The questions guests ask before they book, and where to answer them

• Everyone: check-in and check-out times, how to get there, parking, breakfast, cancellation, what the price includes.
• Families: rooms that fit four, cots and extra beds, a pool children can use, food for children.
• Couples: quiet rooms, views, dinner on site, what is special about the place.
• Business travellers: distance to the business district and the airport, a desk, wifi that works, early breakfast, invoices.
• Weddings and events: how many people each space holds, rooms for guests, catering, what is and isn't allowed.
• Groups: how many rooms or beds together, group rates, who to write to.

Your own list comes from your front desk and your inbox: the ten questions asked most this month are the first ten to answer.

• In words on a page. A fact that exists only in a photo, a video or a brochure to download is invisible to Google and to AI assistants.
• With the figure: “a ten-minute walk from the station”, “the banquet hall seats 200”, not “close to transport” or “spacious”.
• On the page a guest would look at. Wedding capacity belongs on the weddings page, not only in a list of questions at the foot of the site.
• Once. The same fact in three places is three places to forget when it changes.

1. 1Write the twenty questions down.
2. 2For each, search your own website and note whether it is answered clearly, vaguely or not at all.
3. 3Do the same on two competitors' websites.
4. 4Start with the questions they answer and you don't.

Once your website has the answer, check that your Google listing and the booking sites say the same. A guest who reads one check-in time on your website and another on a booking site arrives annoyed, and writes about it.