Challenge
The client: a hotel in a popular tourist city. The location is strong, but tourists often book rooms through booking platforms, and the hotel pays a commission on every booking.
What made it hard
- Booking platforms intercept demand. Even when someone searches for this specific hotel by name, booking sites appear next to it in the results and take the click and the commission.
- Competition in a tourist city. The center has many hotels and guesthouses, and they all compete for the same tourists.
- Tourists look for more than a hotel. People plan the trip first: what to see, where to eat, how to get there. If the hotel only shows up at the room-search stage, it is already competing with everyone.
- Additional sales. It mattered to the client not only to sell rooms but also to offer guests additional services.
The goal: make sure guests find the hotel and book directly, not through intermediaries.
What we did
We built a system of four workstreams that together cover the tourist's path from trip planning to booking.
Website SEO
We optimized the site for the queries tourists use to look for accommodation in the city center. We added Hotel structured data so search engines correctly understand that this is a hotel, where it is located, and what it offers.
Local SEO
We optimized the Google Business Profile: up-to-date information, photos, categories, and description. For a hotel in a tourist city, maps are often the first point of contact with a guest.
Google Ads
We set up ads for branded queries to protect the hotel's name from being intercepted by booking platforms, and for targeted queries from tourists looking for a place to stay in the city.
City content
We created content for tourists: what to see and how to plan the trip. It brings people to the site already at the planning stage, when they are just choosing where to go and where to stay.
Every workstream leads to the hotel's website, where guests can book a room directly and learn about additional services.
Results
The project started in March 2026. Below we describe what changed in the hotel's search presence; the Search Console numbers are at the end.
- Branded search under control. Ads on branded queries give the hotel a spot in the results for its own name, so a guest looking for this particular hotel sees a direct path to booking.
- Presence on maps. The optimized Google Business Profile works as a storefront for tourists who are already in the city or planning a trip.
- A technical foundation for search. Hotel structured data helps Google display the hotel correctly in the results.
- A new entry point. City content gives the hotel a chance to meet the tourist before they open a booking platform.
The core logic of the project: every direct booking instead of one through an intermediary is a commission that stays with the hotel.
Search Console data
Compared with the same season last year: in July 2026 the site got 1,837 Google clicks vs 1,502 in July 2025 (+22%), and in August 1,666 vs 1,457 (+14%). The average position in July improved from 9.8 to 6.8, so the hotel now sits firmly in the top ten for its queries.
What makes this project special
It is hard for a small hotel to compete head-on with booking platforms' budgets, so we bet on where the hotel is stronger: being local and knowing the city. Content for tourists, maps, and brand protection in ads together create a path where the tourist comes to the hotel, not to an intermediary.
We started in March 2026. We compare the same months to remove the effect of the tourist season. Source: Google Search Console
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