Now showing on every OTAYour property
SEO for hotels that catches the guest on the drive past the billboard
Travellers find you on Booking.com or Expedia, then open Google and type your name. Whatever ranks for that name takes the booking. Boltly is a hotel SEO agency that makes sure it is your own site, with a better reason to book there.
- 2009Hotels listed on Expedia in alternate weeks: listed weeks saw 9% to 26% more reservations outside Expedia
- 2011About 75% of people who booked with a major hotel brand had visited an OTA first
- 2017Follow-up: the effect is smaller than in 2009, but it still occurs
- SourceCornell University hospitality research reports, US studies, read 5 Oct 2026
Updated
The billboard effect, in three browser tabs
The OTA shows the guest your hotel. Google decides who gets the booking.
An online travel agency works like a roadside billboard: people see a property there, then look it up themselves. Chris Anderson at Cornell's hotel school tested this in 2009 by listing hotels on Expedia in some weeks and hiding them in others, and the listed weeks brought more bookings through the hotels' own channels.
Tab one: the listing
The traveller filters by area and price and sees your photos beside forty others. Your hotel makes the shortlist.
Tab two: the name search
They type your property's name to see the real photos, recent reviews and the rate on your own site. This search is the hinge.
Tab three: the booking
If your site leads the results and books cleanly on a phone, the guest is yours. If an OTA ad or listing sits on top, they drift back to it.
These are US studies, and the 2017 follow-up found the effect weaker than in 2009, so treat the percentages as direction rather than a forecast for an Australian property. The direction holds: the OTA listing creates searches for your name, and SEO decides whether they end on your booking page.
Tab two, up close
What should show when someone types your hotel's name
Search your own property name on a phone, logged out, and count how many results belong to someone else before you reach your booking page. That count is the first number we try to change.
Your site should hold the top organic result, with a title naming the property and the town. Your Google Business Profile should fill the side panel on desktop and the top of the mobile screen, with current photos, correct check-in times and a link to your own booking engine. OTAs can also bid on hotel names with paid ads, which no SEO removes; SEO controls everything that isn't an ad.
Google's guide to its AI features says they draw on the same core ranking systems, so a clean name search also helps when a traveller asks an AI tool about your property. No special markup is needed.
your hotel name
- Your site, first organic resulttitle names the property and the town
- Your profile panelphotos from this year, hours, your booking link
- Your rooms and offers pagesshown as sitelinks under your result
- OTA listingsexpected; they sit below you
- Review sitesreplies from the property, recent and specific
A checklist, not a picture of any real results page.
Your numbers, not ours
Commission on guests who were already looking for you
The room is identical either way; the difference is the commission line on your OTA statement. Put your own figures in: your average nightly rate, the commission rate in your OTA contract, and how many room nights a month you think could move to direct.
We won't quote a typical commission rate; contracts differ by platform, property and deal, and your statement is the only reliable number. Nor will every OTA guest switch. Some book on a platform for its loyalty points or its cancellation terms. The aim is the share who were going to look you up anyway.
The concierge desk
Be the local who answers the questions before the booking
Guides written from the front desk catch travellers while they're still deciding where to go, and give Google a reason to treat your site as the authority on your patch. An OTA lists thousands of properties and knows none of the streets around yours.
Getting here
From the airport, the station or the highway, with the parking situation spelt out.
Three days nearby
An itinerary your staff would give a guest, with walking times from your door.
Where to eat
Places within a short walk, refreshed when they close or change hours.
Event weekends
The festivals, races and conferences that fill your town, published well before the dates.
Which room for which trip
Families, business stays, long weekends: each matched to the room type that suits it.
Questions guests ask at check-in
Late arrivals, luggage, pets, accessible rooms. Every repeat question is a page waiting to be written.
A guide that sends guests to a closed restaurant costs more trust than it earns, so each guide gets a refresh list we check every season.
The booking window
Publish in the quiet months, rank for the busy ones
The page that wins a summer or an event weekend has to be indexed and ranking while travellers research, months before anyone checks in.
An illustrative plan for a December to February peak, not booking data. Your own reservations report shows your real lead times.
Google's SEO starter guide says changes can take effect in hours or take several months, which is why we start with your next peak, look up how far ahead your guests book in your own reservations data, and work back from there.
The side-by-side
Your direct page has to beat the listing it is compared with
The guest in tab three has the OTA page open next to yours. Ranking gets them there; your page decides whether they finish.
What the OTA listing does well
- Loads fast and books in a few taps
- Shows many photos and a review score up front
- States cancellation terms clearly
- Remembers the traveller's details
What your page can do better
- Book in as few steps on a phone, with the rate visible before the dates screen
- Photos taken this year, of the actual rooms
- A direct-only reason to book: a later checkout, parking, breakfast
- A phone number answered by someone at the property
Check your OTA agreements before advertising a lower direct rate, since some contracts have terms on rate parity. Perks and flexibility are usually a simpler way to give direct guests a reason. This is general information, not legal advice about your contracts.
"Is it cheaper to book with the hotel?" is the question many guests have while both tabs are open. The answer changes by property and by night, so answer it on your page for your property. If the direct rate matches the OTA, say so and name what direct guests get on top. Only write "best rate" if it holds every night of the year.
What the guest is checking
- Is the price lower here, or the same with something extra?
- What is the total once taxes and fees are added?
- What happens if the trip changes or is cancelled?
- When is the card charged, and how is a refund paid?
Where your page answers it
- The direct rate shown beside the perk that only direct guests get
- One total with card surcharges and cleaning or resort fees, before payment details
- Change and cancellation terms in plain words, next to the book button
- The deposit, the charge date and the refund method on the same screen
A fee that first appears on the final screen is the moment many guests go back to the OTA tab, because they trust its total. We check your booking engine for that drop-off on a phone and list every surprise it shows a guest.
What we work on
Six room tags on the board behind reception
The audit decides which tags come off the board first. A small motel in a quiet town and a city hotel with a conference floor need different starting points.
- 101
Your name search
Home page, titles and profile set up so the property's own site leads for its name.
- 102
Room and stay pages
One page per room type and per reason to stay, written for the searches travellers use.
- 103
Destination guides
The concierge content above, kept current, linked to the rooms that suit each trip.
- 104
Business Profile and maps
The core of local SEO for hotels: categories, amenities, photos and review replies.
- 105
Booking path
Speed and steps measured on a phone, with the booking engine checked so it does not block indexing.
- 106
Mentions and links
Earned coverage from local tourism bodies, event organisers and travel writers, never paid link schemes.
How it runs
From check-in to the next season
Check in
We search your name, your town and your room types as a traveller would, and read your booking mix with you.
Room plan
A list of pages, profile fixes and guides, ordered around your next booking window. You approve it.
Housekeeping
Technical fixes and the booking path first, because new pages on a slow site waste the effort.
Guest guides
Destination and room content published ahead of the season it serves.
Check out
A monthly report on direct bookings from search and your share of direct against OTA, then the next season planned.
Example plans
Three ways a property might start
Plans, not results. Each names the figure that tells you whether it is working.
The name search leaks
An OTA listing outranks the hotel's own site for its name. We rewrite the home page title and content, fix the profile's website link and add sitelink-worthy room pages.
Measured by bookings from searches for the property name
A festival town
Rooms sell out one weekend a year and sit quiet the rest. Guides for the shoulder months go up first, then the event page well before the dates.
Track direct bookings in the months outside the event
A caravan park or tour
The same pattern for tourism operators: a page per site type or tour, an honest getting-here guide and a booking flow that works on a phone with poor reception.
Check the share of bookings made on the operator's own site
Rate card
Monthly rates for hotel SEO, published
No setup fee and no lock-in. You can change plans as your seasons change.
Starter
$500 a month
A single property or operator in one town
- Name search and Business Profile
- Core pages and booking path
- Listings tidied
- Monthly report
Growth
$900 a month
A hotel competing in a busy destination
- Everything in Starter
- Room and destination pages each month
- Technical upkeep
- Review replies and earned links
Performance
$1,500 a month
Several properties, or a large site
- Everything in Growth
- A section per property
- Season-by-season content calendar
- A monthly strategy call
See the pricing page for what each plan includes across every industry.
From the front desk
Hotel and tourism SEO questions
What is SEO for hotels?
SEO for hotels is the work that gets a property's own website found on Google while travellers plan a trip, so more of them book direct. It covers the search for your property name, searches about your destination, and room and stay searches, with the aim of a better mix of direct bookings against OTA bookings.
Can a hotel outrank Booking.com or Expedia?
For broad searches like "hotels in" a big city, rarely, and it is not worth trying. For your own property name, for specific stays, and for local guides about your area, yes. Those are also the searches closest to a booking.
What is the billboard effect in the hotel industry?
It is the finding, first published by Cornell University's hospitality research centre in 2009, that listing a hotel on an OTA also lifts bookings through the hotel's own channels, because travellers see it there and look it up. A 2017 follow-up found the effect smaller but still there.
How do I get more direct hotel bookings?
Make your site win the search for your name, give direct guests a reason to book there, such as a perk or flexible terms, and make booking on a phone as quick as on an OTA. Then publish destination and room content ahead of your busy periods.
What is a good SEO strategy for hotels?
Start with the name search and the booking path, because those convert first. Then add room pages and destination guides timed to your booking windows, keep the Google Business Profile current, and earn mentions from local tourism and event sites.
Does local SEO for hotels help on Google Maps?
Yes. The Business Profile drives what travellers see on Maps and in the local results. Google says local results are mainly based on relevance, distance and popularity, so accurate categories and amenities, current photos and genuine reviews with replies all count.
We bought the property and Google shows the old name or two listings. What should we do?
Google's Business Profile guidelines split it in two. A minor name change, where the proper nouns, services and category stay the same, can be edited on the existing profile. A real change of name counts as a new business: mark the old profile as closed and create a new one. If you are taking over the existing profile, the previous owner first adds you as an owner and transfers ownership, so ask for that at settlement. Then search the old and new names on Maps and report any leftover copy as a duplicate, so guests stop finding the wrong phone number.
A guest left an unfair review. Can we get it removed?
Only if it breaks Google's content policy for Maps, for example a fake review, one from a competitor or former staff member (a conflict of interest), or an off-topic rant. Flag it from your profile. A harsh but real stay review will stay up, so reply once, calmly and with facts: what happened, what you changed, and an invitation to contact the manager. Never offer a discount or refund in exchange for changing a review; Google's policy prohibits that.
How much does a hotel SEO agency cost?
With us, Starter is $500 a month, Growth $900 and Performance $1,500, with no setup fee and no minimum term. One property in a quiet town fits Starter; several properties or a crowded destination usually need more.
Questions drawn from what accommodation owners ask and from Google's suggestions for "seo for hotels" and "how to get more direct bookings", checked 5 October 2026.
Find out who wins the search for your hotel's name
Send us the property name and town. We'll run the name search as a traveller would, count what sits above your site, and send back what to fix first.