SEO for hotels: direct bookings from search without OTA commission.
For «hotel in Almaty» the top results belong to Booking, Ostrovok and the map pack. We promote the hotel where it can win: brand searches, map listings, districts and sights, resorts by area, Kazakh and English versions.
In hotel search there is no point competing with OTAs on generic queries like «hotel Astana»: Booking and Ostrovok have thousands of pages and huge budgets. But a hotel can win three other layers. The first is brand searches: a guest sees you on Booking and searches your name to check the website. If the website is not at the top, the booking goes back to the OTA.
The second is local search and maps: «hotel near the airport», «hotel near Baiterek», «hotel on Dostyk». These queries are won by Google and 2GIS listings with photos, prices and reviews, plus website pages for districts and sights. The third is niche queries: «Alakol resort with a pool», «glamping in the Almaty mountains», «hotel with a conference room Astana».
For resorts, SEO should start 4–6 months before the season: pages with summer prices need to be indexed by March, when early bookings begin.
What hotel SEO includes.
Queries by city, district, resort area, type of accommodation and occasion: with a pool, with children, for conferences, with meals, near the airport.
The hotel website first for its name, a rich snippet with rating and price, pushing intermediaries out of brand results.
Google Business Profile, 2GIS and Yandex Business: categories, room photos, amenities, prices, replies to reviews.
Connecting hotel rates to Google Hotels via the channel manager so that a link to your website appears next to the OTAs in the listing.
Copy for each room type, restaurant, spa, conference rooms and weddings — each page ranks for its own queries.
Pages and articles about the district, sights, routes and nearby events — informational traffic from tourists.
Kazakh and English versions with correct hreflang: «Алматы қонақ үй», «hotel Almaty city center» — these queries have less competition.
Rankings, traffic, bookings and requests from search — monthly, with a work plan.
Hotel and resort query clusters.
- Brand: hotel name, reviews, phone, prices
- City: «hotel Almaty center», «hotel Astana left bank»
- Local: near the airport, the station, Baiterek or Medeu
- Resorts: «Alakol resort», «Burabay prices», «Kapshagay holiday spots»
- Format: «glamping», «cottage for rent by day», «apart-hotel»
- Occasion: «wedding hotel», «conference room», «family holiday»
- Kazakh: «қонақ үй», «демалыс базасы», «Алакөл демалыс»
- English: «hotel Almaty», «Astana hotel near Expo»
- Informational: what to see, how to get there, seasonal weather
Where a hotel beats Booking in search, and where it doesn't.
For generic queries like «hotels Almaty» the first page belongs to OTAs and the map pack — getting a single hotel's website there is hard and expensive. Realistic goals are different:
- brand — your website, not the Booking page, should be first for the hotel's name;
- maps — the three-hotel map block takes most clicks for local queries, and rating, reviews and photos decide who gets them;
- niches — refined queries (district, occasion, amenity) are served worse by OTAs than by a hotel page with a specific answer;
- Google Hotels — free booking links show your website next to the OTAs in the hotel listing.
When to expect guests from search.
Month 1 — audit, keyword research, technical base, brand results and map listings. Months 2–3 — room, service and district pages, Google Hotels, first rankings for niche and local queries. Months 4–6 — growth on mid-volume queries and the Kazakh version. Resorts should start in autumn or winter so that by spring, when people plan the summer, the pages are already in the results.
Contract from 3 months, monthly report with rankings and bookings from search.
What affects the price of hotel SEO.
Promotion of one hotel or resort is ₸200,000–300,000 per month: keyword research, pages, maps, reviews, reports. A chain of properties or several cities and resort areas — ₸300,000–450,000. Kazakh and English versions, local content and a blog depend on the volume of copy.
Contract from 3 months. Base terms: SEO promotion.
The short version.
How much does SEO for a hotel cost?
₸200,000–300,000 per month for one property, ₸300,000–450,000 for a chain or several resorts. Contract from 3 months, first results in 3–4 months.
Can we outrank Booking for «hotel Almaty»?
For generic queries — rarely and at a high cost. We focus on brand, maps, niche and local queries and Google Hotels, where a hotel actually gets direct bookings.
What are free booking links in Google Hotels?
They show your rate and a link to your website in the hotel's Google listing next to the OTAs. They are connected via a channel manager or booking engine that sends rates to Google.
Do we need Kazakh and English versions?
Kazakh brings domestic travellers with less competition, English brings foreign guests and business travellers in Almaty and Astana. For a hotel both pay off.
When should a resort start SEO?
4–6 months before the season. A summer resort should start in autumn or winter so its pages rank by spring, when early bookings begin.
Same service for other industries
Want direct bookings from search? Send us your website address — we will do a quick audit and plan.
Tell us your city or resort area, type of accommodation, current website and which channel manager you use. We will reply with an audit and a 3-month plan within 2–3 business days.