If you have been surfing the web looking for a hotel during the last months, you may have seen a box like this one on Google search page results:
The year 2014 has been the year of Google Hotel Finder. This service was launched in 2011 but it has become more popular during the last months, with its introduction on the Google search results page. It allows you to find hotels depending on which topics are relevant to you (price, location, amenities…), review accurate and detailed information, contact the hotel or book a room.
HOW DOES IT WORK for users?
Once you click on the box, you’ll get redirected to Google Hotel Finder’s site, or you can access directly by typing google.com/hotels:
Once you are there and have chosen your dates of travelling (you can opt out this information if you are not sure when will you travel), you’ll see the list of hotels, filtered by your criteria (price, stars, location, reviews…)
As soon as you click on one of the hotels, you’ll be able to compare prices shown by different OTA’s or the same hotel, and book the one you prefer.
You can also save the hotels that you like the most and compare them.
How does it work for hotels?
If you are a hotel, you should hurry up and update all the information that Google shows to users (otherwise, Google will show the information it thinks is more useful). You can do it by accessing Google MyBusiness, and by doing so your information will also be displayed on other Google products (maps, Google+, search results…)
If you want your room prices to appear in Google Hotel Finder, you’ll need to be connected to an OTA (Online Travel Agency) through your channel manager.
How can I promote my hotel on Google Hotel Finder?
As usual, there are 2 ways to improve your visibility and rank: SEO and SEM.
SEO
Google Hotel Finder’s algorithm works a little bit different than the Google Search one, and here are some tips taken from an excellent article written by Jack Allen on the Search Engine Journal that you can use to improve your SEO:
1. You better get lot of good reviews
Google will always show first hotels with high reviews, and it is difficult to find on the first page a hotel with a rating lower than 4 out of 5. The algorithm is based on the reviews found on Google plus Local or Google Places (you can manage them from Google My Business, as we said before).
2. Pricing
Google uses algorithms that learn patterns of behavior. Knowing that, it will first show users hotels of all prices, but depending on which ones are they clicking on, it will automatically adjust to show the more relevant results to their criteria. (If they click on cheap hotels, the algorithm will go showing them cheaper ones and vice versa with expensive hotels).
Extra Tip: Google will benefit those hotels that are not overcharging customers because of weekends or special days, so pay attention.
3. Google + Local
We’ve been talking about this on the first point, so remember to take ownership of your Google + profile in order to boost your ranking and visibility on search results.
4. You better show your best pictures!
Don’t rely on pictures of your hotel taken from your website or from Online Travel Agencies. If you want Google to display your best photos, make sure you upload them on your Google + profile.
5. Being in the city center matters
Google Hotel Finder will start showing hotels from the city center to the rest of the city, so you have more chances to appear amongst first results if you have a good location.
SEM
One of the best options to get more traffic to your website is to promote your hotel using Google Adwords. But for this specific product, Google has released some new ads called Hotel Price Ads (HPA) that work separately from Google Adwords.
It’s very important to start using these ads, because it increases SEM conversions by 2x – 3x. Also, if you don’t do it, OTA’s will, and they’ll get bookings that otherwise would’ve been yours with a good SEM strategy.
Tip: Despite using these new ads, do not forget to keep on promoting your hotel through Google Adwords, so you can get traffic from more sources and see which ones are giving you the best conversions’ results.
If you want to start using HPA, get in contact with us and we’ll help you manage it.
