What a Hotel Website Needs

The facts quoted here come from primary sources: Google Hotel Center Help on free booking links, its best practices, the Price Accuracy Policy, the hotel owners' starter guide and the categories for lodging businesses; the FTC's Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees: Frequently Asked Questions; the Justice Department's ADA Title III regulations; Google Search Central on local business structured data; and schema.org's LodgingBusiness and Hotel types, all checked on 14 November 2026. The rest is our view from building websites for businesses. None of it is legal advice: check pricing and accessibility duties with your own adviser.

The short answer

Put a date picker and a "Book" button on every page, linked to a booking engine that shows live rates and availability. Show the full price for the stay, including any resort or other mandatory fees. Give each room type its own page with real photos, size, beds and accessible features. Spell out check-in, check-out, cancellation and pet policies. Then connect your rates to Google so your own site can appear as a free booking link next to the online travel agencies.

A direct booking engine

The booking engine is the part of the site that takes a reservation: guests pick dates, see the rooms and rates left, and pay or guarantee the booking. Most hotels use one from their property management system (PMS), channel manager or a booking engine provider rather than having one built from scratch. In our view the website's job is to make that engine easy to reach and to look like part of the same site: the same logo, colours and fonts, and a clear way back to the room pages.

Google's starter guide lists the systems that can connect your rates to Google: "A connectivity partner can be a central reservation system (CRS), internet booking engine (IBE), channel manager (CM), or even a property management system (PMS)." So before you choose a booking engine, ask whether it is already integrated with Google. That one question decides how easily your rates can show in search later (see Google free booking links).

On the page itself (our view): keep the date picker above the fold on phones, carry the dates the guest picked into the engine so they do not type them twice, and show the confirmation by email straight away. Payment and card handling belong to the engine; our guide to accepting payments online covers the general choices.

Rates and the total price

In the US, the FTC's Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees has applied to short-term lodging since May 12, 2025. The FTC lists covered stays as "Temporary sleeping accommodations at a hotel, motel, inn, short-term rental, vacation rental, or other place of lodging". Its FAQ says a business that shows prices "must tell people upfront the total price they will pay", and that "The total price includes all charges or fees the business knows about and can calculate upfront, including charges or fees for mandatory goods or services people have to buy as part of the same transaction."

Resort fees are the clearest case. The FTC's own example: "A resort charges a nightly rate of $199, plus a mandatory resort fee of $39 per day. The required resort fee must be included in the total price". The same goes for smaller extras guests cannot avoid: "if a hotel requires guests to pay for towels, the hotel must include the towel fee in the total price".

What may be shown later: "taxes or other government charges" can be left out of the upfront total, but the FTC says "Before a business prompts people to pay, the business must disclose the charges it has excluded from the total price." The total must also stand out: "A business must display the total price more prominently than other pricing information, except for the final amount of payment". Member rates follow the same logic: "If a promotion is available only to some people, such as people who enroll in a rewards program, the total price is the price offered to everyone."

In practice that means checking every place a price appears: the home page "from" rate, room pages, special offer pages and the booking engine itself. If your engine adds a mandatory fee only at the last step, fix the engine settings, not just the website copy.

Google free booking links

When someone looks at a hotel on Google and picks dates, Google can show a list of places to book it. Google says "With free booking links, your booking site can appear across Google when users search for hotels." They cost nothing per click: "Hotel partners pay no fee for free booking links, and Google doesn't collect any payment for placement or user engagement with these links." Paid hotel ads can show in the same module, marked with an "Ads" badge.

How a hotel gets there: Google's starter guide says that a complete Business Profile "will appear on Google Maps and Search but without prices", and to add rates you "create a Hotel Center account and integrate your rates and availability". It also says "Direct integration with Google is currently unavailable due to high demand", so for most hotels the route is the connectivity partner. If your booking engine or channel manager already works with Google, ask them to send your rates.

Ranking is not for sale. Google lists the signals as "consumer preference, value offered to the user, landing page experience, and historical accuracy of the prices provided to Google", and says "nor can anyone pay for a higher ranking." That makes the website part of the job. Google's best practices ask you to "Send users directly to the landing page where they can find the room and rate they selected", "Prominently display the selected room and rate on the landing page" and "Ensure your page loads in a reasonable time and is fully functional."

Price accuracy is checked. The Price Accuracy Policy says "the total price on the booking page must be prominently displayed, be the same as the total price displayed on Google's site", and that "Resort fees must be included in the total price provided to Google." Prices that do not match lower your score and can keep a hotel's rates from showing.

Room pages and photos

Give each room type its own page, in our view, rather than one long "Rooms" list. Each page should say the bed types, how many guests it sleeps, the size, the view, what is in the bathroom, and which amenities are included. Add a "Book this room" button that opens the engine with that room selected. Separate pages also give you something to link to from Google, ads and emails.

Use your own recent photos of the actual rooms, bathrooms, entrance, parking and breakfast area, and keep them current after a renovation. Guests compare photos with what they find on arrival. Our guide to website photos and image licensing covers rights, releases for people in shots, and alt text; the same photos can go on your Business Profile. Large photo galleries slow pages down, so compress images and load them as people scroll (see website speed, hosting and CDN).

Accessible rooms and the ADA

US hotels have a specific ADA rule on reservations, 28 CFR 36.302(e). It applies to reservations "made by any means, including by telephone, in-person, or through a third party", which includes your website. Among other things, a hotel must ensure guests with disabilities "can make reservations for accessible guest rooms during the same hours and in the same manner as individuals who do not need accessible rooms", and must "Identify and describe accessible features in the hotels and guest rooms offered through its reservations service in enough detail to reasonably permit individuals with disabilities to assess independently whether a given hotel or guest room meets his or her accessibility needs".

On the website that means accessible rooms are bookable in the engine like any other room, and each one has a plain description: for example, roll-in shower or tub with grab bars, door widths, bed height, visual alarms. Describe the public areas too: entrance, parking, pool, restaurant. The rule also covers holding and blocking accessible rooms, which is a booking system setting to confirm with your provider. The site itself should be usable with a keyboard and screen reader; see website accessibility basics and website accessibility laws.

Policies guests look for

Put these on one page and link it from the footer and the booking engine (our view): check-in and check-out times, cancellation and refund terms, deposits and card holds, age to check in, pets, smoking, parking and its cost, and breakfast. If you offer free cancellation, be exact about the deadline. Google's Price Accuracy Policy says a "Free cancellation until" notice "must indicate the latest date and time, in the local time of the hotel, that a full refund request (including taxes and fees) will be honored", which is a good standard for your own site too.

Write fees as amounts, not "fees may apply". In our view a pet fee or parking charge that a guest cannot avoid should be shown before they book, alongside the room price.

Guests in other languages

Hotels often get guests from other countries. If you translate the site, give each language its own URL, tell Google about the versions with hreflang, and let guests switch language with a visible switcher rather than redirecting them by IP. Our multilingual websites guide covers each step. Check that the booking engine offers the same languages, or the guest falls back into English at the most important moment.

Business Profile and reviews

Keep the name, address, phone and website in your Google Business Profile the same as on the site, and make sure you are in the right lodging category. Google's lodging categories page says "The name of your business doesn't affect your lodging category"; a property called "Main Street Hotel" may really be an inn or a bed and breakfast, depending on the services it offers. Hotels have one profile rule other businesses do not: they cannot publish offer posts (see Business Profile posts). Reply to reviews on Google and other sites in a calm, specific way; our Google reviews guide has the details.

Which schema type to use

Google's local business documentation says to "Use the most specific LocalBusiness sub-type possible". For lodging, schema.org lists these under LodgingBusiness: BedAndBreakfast, Campground, Hostel, Hotel, Motel, Resort and VacationRental. Pick the one that matches what you are; schema.org defines a hotel as "an establishment that provides lodging paid on a short-term basis".

LodgingBusiness adds properties a hotel can fill in: checkinTime ("The earliest someone may check into a lodging establishment"), checkoutTime, numberOfRooms, petsAllowed, amenityFeature, availableLanguage and starRating, which is "An official rating for a lodging business or food establishment, e.g. from national associations or standards bodies." Only use starRating for an official rating you actually hold, and put the same name, address and phone in the markup as on the page.

A short checklist (our view)

• A date picker and "Book" button on every page, opening an engine that is already connected to Google.
• The total price shown first, with resort and other mandatory fees included; taxes disclosed before payment.
• One page per room type with real photos, beds, size, sleeps and a "Book this room" link.
• Accessible rooms described in detail and bookable online like any other room.
• A policies page: check-in, check-out, cancellation deadline, deposits, pets, parking.
• Rates sent to Google through your connectivity partner; landing pages that show the room and rate picked.
• Translated pages with their own URLs, if you serve guests in other languages.
• A Business Profile in the right lodging category and Hotel (or the right subtype) schema.

Restaurants and booking-led businesses have matching guides in what a restaurant website needs and adding online booking to a service business website. Hotels that host weddings and events can also use what a wedding venue website needs. If you would rather have it built for you, our website development service builds custom WordPress and static websites made to load fast, rank well and be easy for your team to edit.

Frequently asked questions

What should a hotel website include?

A booking button and date picker on every page, live rates with the full price, a page per room type with real photos, accessible room details, a policies page, location and contact details that match your Google Business Profile, and the right lodging schema type.

Do hotels have to show resort fees in the price?

In the US, yes. Under the FTC's Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees, mandatory fees such as resort fees must be part of the total price shown upfront. Taxes and other government charges may be shown later, but before the guest is asked to pay.

How does a hotel get free booking links on Google?

Complete your Google Business Profile, then have your rates and availability sent to Google Hotel Center, in most cases through a connectivity partner such as your booking engine, channel manager or PMS. Free booking links cost nothing per click and cannot be bought higher.

Does a hotel need its own booking engine?

In our view, yes. A booking engine on your own site lets guests book with you directly, with your own rates, policies and confirmation emails, and gives Google a page to send free booking link clicks to. Most hotels use a booking engine from their PMS, channel manager or a booking engine provider and link it from every page of the site.