Backlinks — links from other websites to yours — remain one of the most powerful ranking signals in Google’s algorithm. A hotel or restaurant with a strong backlink profile will consistently outrank competitors with similar on-page SEO, all else being equal. Yet link building remains one of the most misunderstood and neglected aspects of hospitality digital marketing.
This guide explains how links work, what kinds of links actually move the needle, and the practical strategies that independent hotels and restaurants can use to earn high-quality backlinks without paying for them or gaming the system.
Google interprets a link from one website to another as a vote of confidence. When a respected food publication links to your restaurant’s website, Google treats that link as an endorsement of your relevance and authority for food-related searches. The more authoritative the linking site, and the more relevant it is to your niche, the more ranking power that link passes.
For hospitality businesses, backlinks have a compounding effect. A hotel that earns links from tourism boards, travel publications, and local news sites builds domain authority over time, which makes it progressively easier to rank for competitive keywords. A restaurant that earns links from respected food guides and national press becomes more visible for cuisine-specific searches.
Importantly, links from low-quality, irrelevant, or spammy sites provide no benefit — and can harm your ranking. Quality over quantity is the fundamental principle of modern link building.
These are the most valuable links — links that a journalist, blogger, or content creator includes in their content because they genuinely reference your business. They are earned, not bought, and they pass the most ranking authority. Examples include a food critic’s restaurant review in a national newspaper, a travel journalist’s hotel recommendation in a travel magazine, a food blogger’s post about the best restaurants in your city, and a travel blogger’s guide to a destination that includes your hotel.
Links from established hospitality and local business directories are a foundational part of any link building strategy. They also function as citations, which supports local ranking. Key directories include TripAdvisor, Yelp, the Good Food Guide, Michelin Guide, Visit Britain, and local tourism boards.
Links earned through genuine business relationships: your hotel links to the spa partner you work with, and they link back. A restaurant links to the wine merchant that supplies their cellar, and the wine merchant features the restaurant on their website. These are natural, relevant links that Google values.
Links earned through press coverage, award announcements, charity partnerships, and event sponsorships. These tend to come from high-authority news domains and are among the most powerful links a hospitality business can earn.
Regular press outreach is the most reliable way for hotels to earn high-authority editorial links. Build relationships with travel journalists, lifestyle editors, and hotel review bloggers. Invite them for complimentary stays in exchange for honest editorial coverage. A single feature in a major travel publication can deliver more SEO value than months of other link-building activity.
Develop a press kit that makes it easy for journalists to write about your property: high-resolution photos, factsheet, unique selling points, and key facts. Make sure your press page is easy to find on your website.
Most regional and national tourism boards maintain destination guides that include hotel listings. Getting listed on VisitBritain, local DMO websites, and regional tourism guides earns authority links and genuinely valuable referral traffic.
Hospitality awards generate links in multiple ways: the awards website typically links to nominees and winners, and press coverage of your award win generates editorial links. Target respected industry awards: AA Awards, Michelin, VisitEngland Awards for Excellence, local tourism awards.
Your hotel works with local businesses — food producers, activity providers, transport services. Approach them about mutual links. A hotel that sources its produce from a local farm might be featured on the farm’s “our stockists” page, earning a relevant, genuine backlink.
Sponsoring local events — charity runs, food festivals, cultural events — typically results in links from the event website. These are community-relevant links that signal local prominence to Google, which is valuable for both local SEO and broader organic ranking.
Getting reviewed in food publications, listed in “best of” guides, and featured in food blogger content are the primary link-building channels for restaurants. Develop relationships with local food journalists and bloggers. Invite them in for complimentary meals. Be a consistently good story — seasonal menus, chef changes, award wins, supplier stories.
National food media (The Guardian, The Telegraph food section, The Times, Square Meal, Hot Dinners) carries more authority than local blogs, but local coverage is also valuable and often easier to earn. Pursue both simultaneously.
Listings in prestige guides earn high-authority links and significant referral traffic. Apply to the Good Food Guide annually. Ensure your restaurant is registered with Michelin. Harden’s operates on a guest review model — encourage diners to review you there as well as on Google.
Partner with complementary local businesses: the theatre near your restaurant, the hotel that recommends dining venues to guests, the artisan producer whose products feature on your menu. These partnerships generate natural links and referral traffic that reflects genuine relationships.
Restaurants that publish recipes, chef’s notes, and ingredient stories on their websites earn editorial links from food publications and bloggers who feature that content. A recipe that gets picked up by a major food publication can earn dozens of links from a single piece.
The most scalable approach to link building for hospitality businesses is creating content that earns links passively — content so useful, authoritative, or interesting that other websites naturally reference it. For hotels, this might include a definitive guide to the local area, original research on travel trends, or a curated guide to local experiences. For restaurants, this might include a guide to seasonal British produce, a series of chef profiles, or original research on dining trends.
Google’s link quality guidelines are clear, and penalties for manipulative link building are real. Avoid buying links from link brokers or PBNs (private blog networks), link exchange schemes at scale, guest posting on low-quality irrelevant websites purely for links, paying for reviews or sponsored content that passes link equity without disclosure, and any scheme designed primarily to manipulate rankings rather than to create genuine value. Focus on earning links through the quality of your venue, your content, and your relationships.
Track your backlink profile using Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Moz. Monitor your Domain Authority or Domain Rating over time. Track the number and quality of new links earned each month. Set a target — say, five to ten new high-quality links per quarter — and review progress against it. Correlate link building activity with ranking movements for your target keywords to understand which types of links produce the most ranking impact for your specific competitive landscape.
The Lobby provides link building and digital PR for independent hotels and restaurants.
