Central America SEO agency for buyers planning from another country
People planning a trip to see you search in Spanish and in English, and the Google work covers both. A surf trip to Nosara or a dental visit in San José gets planned months out, on a phone, in another country.
Two people at the same table, two reasons for being in the chair
I moved to Costa Rica to work onsite with two resorts and lived on the Guanacaste coast while the work spread to clinics in San José. At lunch on a resort patio, one person had found dental care by accident on a beach vacation. The person across the table had crossed a border for exactly that. Same country, same clinic, two different reasons for being in the chair.
3 million
Panama crossed three million international visitors for the first time in 2025, up 8.2%, with overnight visitors up 11%.
Autoridad de Turismo de Panamá, 2025 figures released March 2026
Hayden Bond, Founder
The buyer is planning from another country
Costa Rica's tourism earned about $5.5 billion in foreign exchange in 2025, more than its traditional exports like pineapple, banana, and coffee.
- $5.5B
- in foreign exchange from Costa Rica's tourism in 2025, more than its traditional exports like pineapple, banana, and coffee.
Banco Central de Costa Rica, 2025 figures
SEO and AI search services in Central America
Plate Lunch Collective is an AI SEO agency that gets brands named when buyers ask, in search, on social, and in AI. In Spanish and in English, we point SEO, AI search and social search at the country you're in and the countries your buyers plan from.
AI SEO / GEO
Your property or business is not showing up when someone asks an AI assistant for a recommendation.
AI SEO / GEOEntity SEO
Your name, your location, your details say different things on different booking platforms.
Entity SEOAI Search Game Plan
You'd like to see where you stand in Google and AI answers first, with a plan you can act on yourself.
AI Search Game PlanAnswer Engine Optimization
Someone in Chicago or Calgary asks Google about surf camps or dental care in your country, and the answer quotes a business that isn't yours.
AEOCitation-Ready Content
Your site answers buyers' questions in Spanish or in English, but not both, so some of the people planning a trip can't use it.
Citation-ready contentSocial Search Optimization
Many people look at surf trips and dental visits on TikTok and Instagram before they pick a country, and your competitors are the ones in those videos.
Social search
What do the AI assistants say about you?
Tell us about the business, and the first conversation starts from the answer. We'll come back within one business day.
Industries we serve in Central America
A surf camp in Santa Teresa and a coffee estate near Boquete reach people in different ways, often in different languages. Depending on who's coming, every industry below gets its SEO in Spanish, English or both, carried through to AI search and social.
Hospitality
Eco-lodges on the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica, beachfront resorts in the Pearl Islands in Panama, surf lodges in Nicaragua and El Salvador.
HospitalityTourism
Quepos and Arenal in Costa Rica, Granada in Nicaragua, and the Ruta de las Flores in El Salvador.
TourismAgritourism
Coffee estates in the Central Valley of Costa Rica and around Boquete in Panama, with farm stays in the Nicaraguan highlands.
AgritourismTransportation
Airport transfers and rental agencies serving San José and Liberia in Costa Rica and Tocumen in Panama.
TransportationSurf, Fitness & Lifestyle
Surf camps in Santa Teresa and Nosara in Costa Rica, El Tunco in El Salvador, Popoyo and San Juan del Sur in Nicaragua, and Santa Catalina in Panama.
Surf, Fitness & LifestyleLocal Business
Restaurants, retail, and services in San José, Panama City, San Salvador, and Managua.
Local Business
Questions Central American businesses ask
Does Plate Lunch Collective work with businesses in Central America?
Yes. Central America is a specialized service area. The founder lived in Costa Rica and Nicaragua, and has direct familiarity with the surf economy in Panama and El Salvador. The work runs remotely, in Spanish and English, on your site, your listings and the places travelers plan from.
Most of my guests come from the US or Canada. Does that change the approach?
Yes. If your guests come from the US and Canada, your site and listings need to work in English as well as Spanish, and we make sure they do. We also look at which booking and review sites those guests use and get your details right there first.
How does the work account for the fact that each country in Central America has its own tourism market?
Each country has its own directories, its own review ecosystem, its own competitive field. What gets a Costa Rica eco-lodge named won't work the same way for a Panama boutique hotel. The work treats each market as its own.
How do you know Central America?
The market knowledge comes from living there. Its founder was based on the Guanacaste coast of Costa Rica, working onsite with clients that ranged from resorts to healthcare clinics, and traveled the region for the work, including into Nicaragua, Panama, and El Salvador. What that time teaches you is that a single country holds several markets at once: the traveler who plans for months and the one who discovers something mid-trip are not the same buyer, even when they search for the same thing, and the difference is invisible unless you have watched both. Understanding how demand reaches a business in this region, and where in the journey it starts, is what goes into the work Plate Lunch Collective does for Central America.
Our buyers plan from another country. Is this money well spent for us?
One buyer from abroad might be a patient booking dental care in San José, or a surfer picking a week in Nosara. What one of those visits brings your business is the figure to compare with ongoing work, which starts at $1,500 USD a month. We'd answer to your inquiries from abroad, counted from the start. If you'd like to know what those buyers hear about you before they travel, the AI Search Game Plan is from $1,500 USD.
AI Search Game PlanHow do you handle local SEO for a business that serves one town or one coast?
Identity first. One name, one address, one phone number, one set of hours, matching on the site, the Google Business Profile and the directories that count in that country, in Spanish and in English. Many local sites we open have two or three versions, and we fix that first. Then pages for the places the business really serves, each with something true and specific on it; a Nosara page that is a Santa Teresa page with the town swapped gets filtered. Reviews get a process. We run all of it as one project, because the work that puts a business in Google's map results is the same work that gets an AI assistant to name it when a traveler planning from abroad asks.
How does the engagement work?
Each cycle lasts 90 days and starts by settling on the work that matters most to travelers and patients planning from abroad, done in Spanish and in English. The core of it is SEO on your site and outreach to the guides and publications those visitors trust. Quarterly, we measure your bookings and inquiries against your own numbers from before the first cycle. Ongoing work starts at $1,500 USD a month.
Find out where your Central American business stands
Ahead of our first call, we'll ask an AI assistant what a traveler planning from abroad should book in your country, and check whether it even knows which country you're in. We put that answer into an AI Search Game Plan, along with the changes that would help most, from $1,500 USD.