What do you do when you want to find a hotel for your city break? Like many people, you probably start your search using a search engine like Google or Bing. According to Google, millions of hotel searches are carried out every day. People want to find information about facilities, rates, reviews, availability, and things to do in the area. Search engines deliver results pages, but not many people click past the first page. So, how do you improve your chances of getting on that first page? By Search Engine Optimization.

What Is Search Engine Optimization?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) increases a website’s chances of ranking highly in search results, thus increasing potential traffic and customers. Search engines like Google and Bing use “crawlers” or “spiders” to index pages of information on the Internet, and using their own set of rules or an “algorithm,” they sort results in terms of relevance and popularity.

Video: What Is SEO?

Why Is It So Important?

The higher you rank in the results, the greater your chances of attracting traffic. While SEO might seem complicated or time-consuming, search engine marketing is free and reaches millions of potential customers worldwide every second. According to the State of Inbound Marketing Trends Report by HubSpot, around 27% of website traffic comes via organic search, which is the second most effective channel for acquiring new customers. Can you say the same about costly flyers and phonebook listings? Google is constantly developing and improving its services and results, and so should you. Here are five ways to start improving your SEO.

Table: Benefits of SEO for Hotels

Benefit Description Impact on Hotels
Increased Online Visibility SEO helps hotels appear higher in search engine results for relevant queries. Drives more organic traffic to the hotel’s website, enhancing potential guest discovery.
Cost-Effective Marketing Compared to paid advertising, SEO provides a sustainable and cost-effective way to attract guests. Reduces reliance on paid ads, lowering marketing costs while maintaining visibility.
Higher Booking Rates Optimized websites tend to engage visitors better, leading to higher conversion rates. Directly impacts revenue by converting more website visitors into actual hotel guests.
Improved User Experience SEO involves optimizing website structure and content and improving the user experience. Satisfied website visitors are likelier to book, recommend, and return to the hotel.
Competitive Advantage Hotels with strong SEO stand out in a crowded market, even against larger chains or OTAs. Provides a level playing field to compete for guest attention based solely on relevance and quality.
Local Search Optimization Local SEO strategies target people searching for hotels in specific locations. Attracts guests who are ready to book, increasing the chances of last-minute and local bookings.
Brand Trust and Credibility High rankings in search results are often equated with trustworthiness by users. Enhances the hotel’s reputation, encouraging trust and confidence among potential guests.
Insights into Guest Behavior SEO tools and analytics provide data on search trends, user behavior, and preferences. Enables hotels to tailor their offerings and marketing strategies based on actual guest interests.

SEO Tip 1 – Review Your Website

Take a hard look at your website. Think about how well it serves your customers and how user-friendly it is. Search engines like well-designed sites. Make sure all the links are working and relevant. Pages should link together. Search engines like site maps and appreciate pages with clear, appropriate titles that identify your hotel and location, such as “Golden Bay Boutique Hotels—The Arcadian.”

Your site needs to load fast. People will not wait patiently. Search Engines notice when users click away quickly and move to the next result. Customers and search engines don’t appreciate PDFs, Flash, and Javascript. Check that any media-rich files load quickly and can be seen by search engines.

Perhaps most importantly, most searches were done on mobile devices. According to the Search Engine Statistics Report by SerpWatch, 87% of mobile device owners use search engines at least once a day. So ensure your site is mobile-friendly. Google will continue to adjust its search engines accordingly.

SEO Tip 2 – Create Key Content

It’s not enough to have a well-functioning website. Both customers and search engines like unique, relevant content. So consider incorporating a blog or a news section if you haven’t already. Make sure you update it regularly—diary a schedule. Consider what your potential customers might be interested in, and you will probably find relevant keywords to help improve your chances of ranking higher in search results.

This is also a golden opportunity to emphasize your unique selling point, so if you are a boutique hotel with a new chef, write about it. If your gardens are getting a makeover and will be the fairy-tale setting for an intimate wedding, write about it. Get the local press to write about it, too. Just a note about keywords: the days of “keyword stuffing” are over. Customers and search engines can spot awkward sentences crammed with repetitive words.

SEO Tips Hotels - Create Key Content

SEO Tip 3 – Use Your Locality

Search Engines are delivering more relevant and localized results. So check that your site emphasizes the benefits and features of your location. What are your customers looking for, wanting to do, sample, or visit in your locality? Incorporate those ideas into your blog, news, page titles, or descriptions. Make sure you have a map on your site. There may be hundreds of hotels in your area, but are they opposite the best winery in town? Do they all have thermal spas? Are they minutes from the racecourse?

SEO Tip 4 – Quality Links

Like arrows pointing guests your way, quality links from other trustworthy sites can help increase traffic and inform search engines about your site’s authority and relevance. So, articles and links with the local press, online directories, travel sites, and attractions will help. If you have partnerships with local businesses, make the links reciprocal. One word of caution here: never pay for links, and remember that quality, not quantity, counts. Those clever search engines can spot bogus links.

SEO Tip 5 – Make Yourself Popular

Popular sites rank well, so a fast-loading, informative site with regular, fresh content is a start, but you still need to embrace Social Media. Make sure you feature on sites that your prospective customers use. Whether it’s Twitter or Facebook, add these to your update schedule.

SEO Tips for Hotels FAQs

To search engine optimize a hotel website, you should research and use keywords in website content and meta tags. You can also achieve success by prioritizing loading times, optimizing your site for mobile devices, publishing high-quality content that generates backlinks from high-authority sources, and using local SEO techniques, like claiming your Google My Business page and ensuring your contact details are consistent across all platforms.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is extremely important for hotels because it helps to maximize visibility on search engine results pages. This, in turn, helps to increase traffic to the hotel website and boost the number of direct bookings the hotel attracts. SEO can also help to build brand recognition and decrease reliance on travel agencies.

The basic idea behind SEO in hospitality is to optimize a website to appear as high up on search engine results pages as possible. Websites target specific keywords that they believe are valuable and use SEO techniques to boost visibility. This then makes it more likely for users searching for a hotel to visit the website and book a room.

The best hotel websites are easy to use and navigate, offer quick loading times, are optimized for mobile devices, and feature reliable and secure booking engines. They will include high-quality photos, video content, and information about the hotel and its facilities and will minimize friction to make booking hassle-free.

Hotels can implement a basic SEO strategy without outsourcing work to a professional SEO service provider. However, the hotel industry is highly competitive, making it even more important to get the most from SEO. Spending money on SEO services will allow you to benefit from the most sophisticated and up-to-date techniques.

These are just a few ways to improve SEO and utilize search engine marketing. Remember, great things take time, so gradually adjust your site. You can use many analytical tools to monitor your progress and watch your ranking increase.

Did You Like This Article About SEO Tips Hotels?

You might also be interested in the following articles:

More Tips to Grow Your Business

Revfine.com is a knowledge platform for the hospitality & travel industry. Professionals use our insights, strategies and actionable tips to get inspired, optimise revenue, innovate processes and improve customer experience. You can find all hotel & hospitality tips in the categories Revenue Management, Marketing & Distribution, Hotel Operations, Staffing & Career, Technology and Software.

Submit an Article

This article is written by:

Martijn Barten

Hi, I am Martijn Barten, founder of Revfine.com. With 20 years of experience in the hospitality industry, I specialize in optimizing revenue by combining revenue management with marketing strategies. I have successfully developed, implemented, and managed revenue management and marketing strategies for individual properties and multi-property portfolios.