for the hospitality industry is tricky because your hotel business faces steep competition from Online Travel Agencies like Expedia, Booking, and even TripAdvisor.
Their websites are established, drive lots of organic traffic, and are considered “high-authority” by Google.
Along with search ads, hotel search results pages (aka SERPs) are also full of unique “local business” placements like maps and image carousels, which don’t always appear for other types of queries.
When it comes to actually using keywords on your hotel website, it’s essential that you write for people, not search engines — you need to keep readability in mind.
My previous guide to SEO keywords for hotels explains exactly what a keyword or search query is, why long tail keywords are the sweet spot, plus where to actually use the keywords on your hotel website. You’ll also find a few different hotel SEO tool recommendations in that article.
Spoiler alert: Not all hotel SEO keywords are created equal. 😅
Please don’t be fooled by generic lists of “ top hotel keywords ” — that kind of thing is pretty useless. You really should be doing your OWN keyword research to find the most relevant, rankable opportunities for YOU.
The best keywords for hotels are whichever ones YOUR target guest profile is actually searching for!
Read Next: Hotel SEO: How To Find the R
If you haven’t already, you might want to use my free hotel checklist as a handy reference for SEO. Get it below for a simple checklist of everywhere you should include a keyword, including on-page content, alt text for images, title tags, your meta description, etc. ⤵
Part III. Don’t forget about what happens outside your website
Search engine optimization is not just about content, keywords, and page speed. There’s a whole other world of things to consider outside your website, too — particularly for hospitality businesses.
Local SEO for hotels is a major part of the puzzle!
So naturally, I’ve already written you a separate off page SEO for hotels guide. (Don’t worry, I’ll include this as well as my longer keywords article at the end of this post under “What to read next.”)
To get you started, here are two things you can do outside your website that help your hotel rank higher on Google:
7. Complete your Google My Business listing
Your Google Business Profile is essential. I’m a bit of a broken record about this, I know, but it’s such a simple thing to do that makes a BIG difference!
Google My Business is a FREE online business listing. If you haven’t already, claim yours here and make sure it’s completely filled out.
Ideally, you should add high-quality photos, fill in your hotel amenities, and encourage guests to leave you Google reviews (and respond to them when they do).
At the very least, make sure you’ve filled in a website URL, hotel name, hotel address, and hotel website that’s consistent everywhere else you’re listed online.
8. Build (high quality) links
My final SEO tip for hotels requires a bit more effort, but link building absolutely needs to be on your radar.
Link building means getting other established, credible websites to link to yours. This “backlink” is one of many signals Google uses to tell whether or not your hotel website is trustworthy.
In my previous guide to off-page SEO for hotels, I shared a few places to get high quality backlinks.
In my experience, good digital PR is the most effective. If you decide to hire a PR person or agency, make sure you’re working with someone who understands SEO — these two functions MUST work together.
Outside of digital PR, hotels can find good linking opportunities on other listing sites, the local tourism bureau, preferred partners, suppliers, and vendors, as well as travel forums and reputable blogs.
Final Thoughts
Can you believe this post has only scratched the surface? Right now, understanding SEO for hotel industry marketers and professionals is more important than ever.
