Local SEO important for international hotel?

[Maurice Lehr]

Hai all,

I do the SEO for a hotel in Amsterdam. This hotel has guests from all over the world, mainly from the UK and United States. Guests book online in their homecountry (like UK or United States). The website is well optimized and has a reasonably amount of backlinks. Of course the hotel has a GMB page/account.

1. Is Local SEO in general important for this hotel? In what way can it contribute to our rankings?
2. Especially: are citations and local backlinks (from websites in Amsterdam) important to rank well in the UK or United States for search queries like ?hotel Amsterdam??

Regards, Maurice

 

[profiledefenders]

its good to have local seo and reviews on their Google places page. I just stayed in Amsterdam and looking at reviews before booking was important to see when I googled the property

 

[DanLeibson]

Hai all,

I do the SEO for a hotel in Amsterdam. This hotel has guests from all over the world, mainly from the UK and United States. Guests book online in their homecountry (like UK or United States). The website is well optimized and has a reasonably amount of backlinks. Of course the hotel has a GMB page/account.

1. Is Local SEO in general important for this hotel? In what way can it contribute to our rankings?
2. Especially: are citations and local backlinks (from websites in Amsterdam) important to rank well in the UK or United States for search queries like ?hotel Amsterdam??

Regards, Maurice

This is a tough one as hotels are in a really difficult spot when it comes to Google My Business and traditional local SEO. Local pack results for hotels are usually a paid advertising feature like in this search for "hotels in amsterdam":

https://www.google.com/search?espv=...vbbLAhUN62MKHQuXCi0QvwUIGigA&biw=1152&bih=912

However, I think you should build out both you GMB page and your citations even if only from a branding/link building perspective.

It would be important to have your phone number, hours and link to the hotel website accurate across the local search ecosystem just so the domain could benefit from the links and ease of booking via a weblink to the domain or a phone call.

Also, there are likely niche directories like Trip Advisor and others where potential guests may be searching instead of Google etc.

Finally, having local profiles at key places allow the hotel to capitalize on reviews, and having a bunch of good reviews on their local listings may improve how they convert prospects to booked guests.

I hope that makes sense, as hotels are definitely in a weird position when it comes to traditional local search.

 

[Maurice Lehr]

@Dan, thanx for your answer and tips, it helps!
I fully agree about the difficult position in Local SEO of hotels. International SEO & Local SEO are already pretty complicated to combine and for hotels it is even more difficult.

I stumbled upon this usefull post that describes well the delicate combination of International SEO and Local SEO: https://moz.com/community/q/will-local-optimization-effect-international-ranking
Just to let anyone know who is dealing with this SEO puzzle

Regards, Maurice