Guides · Google profile
Direct bookings from Google: what you control
Direct bookings from Google do not start with an ad. They start with the few places on Google that you control yourself, and with where each of their buttons leads. These are those places, and what you can and cannot change.
What you control on Google
- Your Business Profile: photos, description, hotel details and the updates you post.
- The button on each update you post: point it at your own booking page.
- Your replies to reviews, which travellers read before they choose.
What you do not control
The room prices and booking links that Google shows next to your details come from booking sites, and from your own booking engine if it is connected to Google. Whether your own site appears there depends on that connection, not on your profile. Ask your booking engine whether it offers one.
Every button to your own page
On your profile, on your website and in the chat on your site, a Book button can lead to a booking site or to your own booking page. Choose it once and on purpose: a guest who books on your own page costs you no commission to a booking site.
What not to expect
Posting on your profile does not move you up in Google's local results. Google's own page on local ranking does not list posts, and says you cannot pay or ask for a better position. What a fresh profile does is look cared for to the traveller who has already found you.