For hotels, SEO has a very big impact in driving bookings. It’s not just about your hotel being the first option on booking, but rather about it being the first search in SERP (the search engine results page), for your location.

So if you have a hotel in Berlin, you’ll want to rank high for keywords like “hotel in Berlin” or even “hotel in Germany.”

And as usual, it’s all easier said than done, so how can you optimize your website for SEO in order to drive more hotel bookings?

Understanding SEO basics for hotels

For starters, it’s important to clarify that SEO doesn’t just mean throwing some keywords on a page and hoping. It encompasses an entire spectrum of actions, research and of course, time.

Let’s take them one by one.

Keyword research

Let’s begin with keywords. And of course, not any keywords. It’s important to use those that actual human beings may actually search for. So it’s less about incorporating “best hotel in…” and more about the specifics – some visitors may need a family-friendly, pet-friendly, all-inclusive accommodation, while others will just need a nomad-friendly experience.

Analyze your target audience and use that information to find the most suitable keywords for your hotel. Also, keep in mind that the most important elements that need to contain the keywords are your page titles, headings and alt tags you use on images.

Local SEO for hotels

Now – local SEO differs a bit from classic SEO. It’s more like an extension and the way we do it, it’s tightly connected to your Google My Business account. Your GMB account allows you to have a listing on Google Maps, and that listing needs to be optimized with your keywords and up to date with your address, phone number, services and more. And of course, reviews – enough good reviews to make your hotel irresistible.

So claim your Google My Business if you didn’t and upload photos of your rooms and amenities and make sure to answer every review!

Optimize your website

Now that we covered keywords, it’s time to look into your website. Because if it hasn’t been updated in more than 6 years, has an outdated bookings system and is very slow, you’re starting out behind. Search engines prioritize websites that load quickly and provide an exceptional user experience on both mobile and desktop.

So you can start by simply compressing images and making sure your SSL certificate is valid, but I’d go as far as suggesting you build a new website if it can affect your performance. And for that, you may want to get in touch with us.

At the end of the day, make sure your visitors have an exceptional user experience on your website, and search engines like Google may start to like and push your website to the top of the first page.

Quality content

Keep your content relevant, engaging and fluff-free. This means that you don’t want to fill your blog with AI generated content – no. You should be able to provide real value to your potential visitors. Even if they don’t end up booking a room, they’ll still remember that it was your blog that helped.

How to achieve this? Start with the keyword research. You will surely have keywords that are not relevant for your main service and room pages, and your blog is the place to use them.

And remember that you actually need to update that information every now and then, so make sure to have a system for that from the start – we recommend AirTable for it.

Link building (or acquiring backlinks)

This is all about having other websites (reputable websites, ideally) liking back to your website. The better the website, the more trustworthy you appear to search engines.

How you can get some backlinks for your hotel? Reach out to local businesses or travel bloggers and ask if they’d like to write about your hotel – of course, in exchange for another backlink, a night off, or a discount.

Schema markup for hotels

Now, this is where we get a bit complex. Schema markup helps search engines understand your content better. So implementing schema can enhance the way your page appears in search results with snippets that show off guest ratings, prices or room availability – directly on the search page, so you visitors don’t have to dig too deep.

There are a few ways to add schema markup to your pages, and Google even offers a tool for it – however, I recommend that when you build your website, you design it so that schema is automatically added based on your content type. It saves time and you won’t have to learn every schema type.

Optimizing for voice and mobile search

Ever since search engines started offering voice search, people have started planning their next vacations using Alexa, Siri and more. And of course, this changed the search patterns a bit.

However, as long as your content is natural and easy to interpret, you can consider you’re mostly optimized for voice search.

And similarly for mobile search, you should make sure that your website is optimized for mobile, as more and more people will simply use their phones to book a vacation. So make sure that your website’s interface is touch-friendly and easy to navigate on mobile devices.

Visual content optimization

This is a fancy way of saying – make sure your images are of high quality and properly optimized for SEO. This means that you need to compress your images before you upload them and make sure they have descriptive titles and alt tags.

To compress your images, you can use a tool like TinyPNG instead of going full photoshop on them.

Improving user experience (UX)

Last but certainly not least, it’s all about improving the user experience. A website that frustrated is a website that loses guests. So what you can do is streamline the booking process, make your navigation intuitive and make sure your contact information are easy to reach. The easier it is to use your website, the better the user experience – and of course, higher chances for search engines to love it too.

Bottom line

Yes, I know. SEO for hotels can be a total pain. However, you have some very important touchpoints in this article, and if there’s any help you need, you can always reach out to us.

At the end of the day, you focus should be on user experience – if that’s in place, your guests will find their way to you.