The Google Business Profile for hotels: what a lodging listing carries that a shop's does not

A hotel's Google Business Profile is not the same animal as a cafe's. Google treats lodging as its own category: the listing carries a hotel class, check-in and check-out times, amenities from a fixed list, a price module fed from Hotel Center or from rates you type in, and a reviews summary that pulls in Booking.com and Tripadvisor. Most of that is filled in by Google's guesses unless the owner does it. Here is what to complete, in the order it matters, and the parts we find wrong most often.

What is different about a lodging listing

• Amenities come from Google's own list (Wi-Fi, parking, breakfast, pool, pet friendly, air conditioning, accessible rooms, EV charging, restaurant, bar, kitchen in unit) and they double as the filters in the hotel module. An unticked amenity is a filter you disappear from.
• Hotel class is a one-to-five figure you declare. It is not your AA or VisitEngland grading and Google does not verify it; overstating it is the fastest way to a run of disappointed reviews.
• Check-in and check-out times sit on the panel next to the rating. If they are blank, guests phone, or assume the worst.
• The price module shows a rate for chosen dates from each OTA and, if connected, from your own booking engine. Rates by hand are possible for individual properties; a connected booking engine keeps them live.
• The reviews summary shows Google reviews alongside a "reviews from the web" line that quotes Booking.com, Tripadvisor and Expedia scores. The panel is a composite whether you like it or not.
• Products are not available to lodging listings; posts are, and they are the right place for a seasonal offer or a closure notice.

Step one: own it

Search the property name and see whether a panel exists and who manages it. Many hotel listings were created by Google from OTA data and have never been claimed; others are managed by a previous owner, a former manager's personal Google account, or an agency that has moved on. Claim it, verify it (Google increasingly asks for a short video walking from the sign to the reception), and make your own account the primary owner. Add managers for staff by their own accounts, so a departure never takes the listing with it.

Step two: the basics, exactly right

The name is the name on the sign, nothing added. "The Bell Inn Llangollen Dog Friendly" gets a listing suspended, and a suspended hotel listing means no panel, no price module and no map pin until Google reinstates it, which takes weeks. The primary category decides which searches you belong in: Hotel, Bed & breakfast, Inn, Guest house, Holiday home, Cottage, Self-catering accommodation. Choose the one the property is; a guest house set to Hotel loses the guest-house searches and gains nothing. Put the map pin on the building, not the car park entrance, because the distance from the searcher is calculated from it. The phone number is the one reception answers, and the website link goes to the page you most want a name search to land on, which for most properties is the booking page or the rooms page, not a homepage slideshow.

Step three: amenities, attributes, times and the description

Go through every amenity and tick what is true. Then the attributes that describe the stay: family friendly, adults only, LGBTQ+ friendly, accessible entrance and rooms, languages spoken, payment types. Set check-in and check-out times to what you actually enforce. Write the 750-character description in plain English for a guest, not for Google: what the property is, where, what it is close to, what is included. Town names crammed in do nothing, and the description is one of the first things an AI assistant reads when someone asks it about you.

Step four: photos in Google's categories

Google sorts hotel photos into Rooms, Exterior, Food and drink, Common areas, Amenities and Pool, and it shows guest photos in those slots when the owner has left them empty. A guest's photo of an unmade bed under a bad lamp will represent your rooms until you upload better. Shoot every room type made up, the bathroom, the breakfast as served, the exterior in daylight, the view, the car park, and the dog by the fire if you take dogs. Phone photos in good light are fine. Stock photos are worse than nothing, and Google's image matching increasingly catches them.

Step five: get your rate into the price module

Since 2021 individual hotels that meet Google's requirements can add rates and availability directly in the profile, either in a calendar or with a bulk editor, and those rates appear as free booking links in Search and Maps, pointing at your own booking page. If your booking engine is one of Google's connectivity partners (most of the UK systems are, including eviivo, freetobook, Guestline, SiteMinder, Mews and Cloudbeds), the rates flow through Hotel Center automatically and stay in step with the OTAs. Either way the rule is the same: the link must land on your site, not on a third party's. Then check Hotel Center's diagnostics so the rate Google shows is the rate the engine charges; a mismatch gets the link demoted.

Step six: reviews and questions

Reviews are covered in their own guide; the short version is ask every guest the same way, incentivise nobody, reply to everyone. The questions and answers section is yours to seed: post the questions guests ask by phone (is there parking, do you take dogs, what time is breakfast, is there a lift, can we arrive after nine) and answer them yourself. If you do not, guests answer each other, sometimes wrongly.

Upkeep, because a listing drifts

• Special hours for Christmas, New Year and the annual close, set in advance so the panel never says "open" on a day the doors are locked.
• Amenities re-checked after any refurbishment or a change of restaurant hours.
• New photos every quarter, so the panel shows this year's rooms.
• Google's suggested edits reviewed, because Google applies them if nobody objects, and some of them come from competitors.
• The price module tested once a month with real dates, from a phone, in a private window.

The whole pass takes a day if the photos are ready, and it is the highest-return day in a hotel's marketing year. The profile and hotel listing build on our pricing page is exactly this work, done once, with a handover so it stays done.