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Is Doing SEO for Hotels worth it?
With all the OTAs out there like [booking.com](https://booking.com) and [Airbnb.com](https://Airbnb.com) i was wondering if Hotels should focus on other marketing strategies instead of SEO
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1 Reply
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OTAs don’t own the hotels so they can’t create Google Business Profiles. Yes, a lot of upper funnel searchers like “hotels in [city]” will go to OTAs but they are price shopping. When a map pack shows up ~70% of clicks will go there where the OTAs can’t play. Optimize for branded search and local search and SEO can be a big benefit for a hotel. I work in the hospitality industry.
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One thing don’t let you client be permanently on the OTA just use them for clearing rooms on late notice.
My research is they have Google ads setup.
So if someone searches for the actual property you will be competing head to head with OTA with Google ads
The landmark in London is a famous expensive hotel search for it by name and they are competing with themselves on the OTA it’s, whilst on their website trying to convince everyone the benefits of booking direct it’s insane.
The single hardest job is getting above the best of affiliate sites.
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Building a business reliant on a third party platform is highly risky.
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I’ve done a few hotel SEO in my career. There’s a few ways to go about this depending on the hotel.
1. Did a boutique hotel in Thailand. They were on 6 OTAs which the site showed icons with links. But I set them up for Digital Nomads by connecting them to FB groups, offering $$ to promote, and blog posts aimed at DMs on the site. Very successful.
2. Local hotel in NYC area. Nothing special besides it’s a franchise of a reputable firm. I could not move the needle as there was nothing special to focus upon. I let them off the contract and told them to put the $$ into ads.
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