Local SEO for hotels: 4 steps to rank higher and attract local guests

Almost everyone who has a website will have heard about search engine optimization (SEO) – one of the most essential digital marketing tactics for businesses, even in the hospitality industry. It helps hotels appear at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs) when potential guests search for accommodation.

However, with big hotel brands already dominating the top search results, it can be challenging for independent hotels to compete.

That’s where local SEO comes into play. Rather than improving your ranking on a national or global scale, it focuses on helping you stand out in your actual location. And with local travel trending in 2026, that increased demand will be one of your most important and reliable sources of bookings.

This guide takes you through the 4 key steps, along with plenty of tips, ideas and best practices, to make local SEO work for your independent hotel.

Key takeaways

• Optimize your Google Business Profile: Fill out your profile completely, include high-quality photos and encourage guests to leave reviews (and don’t forget to respond!).

• Leverage travel search tools: Take advantage of OTAs and local business listings, providing accurate details and using relevant long-tail keywords in descriptions. 

• Improve your hotel website: Make it easy for web crawlers and visitors to navigate your site by improving its structure, optimizing it for mobile devices and adding schema markups. Use relevant keywords, include images and meta descriptions and seek out backlinks.

• Market your hotel on social platforms: Engage directly with audiences on socials by regularly posting high-quality, optimized content.

Why independent hotels should leverage local SEO

Local SEO differs from regular SEO mainly in focus. While regular SEO focuses on improving a hotel’s presence on a broad scale (think national and international searches), local SEO prioritizes visibility in location-based search results, where travelers are actively looking for accommodation in a specific area.

For independent hotels, competing on broad search terms can be tough. Large hotel chains already dominate these results thanks to stronger brand recognition, larger budgets, and multiple locations. If you compete for the same search terms and audiences, potential guests may not even see your property in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).

To compete effectively, indie hotels have to get creative and make the most of their budgets by prioritizing local SEO to boost SERP rankings in their specific markets.

Higher local rankings mean greater visibility among travelers who are already searching for places to stay in your area. This expands your pool of potential guests and increases brand awareness. And because the top result in Google search results captures an average 27.6% click-through rate, even small ranking improvements can lead to more website visits and bookings.

Local SEO is also simply more practical. While large hotel brands have to manage visibility across many destinations, independent hotels usually operate in a single location. Ranking well for local searches can directly translate into demand for your property.

Step 1: Claim and fully complete your Google Business Profile

Many travelers opt for Google Search and Google Maps when trying to find accommodations near them. If your Google Business Profile (GBP) is incomplete or outdated, it will inevitably hold back your local visibility.

A Google Business Profile is your listing on Google platforms like Search and Maps. It shows guests the basics: location, contact details, photos, reviews, amenities and booking link.

Here’s how you can optimize your Google listing and start getting more eyes on your property.

Fill out your profile completely

Google assesses profile completeness when ranking GBPs to offer maximum value to its users, typically prioritizing complete listings. So an incomplete GBP could see your hotel getting pushed to the back in SERPs, impacting your visibility to potential guests. To prevent this, start by filling out your profile completely, including your:

• Hotel’s name, address and phone number

• Open hours

• Category

• Compelling business description that includes your hotel’s amenities

• Services offered

• Website or booking link

Tip: Don’t “set and forget” your GBP. Outdated hours, broken links or missing amenities can reduce visibility and conversions.

Include recent, high-quality photos

Properties with strong photos get more attention and website clicks than those without. However, not just any photo will be effective. Make sure you only use high-quality, well-lit images and avoid using stock photos or filters that could misrepresent your hotel.

Include a variety of photos of areas throughout your hotel, such as rooms, dining areas, conference rooms and amenities, and regularly update the photos, especially after any renovations.

Don’t forget to accompany the photos with SEO-optimized alt text and descriptions. Alt text is a brief description of what the photo is, which you can ,add when you upload the files. For a hotel pool photo, you could go with something like “ocean view rooftop pool” for your alt text and “Relax in our heated pool as you enjoy a majestic view of the ocean at Waikiki Beach” for your description. This serves two purposes:

• Accessibility: Screen readers can read the alt text out loud to help visually impaired users understand what the image is.

• SEO: It gives search engines context about the image, helping them understand the content of a page and improving the chances of appearing in image search results.

Encourage guests reviews and respond to them

Reviews serve as social proof for potential guests and can result in more bookings. They also signal credibility, boosting your likelihood of ranking high in Google search results.

• Ask at check-out (simple verbal ask works surprisingly well)

• Send a post-stay message with a direct review link

When guests leave reviews, be sure to engage with them. Google not only considers review quantity but also responses when ranking businesses. Respond to positive reviews by thanking guests for their feedback and negative reviews by apologizing and providing a thoughtful resolution. 

Responding to reviews also shows potential guests that you value customers’ opinions and are committed to providing high-quality services, which may encourage them to book with you.

Tip: You can incentivize guests to leave a review with perks like discounts on their next stays, but be careful not to influence their opinions. Encourage honesty instead. If Google finds out that you’re bribing guests for positive feedback, it could penalize your profile, resulting in lower rankings.

Step 2: Maintain OTAs and other local listings

OTAs and local platforms support your local SEO strategy in two ways:

• They help travelers discover you while comparing options

• They create consistent “signals” about your property (name, address, contact, amenities)

Every online travel agency (OTA) is different, making it important to optimize each listing. While using the exact same tactics across OTAs can help you secure bookings, it can also be limiting you.

If you tailor your listings depending on the platform, you have more opportunities to show up for travel searches because you’re highlighting what each OTA prioritizes when displaying search results.

Tip: Choose platforms based on your guest mix. Then optimize each listing to match what that platform rewards (photos, reviews, availability, value messaging).

Here are some OTAs to consider using alongside your direct booking strategies.

Step 3: Optimize your hotel website

Search engines like Google rely on web crawlers (bots) to browse websites. Learn what they’re about and use that knowledge to provide relevant content. The easier it is for these bots to gather information from your website – and the more relevant your content is to travelers’ searches – the better your rankings will be.

Below are the most important actions to optimize your website for local SEO.

Evaluate your hotel website structure

An optimal site structure makes it easier for search engines to crawl and index pages on your website, which can improve rankings. It also helps site visitors quickly find information on your hotel, such as amenities and booking options, enhancing their experiences.

To create an intuitive and easy-to-follow structure, establish a clear site hierarchy. For example, you can organize pages into different categories like location, rooms, amenities and contact information, making it easy for web crawlers and potential guests to find what they need.

You can also improve site structure by using internal links to direct crawlers and visitors to other pages on your website. For example, you could include links to your booking and amenities pages on your homepage for easy access.

Weave in local keywords

Search engines consider keywords when ranking pages in order to display the most relevant results for their users. Research terms your target audience likely uses when searching for accommodation in your area. You can use solutions like Moz Keyword Explorer, Google Keyword Planner and Ahrefs Keywords Explorer for this task.

Focus on long-tail keywords to rank high in search queries related to your location and target audience. For example, instead of using broad terms like “best hotel in Napa Valley,” use richer terms like “couple-friendly luxury hotel in Napa Valley” or “pet-friendly accommodation in Napa.”

When you find the right fits for your hotel, weave them into your content, meta descriptions, headings and URLs.

Tip: Higher keyword frequency isn’t necessarily better. Search engines like Google and Bing consider keyword stuffing a bad practice, so it can lower your rankings. Instead of focusing on using as many keywords as possible, prioritize creating great content and only using keywords and variations that fit naturally.

Add meta descriptions to pages

Meta descriptions are short summaries of web pages’ content displayed beneath titles in search results. They are not only a great place to add keywords but also provide more information about your hotel, both of which improve your SEO.

Use meta descriptions to promote your business, highlighting any compelling features that may encourage users to click on your website link. You could write something like “Experience breathtaking views, luxury cabins and easy skiing access. Bring your loved ones for a cozy retreat in Aspen.”

For optimal results, create a meta description for every page on your site. This way, visitors and web crawlers know what to expect even before clicking. 

Tip: Include relevant keywords and keep the meta descriptions below 160 characters. Anything over that may get cut off.

Include high-quality hotel images

High-quality images can drive traffic and reduce your site’s bounces, i.e. the number of people leaving your site again immediately. They can also signal site relevance to search engines through the descriptions, file names and alt texts you add.

To boost your ranking, upload high-quality images of different parts of your hotel, including amenities, rooms, street views and restaurants or dining areas. They should be visually clear, relevant to your content and original (rather than stock photos). Optimize your images by including keyword-rich image names and alt texts, such as “spacious ocean view hotel” or “stunning cabins surrounded by nature.

Tip: Make sure all images are SEO-optimized. One of the best ways to achieve this is to use the WebP file format instead of JPG or PNG, as it’s easier to compress. The smaller your file size, the faster your web pages will load.

Collect backlinks

Backlinks are links back to your hotel website from other sites. They help SEO by signaling to search engines that you are a credible, trustworthy source.

Ideally, you want to get as many as you can, but keep in mind that low-quality backlinks may hurt your rankings instead of helping. Aim for backlinks from reliable blogs, tourism sites, local news outlets or directories that are relevant to your industry, niche or local area.

You can get backlinks through manual outreach (asking bloggers and relevant websites to link to your content on their sites) or by hiring a backlink agency. However, you can also earn backlinks organically by publishing high-quality, valuable content.

Tip: You can monitor your website’s backlink profile and identify opportunities for link-building with tools like Ahrefs, Semrush and Moz.

Conduct a technical site audit

Technical site issues can make it harder for crawlers and visitors to navigate your website. Use tools like Screaming Frog and Google Console on a regular basis to find issues before they impact user experiences, and fix them with the help of your web developer:

• Slow pages

• Broken links

• Duplicate content

• Missing alt tags

• Mobile usability problems

Optimize for mobile devices

A mobile-optimized website not only improves rankings but also creates a seamless booking experience, which can drive up your conversions. To optimize your site for smartphones and tablets:

• Use a responsive design and scalable text that adjusts to any screen size.

• Simplify navigation by incorporating a hamburger menu (a button with three horizontal lines that reveals navigation options when tapped).

• Avoid pop-ups, unless they work correctly on smartphones.

• Ensure your navigation and call-to-action (CTA) buttons are highly visible and easy to tap.

• Compress your photos for fast loading times and fewer errors.

Add local business schema markup

Schema markup or structured data is a code that helps search engines understand website content. It can make it easier for engines to interpret and organize content, potentially giving you an extra boost in search results.

You can add schema markups to your site by following these steps:

1. Open the Google Structured Data Markup Helper.

2. Choose the most appropriate schema category (“Local business”).

3. Enter the URL of the page you want to mark up.

4. Tap Start Tagging.

5. Mark up the elements of the page, labeling key details like your hotel’s name, address, amenities and rating.

6. When done, tap Create HTML.

7. Download the code and paste it into the <head> section of the relevant webpage on your site.

8. Use Google’s Rich Results Test Tool to validate the schema before adding it

Step 4: Leverage social media accounts

Social media marketing is vital for independent hotels. It helps create brand awareness and boosts customer engagement, which can drive bookings.

While it doesn’t impact local SEO directly, it can increase searches and traffic for your hotel website, signaling value and credibility to search engines which can improve your rankings. 

Here’s how to leverage some of the most popular social media platforms for local SEO.

TikTok 

• Great for brand awareness and increasing brand searches.

• Post short-form videos like quick room tours, “day in the life” of staff, or showcasing amenities. 

• Use descriptive keywords in captions and hashtags to maximize exposure and drive traffic to your site.

Instagram 

• Excellent for hotel marketing and local SEO thanks to geotags and hashtags. Helps expand visibility beyond followers.

• Post high-quality images and videos of rooms, views, and amenities. 

• Use keyword-rich captions and include location tags and relevant hashtags to show up in location-based and hashtag feeds. 

Facebook 

• Strong across all demographics, especially for local search. Often a first stop for people researching local businesses.

• Create a complete Facebook Business Page (name, address, phone). 

• Share visuals of hotel and surroundings, guest reviews, and special offers. 

• Always include relevant SEO keywords.

X (Twitter)

• Great for direct engagement, which increases brand interest and search visibility.

• Share keyword-optimized travel tips, promote offers, use polls/questions to increase interaction. Mix in visual content like images, videos, or GIFs to stand out from text-only posts.

Youtube 

• Top platform for visibility in Google results. Strong reach, excellent for branding and driving traffic.

• Post high-quality, relevant videos (e.g., room tours, inter- views, local area). 

• Use SEO-optimized titles, descriptions, and keywords. 

• Engage in comments and link to your site in video descriptions.

Tip: Instead of trying to be everywhere, pick one or two platforms you can manage consistently.

For an in-depth guide to setting up a strong, achievable social media strategy, read our blog on social media marketing for hotels.

Turn online visibility into hotel bookings

Independent hotels compete with chains and OTAs every day. Local SEO is one of the smartest ways to level the playing field because it helps you win demand in your own market, where guests are already looking.

But visibility alone doesn’t guarantee bookings.

To turn local search traffic into revenue, you need three things working together:

1. Strong local presence: Google Business Profile, reviews, consistent listings

2. A website that converts: Fast, mobile-friendly, clear information

3. The right distribution and pricing: Show up with the right rate, on the right channels

Lighthouse helps you bring it all together. With one automated platform built for independent hotels, you can:

• Offer the right price on the right channel with data-driven dynamic pricing 

• Thanks to smart distribution

• Keep availability and rates synchronized across channels

• Drive more commission-free reservations with a smooth website booking flow 

• Offer secure, flexible payment options that reduce booking abandonment

Local SEO is just your first step towards more online visibility and hotel bookings. Being present on the right distribution channels (OTAs) with the right pricing is just as important.

Take a look at Lighthouse for Independents and see how it supercharges your visibility, distribution and direct booking strategy in one place. Request your free demo below.

Looking for more strategies and advice to market your hotel online? Check out our complete hotel digital marketing guide here.