Your hotel’s website needs more than just good looks – it needs to be findable. Without a strong presence in search results, even the prettiest pages will get lost. And that’s where an SEO audit comes in – it helps you identify issues, tidy up your site’s content and generally get more visibility in search engines.
For hotels, using a free SEO audit template is the best way to get a handle on the process. It gives you a clear audit checklist that covers everything from opting up individual pages and technical audits to off-page analysis and content tweaks. The aim is simple – get more organic traffic, improve your profile in search engines, and drive more bookings.
Why Regular SEO Audits Matter for Hotels
Hotels are competing in one of the most crowded online markets – no matter if you’re a boutique or a major chain, we all want to be top of Google’s first page. Doing regular SEO audits ensures your hotel website stays up-to-date with the search engine guidelines, is technically sound, and gives something to potential customers.
An SEO audit tool looks at how your site is doing in a few key areas – meta tags, page speed and internal linking to name a few. With that insight, hotels can prioritise what needs fixing, track the improvements they’re making and make sure their SEO strategy is aligned with their wider marketing efforts.
For hospitality brands, getting your SEO right can have a direct impact on bookings. Every bit of improvement in your SEO score or search visibility means more chance someone finds your rooms before another hotel.
Before You Dive In – Preparing for a Technical SEO Audit
Before you start, it’s worth getting all your data together. Have a look at Google Analytics and Google Search Console to see how your site is performing. These free tools will give you an idea of visit numbers, click through rates and user behaviour.
Now download a free SEO audit template for hotels or make one in Google Docs. Your template should have columns for issues, status, actions and completion dates. Then have separate sections for on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical audits.
Before you get started, make a note of your top-performing landing pages and product pages.
Check your pages with high impressions but low clicks – they might need a bit of work on their titles and descriptions.
Review any duplicate URLs and orphan pages that might be scaring off the search engines.
This groundwork gives you a good picture before you get into the technical and content audits.
On-Page Optimisation – Making Every Page Shine
Your on-page SEO is what really matters when it comes to how search engines see your web pages. It’s not just about keywords – it’s about making sure your pages are well-structured, easy to follow and give a good user experience.
Give Your Meta Tags and Titles Some TLC
Every web page needs its own title tag and meta description. These help describe the page in the search results and persuade users to click.
e.g “Stay at Ocean View Resort – Luxury Hotel Rooms in Gold Coast with Sea Views”
Use your target keyword naturally, but don’t overdo it – search engines frown on that.
Give Your Site a Leg Up with Internal Linking
Proper internal linking makes it easy for users and search engines to find what they’re looking for on your website. Link from your “Rooms” page to “Dining”, from “Spa” to “Local Attractions”. Not only does that pass authority, but it makes sure that your key pages aren’t getting overlooked.
Make Your Content Easy to Follow
Use logical heading tags (H1, H2, H3) to make your content easy to read and understand. Make sure your H1 includes your relevant keywords, and aligns with your SEO strategy.
When you get this right, on-page optimisation gives your guests and search engines a clear idea of what your content is all about.
Technical SEO Audit – Cutting Down the Time It Takes to Load
A technical SEO audit is about making sure your website is technically sound. Hotels often overlook this stuff and spend their time on the visuals. But fixing the little things can make a big difference to search performance.
So what to focus on:
- Page Speed: Guests get impatient if your site takes ages to load. Test your pages using automated tools and compress images, cache pages and get rid of unnecessary scripts to speed things up.
- Mobile Optimisation : Most bookings come from mobile. Check your site on a mobile and make sure buttons and menus are easy to use and don’t have intrusive popups getting in the way.
- XML Sitemap and Site Crawl : Your XML sitemap should have all your important pages and update automatically. Use Google Search Console to make sure everything is working and fix crawl errors.* HTTPS and Security: Make sure that all HTTP pages are correctly as well as securely redirected to HTTPS. Having secure connections is a big factor in building user trust and in improving your search rankings.
- Canonical Tags: Stop duplicate content issues by adding canonical tags to pages like categories or any other kind of listing – like on event pages or on your team
When you have solid technical foundations in place you can create a smooth experience for visitors and give search engines a clear direction of where they should be looking.
Content and User Experience: The Heart of SEO
Search engine optimisation is all about quality content and at the core of this is your website’s content – on every key page make sure it’s engaging, relevant and consistent.
First build a content plan that lays out the stages of your guests journey – from them first discovering you to making a booking. Include some blog posts on things like local tips, upcoming events, or behind the scenes stories that show the personality of your hotel.
Conduct a content review to check for any thin pages, duplicate text or missing information. Update any old articles with the latest details and add internal links to improve navigation and include multimedia like videos or 360 tours.
Good content makes people stay on your site longer, keeps bounce rates down and improves your search engine ranking. It also builds trust and credibility with potential guests who, before booking, want to see if you’re the real deal.
Off-Page SEO – Building Trust Beyond Your Own Website
While on-page SEO is focused on your own website – how it’s put together and so on – off-page SEO builds your brand’s authority across the internet. It’s all about how other websites see your brand.
Check Your Backlinks
Use an SEO tool to run an off-page analysis on your website and look at the websites that are linking to you – with a focus on ones that have a good reputation – like well-known travel blogs.
Get rid of bad links that will hurt your SEO and work with other businesses to partner up – maybe you can team up with a local tour operator or event planner.
Engage on Social Media
Get and keep active accounts on all the major social media platforms and keep your Google My Business profile up to date. Make sure your profile picture and cover photo are eye-catching and that you’re adding fresh photos regularly – and always, always respond to any comments or reviews you get.
Every time your hotel gets a mention online, whether it’s on a travel review site or on a social media platform, it adds to your SEO and builds the trust people have in your hotel.
Local SEO for Hotels: Getting Found in Your Area
For hotels, local SEO is key. Even if your global SEO is spot on, if you’re not targeting people in your area you’ll be losing bookings.
Start by making sure your Google My Business profile is complete and up to date – and make sure that you add images of your hotel, your dining areas, your meeting rooms and so on.
Encourage your happy guests to leave reviews, as that builds trust and helps with your search rankings and make sure to add all the images and information they need.
Use an SEO audit template to keep track of how your local SEO is doing – look for keywords that people use to search for hotels in your area, like “best hotels near [city]” or “romantic stays in [region]”.
Local SEO isn’t just about making sure people can find your hotel on the map – it’s about being a part of your community and building trust and authority within your area.
Building the Perfect SEO Audit Report
After you’ve done all your checks and run your audits, put together a detailed report on what you found and what you need to do to fix it. This report will be your reference document for making all the improvements you need to make.
Split it into sections like technical audits, on-page SEO, off-page SEO and content performance. Then outline the issues you’ve found, suggest the best course of action, and assign deadlines for each task.
For example:
- “Optimise meta descriptions for 10 landing pages to improve click – through rates”
- “Fix the broken links on the Dining and Gallery pages.”
- “Add structured data markup to your hotel reviews to improve search engine crawl efficiency”
This action plan ensures that your SEO strategy moves from just analysis, to actual progress and real improvements.
Using an SEO Audit Template to Your Advantage
An SEO audit template can really help simplify the whole process of carrying out an SEO audit. It helps keep everything in order, so you don’t miss any of the key issues that need addressing, like title tags, site speed or even simply whether your website is mobile friendly.
You can build one in Google Docs or Excel, or find a template you like in a spreadsheet or word processor. Your SEO audit template should have sections for:
- On-page SEO (title tags, meta descriptions, internal links)
- Technical checks (page speed, site crawl, mobile users)
- Off-page SEO ( backlinks, citations, link analysis)
- Content review (blog quality, keyword usage, storytelling)
Updating your SEO audit template regularly will keep track of what’s working, and what still needs improvement.
Common Issues Found During an SEO Audit
There are certain common SEO issues that many hotels will encounter when doing an SEO audit – and if you don’t catch them, you’ll be missing out on a lot of potential bookings.
Some of the most common issues include:
- Missing or duplicate meta descriptions and title tags
- Your page speed is taking too long on your mobile site or desktop pages
- You have broken pages, broken links, or duplicate URLs
- Your site isn’t properly utilising structured data or schema markup
- You’re not linking well enough between key pages on your website
- Your site structure is not the most efficient for search engines to crawl* Non-secure http pages that don’t redirect
Sorting out these problems can give you a rapid boost in your search engine rankings and really lift your SEO performance across every metric.
Tools that Make Your SEO Audit a Whole Lot Easier
You don’t need to break the bank to get the job done. There are lots of automated tools out there that make the process a doddle and save you loads of time:
- Google Search Console: Keeps an eye on how healthy your site is, whether Google is even indexing it, and how it’s performing in the search engines.
- Google Analytics: Lets you track what’s happening with your website – organic traffic, conversions, and all the engagement metrics that matter.
- Screaming Frog: Crawls your site to find any broken links, redirects or missing metadata.
- Ahrefs Webmaster Tools: Analyses the backlinks and off-page SEO that you’re getting.
- PageSpeed Insights: Tests your site speed and gives you practical suggestions for making improvements.
These tools basically give you a second pair of eyes and make sure you’re on the right track with your SEO strategy.
Taking an SEO Audit as an Ongoing Task
An SEO audit is not a one-off thing – it’s part of an ongoing plan. Revisit that free SEO audit template every three months, review how your site is performing, check any new landing pages you’ve got up and see if there have been any changes to the search engine guidelines.
Keep a record of everything: from the new meta tags you’ve added to how you’ve managed to improve those page SEO scores . Over time that helps you measure what’s actually working and what’s delivering the best return on investment.
It’s not about getting it all spot on – it’s about progress. Every little improvement gets you a bit more visible, and more guests ready to book.
From Audit to Action: Turning Insights into Bookings
Just doing an audit isn’t really worth much if you don’t do anything with it afterwards. Use that audit report to guide your content creation, fix any technical issues and generally build your authority across other websites.
If your checkout page has a high exit rate, simplify it – if a blog post is driving a lot of traffic, link it to your booking section. Connect the dots between what you find out and your marketing goals.
If you do an audit right, it will give you a better user experience, higher search engine optimisation scores and, ultimately, more direct bookings.
The Last Word
A free SEO audit template for hotels might seem a bit overwhelming at first but it gives you a structure that helps you tackle SEO in a more manageable way. It breaks your SEO strategy down into bite-sized chunks and makes sure that everything – from title tags to page optimisation – is aligned with your growth goals.
Whether you’re a small hotel or a big chain, improving SEO performance starts with getting more visibility, accuracy and consistency.
By conducting regular audits, using these free tools and implementing some structured fixes, hotels can start climbing the search rankings and attracting a steady stream of new guests.
If you want to take it to the next level, partner with some SEO professionals who specialise in hotel marketing and can help you take your audits to the next level and turn every visitor into a booking.
And finally, having a strong online presence isn’t just about getting noticed – it’s about staying top of mind.
FAQs
What’s the fastest way to spot wasted spend?
The fastest way to spot wasted spend is to focus on two key areas: your objectives and your audience.
First, ensure you have clear, measurable objectives. Without a benchmark for success, you can’t identify underperformance.
Second, regularly audit your audience to confirm you’re targeting the right people. Even the best ads can fail if they’re shown to the wrong audience.
What’s the best way to A/B-test creative while still keeping clean data?
The best way to keep data clean is to follow the one-variable rule. Only change a single element between your “A” and “B” versions.
This could be the headline, the image, or the call-to-action, but never all three at the same time. The goal is for you to attribute any performance difference directly to that specific change.
Many marketers make the mistake of stopping their A/B tests too early. By letting your test run long enough, you’ll be able to gather more reliable results with your ad analysis tool.
What metrics actually tell me if my campaign is working?
The ‘best’ metrics depend entirely on your campaign’s primary objective. The key is to align your metrics with your goal in the marketing funnel:
- For Awareness Campaigns, focus on Reach and Impressions to measure how many unique users are seeing your ad.
- For Engagement Campaigns, track Click-Through Rate (CTR) and Cost Per Click (CPC) to measure how effectively you’re driving interest.
- For Conversion Campaigns, focus on metrics that measure direct business results, such as Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) and Return on Ad Spend (ROAS).
Overall, prioritising metrics like ROAS over simple clicks is how you can gain a better understanding of your campaign’s success. It’s what allows you to move from generic to data-driven advertising campaigns.
