Hospitality SEO
SEO, AEO and GEO for Hotels, Resorts, Restaurants and Venues
Guests ask AI engines where to stay or eat and get a shortlist with reasons, drawn from reviews and city guides, before they open Google Maps. Miss that shortlist and the booking comes through an OTA at a commission, or goes next door. Our hospitality SEO, AEO and GEO work builds the room, dining and event pages engines quote. We count direct bookings and reservations against a baseline.
Why guests pick a hotel or a table before they ever contact you
A couple planning a weekend in Lisbon asks an AI engine for a boutique hotel with a rooftop on a quiet street. The answer names three properties and says why, in lines lifted from Tripadvisor reviews, Time Out and a travel magazine. On Google, the hotel pack and Maps sit above every organic result. Restaurants face the same test with dinner near the cathedral with a view. The guest then checks the rate on Booking.com and books wherever it is easiest.
What we build for hospitality SEO and direct bookings
Guests choose on specifics: which room, which view, what is on the menu, whether the venue seats a wedding party. We run six workstreams from one roadmap, ordered by your baseline, so your own site becomes the source that engines and guests trust over the OTA listing.
Covered on every engine your buyers use
- ChatGPT
- Perplexity
- Claude
- Gemini
- Google AI Overviews
- Google AI Mode
- Copilot
- Bing
ChatGPT search and Copilot draw on Bing's index, so Bing rankings feed AI answers. We work on search and AI engines as one program.
How it works
The same four steps on every engagement, with a clear view of what to expect at 30, 60 and 90 days.
-
01
Understand
Map your business, buyers, competitors and the prompts and searches that decide your category.
Days 1 to 30. A fixed baseline across every engine and the prompts that matter.
-
02
Prioritize
Pick the few moves that will get you recommended fastest and turn them into a focused roadmap.
Days 1 to 30. A focused roadmap agreed, with the first fixes already shipping.
-
03
Execute
Do the technical, content, authority and AI visibility work ourselves.
Days 30 to 60. Content, technical and authority work shipping every week.
-
04
Improve
Track AI citations, rankings and the leads they drive against the baseline and keep refining.
Days 60 to 90. A first read against the baseline, then the next quarter planned.
Case studies
The method we used for a fragrance retailer, clear pages plus a place in the sources answers trust, is what carries over to a hotel or restaurant that engines can't yet tell apart from the one next door.
Who this is for, and who it is not for
A good fit
Hotels, restaurants and venues with their own website, a way to take direct bookings or reservations and a way to count them
- Independent and boutique hotels and resorts
- Vacation rental managers and hotel management companies
- Restaurant groups, bars and venues
- Event and wedding venues
Not a fit yet
- Properties that can only be booked through an OTA
- Venues hoping to buy or incentivise their way up the review sites
- Businesses with no live website or nothing to sell yet
- Anyone expecting guaranteed placement in a specific answer
How we compare with the other ways hotels and venues fill rooms
| SearchAxe | Relying on the OTAs | Hospitality marketing agency | Part-time revenue manager | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Understands how your buyers research | Guest prompts mapped by occasion and area | Owns the guest relationship | Social and ads first, often | No time for prompt research |
| Works on AI answers and search together | One roadmap, Maps included | No, OTA ranking only | Search sometimes, AI rarely | Rate parity, not visibility |
| Ships the fixes | Pages, schema, listings and crawler fixes | Not applicable | Campaigns more than site fixes | Squeezed between pricing and forecasts |
| Earns third-party mentions | City guides, dining guides and travel press | Not for your own brand | Sometimes, through a PR retainer | Not in scope |
| Compliance-aware copy | Accurate rates, accessibility, honest review handling | Their listing rules apply | Varies by agency | Rates yes, accessibility copy rarely |
| Measured against a baseline | Direct bookings and citations, every month | Bookings, minus commission | Reach and impressions, usually | Occupancy and rates, not search |
| Published pricing | Yes, from $499 per month | Commission on every booking | Rarely, a quote after a call | Part of a salary |
What you get each month
- Baseline report Where you stand on every engine and in search before any work starts.
- Monthly AI citation and ranking report Citations by engine, rankings and referring domains, read against the baseline.
- Direct bookings attributed The direct bookings, table reservations and event enquiries that search and AI answers drove that month, in your own analytics.
- Slack access A shared channel with the people doing the work.
- Rolling roadmap What shipped, what is next and why, updated every month.
- Competitor movement Which competitors gained or lost ground in AI answers and search, and why.
How we get started
From first call to work in progress in three steps.
-
01
Book a free consultation
A call about your business, your market and where you stand in AI answers and search today.
-
02
Get a plan and a quote
We send a plan for what we would do first, with a quote for the plan you choose.
-
03
Work starts right away
Once the plan and quote are approved, the work starts immediately.
What clients say
Who's behind SearchAxe
Amit Malvi spent four and a half years at Invideo AI, rising from SEO Executive to Senior SEO Manager. He built and led a 20-person link building team and owned the company's GEO and AEO programs. Today he works hands-on with a small number of businesses across 16 industries, from SaaS and AI startups to law firms, clinics, online stores and manufacturers, that want to be the name search and AI engines recommend.
Pricing
Published prices, in US dollars per month. The plan that fits this work is below.
Full Service SEO and AI Visibility
$1,499 per month
Minimum three months
For businesses that want one partner to own search and AI visibility end to end, from the fixes to the monthly report.
- Everything in SEO Consulting
- Technical fixes, on-page work and citation-ready pages
- Link building, brand mentions and entity optimization
- Monthly reporting on citations, rankings and the leads they drive
Third-party fees, such as editorial or placement fees and paid listings, are paid by you directly.
Questions buyers ask us
Can SEO move bookings from the OTAs to direct?
It can move some of them, and it starts with your own name. Many guests who book through an OTA searched for your property first and found the OTA above you. We make your site the clearest result for your name and your rooms, fix your Google Business Profile and give engines pages worth quoting. OTAs will still bring guests who have never heard of you. The aim is to stop paying commission on the ones who have.
Does Google Business Profile matter for hotels and restaurants?
More than almost any page on your site. Maps and the hotel pack sit above the organic results for most near-me and in-this-area searches, and answer engines read the same profile data. We make sure your categories, hours, amenities, accessibility details, photos and booking links match your site and every other listing. We don't run review campaigns, and we never buy, fake or incentivise reviews.
How do we show up when guests ask AI where to stay?
Where-to-stay answers lean on guide articles, review sites and property pages that describe themselves plainly. We find which guides each engine cites for your area, earn your place in them, and rewrite your pages so a line like quiet rooms, five minutes from the old town is there to quote. Engines also read Reddit threads, but we focus on the publications, directories and review sites. Our GEO Agency page explains the method in full.
Do restaurant menus need structured data?
They need to be readable first. A menu in a PDF or an image is close to invisible to engines, so a question like vegan tasting menu near the river goes to a restaurant whose dishes are on the page as text. We publish menus as HTML, add Restaurant and Menu schema that matches what guests see, link reservations from OpenTable or your own system, and keep hours and prices in step across listings.
How do you attribute direct bookings to search and AI answers?
Through your booking engine and your analytics. We connect AI and search referrals to completed bookings, table reservations and event enquiries, then report direct revenue share and average booking value next to what the same stays would have cost through an OTA. Some guests read an AI answer and then type your name, so we also track branded search and any how-did-you-hear field you already have.
How long before we see results?
We set the baseline in the first 30 days: the prompts guests use, your Maps and search positions, and your current split of direct and OTA bookings. You get the first full read against it at day 90, with a report every month in between. Listing fixes tend to show before guide mentions do. We don't guarantee rankings, citations or booking volumes, and we'd be wary of anyone who does.
What does it cost?
Three plans, from $499 to $1,499 per month. Full Service SEO and AI Visibility, at $1,499 per month with a three-month minimum, covers every workstream on this page. If you'd like a snapshot first, the $199 AI Visibility Audit is a one-time check of how engines describe your property. Paid listings and guide fees are paid by you directly. See our pricing for what each plan includes.
Do you need access to our systems?
Read access to your analytics, Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools and Google Business Profile, editor access to your CMS, and booking or reservation reports from your booking engine or OpenTable. Rates, availability and accessibility statements are checked with you before anything goes live, so what an engine quotes matches what a guest finds at the front desk or the door.
Keep exploring
AI Brand Entity Optimization
Make every engine describe your property, rooms and dining the same, correct way.
Read more ServiceBrand Mentions for AI Search
Get into the city guides, dining guides and travel press that answers quote.
Read more ServiceGoogle AI Overviews and AI Mode Optimization
Show up in Google's AI summaries for where-to-stay and where-to-eat searches.
Read more ComparisonBest AEO Agencies
How AEO agencies compare when you need engines to quote your own pages.
Read moreLet's get your business recommended.
Tell us what you sell, who buys it and where you show up today. We'll reply within one business day with what is costing you leads and what we would fix first.
Schedule a Free Consultation