How To Manage Your Hotel’s Google Business Profile

Follow these tips for optimizing your hotel’s Google Business Profile to open the door to a bevy of SEM opportunities to increase the property’s visibility. This free search product, formerly Google My Business, is integral for hotels looking to attract local business and connect with customers performing location-based searches.

We already know that holding real estate on the search engine results page (SERP) is super important, and Google’s constant algorithm updates play a prominent role.

Whether you’re running a hotel or bed & breakfast, you can use a hotel’s Google Business Profile to promote your property and increase your presence in the local search results. A hotelier should include location and contact information, photos, and amenity features and highlights in the hotel’s Google Business Listing. To do this, you’ll need to correctly set up and populate the hotel’s business profile, which will help optimize it for search.

Here are the best ways to begin SEO for the hotel’s business profile, an increasingly important element of earning SERP real estate:

Claim and Verify Your Hotel’s Google Business Profile

To get a hotel to appear on Google Search, Maps, and other services, like the hotel finder, you’ll need to register for a Business Profile on Google. Once the profile is listed, you must claim and verify your account to manage your property’s listing and attributes necessary for improving the hotel’s SEO. To claim a listing:

1. Enter the name of your business in the Google Maps search bar.
2. Choose the correct business from the search results.
3. Select Claim this business and Manage now.
4. Select your preferred verification option.

If you’re opening a new hotel, see our breakdown of how to set your hotel up for success before it opens.

Typically, verification is accomplished by phone, text, email, or video. 

If you’ve already verified your business’s website with Google Search Console, you may be able to verify your hotel instantly. Just make sure you’re using the same email account you used to verify your site with Google Search Console as you do for your Google Business Profile.

Choose Your Hotel’s Business Category

Once verified, you’ll also choose a primary category for your property. That could be Hotel, Resort, Bed & breakfast, etc. The category you select influences the information displayed to searchers. The Hotel Pack is a search feature that lists several hotels when someone makes a local search like “boutique hotels in san diego”, “pet friendly hotels in chattanooga”, or “hotels near me.”

Important Note: A Google Business Profile typically sits to the right of the SERP on desktop, and below search ads on mobile. On Maps, it will display to the left on desktop and at the bottom on mobile.

Update Your Your Business’s Profile Information

You may have heard that your Google Business Profile is like the front door to your business. 

That’s because it’s true. 

The hotel details summary on a Google Business Profile acts as a virtual storefront and communicates important information to searchers, similar to what you may see in a physical storefront. It can’t be stressed enough how important it is that this information is correct.

How many times have you searched for a service, only to discover the phone number or hours listed in the Google Business listing was inaccurate? 

Pretty frustrating, right? 

Don’t be that business.

When searchers view your hotel’s Business Profile in the knowledge panel, it will include the following details summary information and links:

• Website
• Directions/Address
• Phone number
• Customer reviews
• Photos
• Posts

Important Note: Make sure the information (phone #, address, etc.) displayed on your hotel’s Google Business Profile matches your social profiles, website, and other sites to avoid confusion.

Select Hotel Attributes and Details

Using Google Business Profile’s ‘Hotel attributes’ section lets you select the amenities and services offered at your property. You can also select amenities that are in your hotel rooms.

You can select whether your property has a casino, a kids’ club, daily housekeeping, and so on and whether those amenities are free, offered only on specific days or in certain seasons, or whether they’re under renovation.

These are useful features that can make your listing user-friendly and your property more appealing.

A “Hotel details” section in the Knowledge Panel will also provide a short description detailing the property.

Important Note: Unfortunately, hotels do not have the option to customize the summary under the ‘Hotel details’ section. This information is aggregated by Google from your website and other digital listings, so make sure your information is consistent and accurate across the web.

Health and Safety

Google Business Profile also includes “Health & safety” attributes.

In TravelBoom’s post-pandemic traveler sentiment study, nearly 30% of leisure travelers saw COVID-19 as a factor in their decision process. While this number is falling compared to past traveler sentiment studies, many people still think twice if your hotel isn’t transparent on health and safety protocols.

There are several ways to detail the health and safety measures in the hotel’s business profile, including “Enhanced cleaning” and “Minimized contact.” Completing this section can help your listing stand out and build travelers’ confidence in your hotel’s safety considerations.

Sustainability

Google includes a sustainability category to help hotels highlight their energy efficiency, water conservation, and waste reduction efforts. With wellness travel on the rise, hotels can use this section of the hotel details summary of their Google Business Profile to target eco-conscious consumers who value sustainable accommodations.

Don’t Leave Questions Unanswered

A potentially time-consuming, yet positive function of a Google Business Profile if executed well, is the Questions and Answers feature. 

This section is super useful on the hotel details summary for the Google Business Profile because it allows you to respond to questions from potential guests.

When answering a question, don’t respond with simple “yes” or “no” answers; be informative and leave a detailed response. 

If someone asks about check-in or check-out times, provide the answer and refer them to visit your website or contact the front desk if they have any more questions.

If a searcher asks a question you find particularly important, you can upvote it, potentially increasing the visibility of that question on your listing for others to see.

Important Note: Anyone can answer questions on your Google Business Profile listing. Therefore, it’s best to frequently audit your listing and make sure people are seeing the correct answers by answering questions yourself.

Populate the Hotel’s FAQs

As mentioned, you can upvote questions you feel are important on your local search listing within the Questions and Answers section, potentially improving a question’s visibility. 

With that in mind, you can also create your own questions, answer the questions yourself, and upvote the question and the answer.

Not only does this give searchers an instant answer straight from the source, but it also prioritizes your time so you’re not receiving the same questions over and over. Include SEO for hotel responses crafted in a loose, organic manner to help boost the property’s visibility without sounding unnatural and off-putting.

Encourage Guests To Leave Reviews

Reviews carry a lot of SEO weight for hotels, and local listing visibility can increase because of them. 

Google reviews and star ratings lie just below your property’s name—near the top of the hotel’s Google Business Profile—and can help your property stand out.

Profiles also include a ‘Reviews’ section, and statistics for online reviews suggest 75% of people will check these out before making a decision.

This section lies towards the bottom of the Google Business Profile.

Did you know that 73% of consumers have written a review in the last year? If you’re looking to build SEO for your hotel’s Google Business Profile, the odds are in your favor!

Incorporate ways to encourage guests to leave reviews across several mediums, including post-stay emails, physical signage (in-room, front desk, etc.), social media, or a hotel mobile app.

Similar to answering questions left by searchers, if a guest leaves a review—positive or negative—it’s best practice to leave a response.

Add High-Quality Hotel Photos and Video

Presenting your hotel using high-quality images and video offers the property an eye-catching advantage over competitors. Following SEO best practices for alt text can also improve the accessibility and visibility of your property listings.

Photos and videos sit at the top of your listing and they should give guests an inside look at your property. 

These include your logo, a cover photo, 360 photos, a video, and several image categories/labels, including the exterior, interior, rooms, and food and drink.

A couple of dos and don’ts for adding photos and videos:

• Do include images of unique features that separate your hotel from the rest
• Don’t use stock photos
• Do include exterior shots, room interiors, amenities, employees assisting guests, etc.
• Don’t use a logo as your preferred photo (FYI: it’s not a guarantee Google will use the photo you select as the preferred photo)
• Do use wide-angle, well-lit shots
• Don’t use close-cropped images or images that don’t convey what your hotel has to offer
• Do optimize your hotel’s images for SEO: filenames and alt tags (optimizing your images can make a positive impact on Google Image searches)
• Don’t keyword stuff the filenames or alt tags of your images (ex. Alt text: “Downtown Chicago Hotels” for an image of a room interior) — be clear and descriptive of what is in the image

If you don’t have equipment for 360 photos or video, hiring a professional is worthwhile.

Important Note: Guests can also post photos to your listing. If someone posts an image you believe is harmful to your business or violates Google’s policy guidelines, you can report it to Google for removal.

Create Google Posts for the Hotel’s Profile

Hoteliers can connect with customers through Google Posts to share announcements and updates about the hotel on the business profile. Currently, Google offers two types of posts hotels can use: Add update and Add event.

For the What’s New post type, you can include an image and a call to action with a link to your website. For the Event post type, you can add an image or a video, event details, event title, event dates, and a call to action with a link to your website.

Important Note: Google says “Hotels can’t create ‘offer’ posts, or any post that mentions or includes links to deals, promotions, special offers, or discounts.” Google wants people to stay within their hotel metasearch ecosystem, so it makes sense that they wouldn’t want anyone to book another way.

Google Business Profile for Hotels: Things To Avoid

We’ve covered a handful of do’s and don’ts, but there are a few other items to consider when optimizing your hotel’s Google Business Profile. Avoid these practices to keep the business in Google’s good graces and provide a better user experience for searchers:

• Listing the same hotel location on multiple Google Business Profiles
• Keyword stuffing responses to questions and reviews, image alt text, etc.
• Using the wrong address
• Including links to your website in responses or reviews
• Choosing amenity and attribute categories that don’t match your offerings

Follow Google’s representation guidelines so you don’t get penalized.

Extend SEO for Hotels To Bing Places

With all this Google talk, Bing can easily be overlooked, but this search engine is also important for a hotel’s SEO. You’ll need to claim your Bing Places listing and verify it, similar to the way you do for Google. Then you can ensure it’s optimized and displays the correct information.

Bing will supply a verification PIN via mail, phone, or email to confirm your Bing Places listing. 

If you have already verified the hotel’s Google Business profile, you may be able to import the hotel details summary and attributes into Bing to speed up onboarding and earn instant verification. The login information you used for Bing Places must also match the login information for Google Business Profile to use this feature.

Once verified, it typically takes up to two weeks for your listing to publish with any new information you’ve added.

Stay Active on the Hotel’s Business Listing

Having your shiny, updated business profile listing ready for the world to see doesn’t mean you should set it and forget it. SEO for hotels is an ongoing process that requires frequent updates and check-ins.

Staying active on your listing, whether that entails answering questions, responding to reviews, or adding new images, signals to Google that your profile is active and updated, which can make a positive impact on your hotel’s local SEO rankings. Get more insight into local SEO for hotels.

If you need assistance with your hotel’s SEO or updating the hotel details summary for your Google Business Profile, don’t hesitate to contact TravelBoom for expert advice and service.

Jeremy Razook – Digital Marketing Specialist at TravelBoom. Connect with Jeremy on LinkedIn.

About TravelBoom Marketing

TravelBoom specializes in developing and executing customized data-driven marketing solutions that drive direct bookings and growth for its clients. With over 25 years of experience in digital marketing for travel and hotels, TravelBoom leverages advanced data science and analytics to uncover insights and develop strategies that greatly enhance results for our clients and reduce reliance on third-party channels. TravelBoom is also host of the world’s #1 ranked Hotel Marketing Podcast and its quarterly Traveler Sentiment Study both of which can be found at www.travelboommarketing.com.