How to Dominate Local Search Results

Local search: The process of seeking information online in order to find a location-specific company offline.

Since hospitality businesses are in specific geographic locations (as opposed to a web-based ecommerce site), optimizing for local searches is essential to any hotel search optimization program.

For most hotels, the most important keyword phrase to target is:

“[your city] hotel”

Begin by putting that phrase at the start of your homepage title and in other relevant areas.  It’s an important place to begin – but since it’s so easy to do, you’ll find most of your competition is probably doing it as well.

So dig a little deeper.

Include other relevant local keywords.  List nearby city names (and nicknames), neighborhoods, landmarks, and other attractions someone could use to find hotels in your area.

If you’re doing paid search marketing, you’ll want to generate a big list with two types of keywords:

1. Geocentric keyword + broad keyword (like: San Francisco Hotel)
2. Geocentric keyword + specific keyword (like: Best Nob Hill Boutique Hotel)

Getting listed in Google Maps is essential.  Many businesses are already indexed, but if your hotel is not read the instructions for including it I posted recently.  Yahoo has a similar service.  It’s standard practice to place your hotel’s address and phone number on your website anyway.

Once your hotel website is optimized for the right keywords, make sure to build your presence in popular social travel networks.  Building your ranking as the best hotel in your area requires using all available techniques.