Dan Taylor states that the hotel niche has been one of the most competitive niches for some time now, with individual hotels and hotel chains competing against OTA (online travel aggregators) and price comparison booking sites
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Google has since increased its own assets in the marketplace, with a number of changes to how it presents hotels within search over the past year:
Google Adds Hotel Bookings to Search Results
Google Local Search Grades Hotels Based on Location
Google Redesigns the Hotel Search Experience on Desktop
As well as new search features and special content result blocks, such as Google Hotels.
A lot of hotels are themselves listed on the comparison sites, as a necessary evil due to the amount of traffic and bookings these websites generate, but this comes at a considerable cost.
I know one bed and breakfast in the English seaside town of Whitby paid more than £8,000 in fees for bookings taken through travel comparison websites, which when you’re in a price-competitive market as it is can really put the squeeze on your margins.
It’s also relevant to say that there are differences between leisure and business travelers, and not all journeys from research to booking are linear, however search engines (such as Google) still play a big role in this journey.
Because of this, attracting users and taking bookings directly is almost invaluable in a hypercompetitive market place.
However, it isn’t a lost cause. There are a lot of local SEO tactics and strategies that hotels can use to:
Increase prominence within search results at various stages of the user cycle.
Increase their traffic.
Ultimately convert the traffic into bookings.
Firstly, let us look at how you can improve your rankings and traffic for relevant search phrases.
So, what are the keys to drive rankings, traffic & bookings for hotels via local SEO?
Original Article https://www.searchenginejournal.com/local-seo-for-hotels/292353/
Original article by Dan Taylor on https://www.searchenginejournal.com/