Every booking through Booking.com, Agoda or Expedia costs a Sri Lankan hotel 15 to 25% in commission. Many guests find you on these platforms, then search your hotel's name on Google before booking. If your own website is slow, unclear or hard to book on, they go back to the OTA. Hotel SEO is about winning those guests directly.
How travellers search
Travellers search in stages:
- Inspiration: "best beaches in Sri Lanka", "things to do in Ella"
- Destination: "where to stay in Galle", "boutique hotels Kandy"
- Specific: "hotel with pool Mirissa", "family villa Bentota"
- Brand: your hotel name, to check prices, photos and reviews
Your website can target all four. OTAs dominate stage 3 in Google's main results, but you can still win in Google Maps, your brand searches and stage 1 and 2 content.
1. Own your brand search
When someone searches your hotel's name, you should have:
- Your website in first position
- A complete Google Business Profile with photos, amenities and reviews
- Google Hotel prices showing your direct rate, through a free booking links connection with your booking engine or channel manager
If your direct rate is the same or better than the OTAs, many guests book direct.
2. Perfect your Google Business Profile
- Correct category: Hotel, Resort hotel, Guest house, Villa
- Dozens of high-quality, recent photos: rooms, views, food, pool, staff
- Full amenities list: pool, Wi-Fi, parking, airport transfer, restaurant
- Respond to every review, in the guest's language where possible
See the Google Business Profile guide and getting more Google reviews.
3. Build pages that match searches
- A page for each room type with photos, size, beds, view and price from
- Location page: distance to beaches, temples, train stations and the airport
- Experiences: whale watching, safaris, cooking classes, Ayurveda
- Occasions: honeymoons, weddings, family holidays, workations
- Dining: your restaurant can rank on its own
4. Create destination content
Write genuinely helpful guides about your area: "A local's guide to Ella", "Best time to visit Mirissa for whale watching", "How to get from Colombo airport to Galle". These attract travellers early, link naturally to your rooms, and are often cited by AI travel assistants.
5. Make booking easy and fast
- Book now button visible on every page, on mobile
- Booking engine on your own domain, or at least branded and fast
- Prices shown in USD, EUR and LKR
- WhatsApp contact for questions
- Fast pages: most travellers browse on phones, often abroad on roaming data
6. Technical SEO for hotels
- Hotel structured data with address, star rating, amenities and price range
- Multi-language pages if you get many guests from Germany, France, India or China, with hreflang tags
- Image optimisation: hotel sites are image-heavy. See image SEO.
- HTTPS and a secure booking flow
7. Earn links and mentions
- Travel bloggers and influencers who stay with you
- Sri Lanka tourism websites and local tourism associations
- Local news and travel publications
- Partnerships with tour operators
8. Track direct bookings
Track booking engine completions in GA4 with revenue. Then you can see exactly how much direct revenue organic search brings, and compare it with OTA commission saved. See the GA4 setup guide.
Get more direct bookings
We help Sri Lankan hotels, villas and guesthouses rank and convert. See our SEO for tourism and hotels page, and for tour companies, read SEO for tour operators.