Latest / Host Planet: Airbnb, Holiday Let, and Vacation Rental Insights / Direct Bookings Don't Happen By Accident | SEO Strategy

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Direct Bookings Don't Happen By Accident | SEO Strategy · Host Planet: Airbnb, Holiday Let, and Vacation Rental Insights

• 0:00
  Most short term rental hosts are leaving money on the table
• 0:03
  because if your direct booking website can't be found online,
• 0:06
  guests will book through OTAs instead.
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  In this episode, we're going to show you five ways to make your
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  website easier to find by Google and by AI search engines like
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  ChatGPT. In this episode of host Planet
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  bite size, powered by Host fully, I'm joined by Craig Webb,
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  the founder of web marketing. Craig works with property
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  managers and short term rental brands to help them drive more
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  direct bookings through smarter SEO and Geo strategies.
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  If you're an Airbnb host or property manager who wants to
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  reduce OTA commissions and increase direct revenue, this
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  episode is packed with practical advice.
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  Let's get straight into it, Craig.
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  Thank you for joining us on host planet Bite Size.
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  You've got 5 tips to share on boosting your direct booking
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  website, so take it away with tip #1.
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  Tip number one, OK, the first thing I would say is that your
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  website is a sales funnel. Look at it from the top of the
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  sales funnel homepage to the bottom of the sales funnel check
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  out page and sort your keywords into where they should be on the
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  website. So you're like I said, a sales
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  funnel is like a domino effect. Top of the sales funnel is
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  broad. It's kind of what you do and
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  where you do it. Yeah, that's the homepage
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  keywords you offer service department in Nottingham.
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  That's a kind of broad keyword. And as you go through the sales
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  funnel, keywords become different throughout the
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  website. So when they're on the property
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  page, you might have some more specific keywords like self
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  catering, contractor accommodation, who you're
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  targeting, that sort of thing. And then towards the bottom of
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  the sales funnel, you need to be answering questions as you go
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  along through this. And as you at the bottom of the
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  sales funnel, people have different questions.
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  What's your checkout policy? Do you have parking, Wi-Fi?
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  You don't need all that stuff on the homepage.
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  People want to put all the information on the homepage and
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  it's not relevant. All they need to know on the
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  homepage is what you do and where you do it.
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  Then they find your property. Do you have availability?
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  Yes. Next domino falls.
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  Is the price good? And what's the cancellation
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  policy? So it has to go in an order, a
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  funnel or a domino effect like that.
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  And if you can get that concept, your website can work.
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  And that's kind of my main tip really.
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  And I think it's completely overlooked by a lot of people
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  trying to overwhelm the customer with all the information at the
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  start because we they don't care at that point.
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  Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it?
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  I was at one of our events and somebody had brought a roll up
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  banner and there was so much text on it that immediately it
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  was just off putting to the eye. I was like, I'm I'm never going
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  to read all that, you know, just just give me the basic, you
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  know, give me AQR code, give me the basic things about your
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  business. And but what you're saying there
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  about the kind of it's like the landing page, isn't it?
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  How important is it to have an area that people can see
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  straight away where they can? Search and book.
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  The the masters of this game it's Airbnb, booking.com com
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  VRBO. They have the world leaders of
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  user experience website designers.
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  They pay the best in the in the world at designing their
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  websites and it works for a reason.
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  OK, so, and now people expect when they land on your website
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  to have a similar experience. The button will be top right and
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  the call to action will be there and the the filter button will
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  be there. So yes, have it kind of set up
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  that way so it's really clear when they land.
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  I've already said what you do and where you do it, but you
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  should immediately have some sort of search filter or
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  pointing someone in the right direction because it might be
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  that you've got accommodation in Wales, London and Glasgow, so
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  it's not immediately obvious. So you need to be able to sort
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  of funnel them in the right direction and point them in, you
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  know, to the right place to go. And if they can't do that
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  quickly, they'll be confused, they'll just leave.
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  You've got about 3 seconds. So just get it right straight at
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  the start and and ask you granny, can you granny do it?
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  Yeah. OK, then it's fine.
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  Get the funnel right in three seconds.
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  I like that. OK then, Craig?
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  Tip #2. Tip #2 I would say having a page
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  for a target audience. So I've already talked about
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  having your sales funnel, but that doesn't necessarily cover
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  each area of your business. And like I said a minute ago,
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  you might have properties in different areas.
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  In one area you might be targeting leisure, in another
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  area it might be contractors. In another area it might be
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  weekend breaks, romantic couples.
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  So what you can do is create a page and it could be a property
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  as well. Your property page can be it's
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  own little sales funnel and using the keywords say the page
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  title can be, I'll use my own example, Contractor
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  Accommodation in Milton Keynes and that is the page title
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  Contractor Accommodation in Milton Keynes is in the URL and
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  the first heading Contractor Accommodation in Milton Keynes
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  on that one particular property. And we rank very well for
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  Contractor accommodation in Milton Keynes because the whole
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  structure of the page is built around the one subject.
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  Don't divert, don't talk about families, don't talk about
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  Gulliver's Land. They're not interested, they're
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  contractors. You talk about the vans, the
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  Wi-Fi, the parking and how close you are to infrastructure and
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  projects going on. You keep the subject key to what
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  that is. Quick one before we get to the
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  next tip. This episode is powered by House
• 6:08
  Fully, the property management platform trusted by professional
• 6:11
  hosts and managers around the world.
• 6:13
  From automation to digital guidebooks and direct booking
• 6:16
  tools, House Fully helps you build a stronger, more scalable
• 6:20
  short term rental business. If you're watching on YouTube,
• 6:24
  simply scan the QR code on screen or hit the link in the
• 6:27
  show notes to book a demo with Frank Bossy, who's a big friend
• 6:31
  of our show and one of the nicest guys in the STR space.
• 6:34
  And remember, House Planet listeners get 2 exclusive
• 6:37
  offers, $500 off onboarding for the property management
• 6:40
  software, and 30% off digital guidebooks for life.
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  All right, back to it. And in relation to the content,
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  we're hearing now a lot about large language models.
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  This is where people are searching for travel
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  accommodation. How important.
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  Is it to have potentially FAQs? On that section that people who
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  want contractor accommodation might be asking ChatGPT and
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  Gemini for. Right.
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  So Geo generative engine optimization and AEO ask engine
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  optimization are becoming a lot bigger.
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  So certainly the sort of AI search, an AI uses different
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  algorithms if you like to to to rank your website or to show
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  your website. And if you imagine on your
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  website there is a, a paragraph, sorry, a heading and a
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  paragraph. Now if we can reframe that to be
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  a heading is a is a question and the paragraph below it is an
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  answer. That is when search engines will
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  pick it up, not search engines. AI will pick it up because
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  people search with a much more detailed search within AI.
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  So instead of saying, for example, in, in, in Google, they
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  might say contractor accommodation, Milton Keynes,
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  they might say I'm travelling to Milton Keynes on the 1st, the
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  21st of August. There are four men, 2 vans.
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  We need a ground floor room for someone with a disability and
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  we've got a dog. That's how people use AI to
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  search. So how can AI pick up all those
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  points within, within what you, what you offer And it's being
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  able to cover that. So questions and answers, FAQs,
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  they really cover that well. And when you say about AI, that
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  also includes the, the AI overview that Google gives us.
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  Yeah. So if, if we can create a page
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  about a specific subject and rank for it, then you'll have
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  more chance of of being shown up on that AI overview.
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  And I've managed to do it on my website for Milton Keynes in a
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  matter of weeks just by having really good content.
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  Content is king. All right then, Craig tip #3.
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  Tip #3 local SEO. So Google has an algorithm
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  called Eat EE AT experience, expertise, authority and trust.
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  So it needs to know that you are an expert in your area.
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  You are the authority in your area.
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  And if you are an expert and an authority in not just the area,
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  but the customers you serve. So let's say, what do I mean by
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  that? So let's say you're in the, in
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  the, in Wales, yeah, wonderful place to go and walk your dogs
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  and that sort of thing. So if you want to attract dog
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  walkers and hikers, you need to have content about the local
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  area, the pubs to visit, the walks to do where you can go
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  with your dog, which pubs allow dogs, which beaches allow dogs
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  and all all the different aspects of the what your target
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  audience might be might be looking for.
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  So local search, pinning yourself and and linking to
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  other places to visit and talking with detailed depth.
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  Yeah, not not just a granular level, but really deep, sorry,
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  not a surface level, really deep understanding of your local area
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  in particular for what your ideal customer is travelling
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  for. In that example, I use dogs, but
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  it might be romantic breaks, it might be trips to London, it
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  might be whiskey tasting in Scotland, whatever.
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  But you need to dive deep into that subject.
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  Yeah, I interviewed a host. Actually, he was based in, where
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  was he, I think Belize or somewhere like that, and he'd
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  become the go to in terms of SEO because whenever somebody
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  searched about his villa and his location, he'd written A blog
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  about everything they were searching about, whether it was
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  like car hire, surfboard hire. Where to walk, Where to eat?
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  Everything he'd done, he'd done blogs about it and he'd become
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  that authority. So the more content, more
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  quality content you have, the the better it is in terms of SEO
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  and and you're going to get found.
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  Absolutely. And a little tip about that is
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  it's important to go back through your blogs.
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  Don't just leave them there for years and years.
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  I see a lot of websites with a lot of blogs and it gets very
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  bloated. It's kind of the same content
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  recycled. There'll be stuff on there about
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  lockdown and, and you know, the norovirus, it's gone, it's
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  history, delete that now. It needs to be relevant and up
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  to date. If it's there's a, I've got a
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  client in Newquay and when we took them on there was lots of
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  blogs about the festivals, but it was all from 2020.
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  So it it needs to be even if you're just changing the, the
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  year, keep it updated, keep it refreshed.
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  That's really important. OK then, Craig tip #4.
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  I'm going to get a little bit techie and this is the thing
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  that people overlook a lot in this industry.
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  People, well in all industries, people browsing on their phone
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  initially, they're not necessarily buying on their
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  phone. They might transfer the purchase
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  to A to a desktop or laptop, but they're generally browsing while
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  they're watching EastEnders, while they're watching a film,
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  they're sitting on the sofa. They've got their mobile, all
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  their work. And most websites really fail in
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  the mobile experience because the text is misaligned, the the
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  pictures don't line up. The designer has only looked at
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  the desktop version and not completed the mobile version.
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  So not only the look and feel but are the buttons big enough?
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  Can I touch it with my finger without pressing 3 buttons at
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  the same time? And does it load fast enough on
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  mobile? So mostly websites do not load
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  quick enough on mobile. And if you have a look at a
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  website called, it's a Google tool called Page Speed Insights,
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  Page speed dot web dot dev. And to put your URL in there, it
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  will show your mobile and desktop speed and the reasons
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  why it might be slow. It's usually images that are
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  about 5 Meg loaded up to the head or it's a logo that only
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  needs to be 100 KB and it's a half a Meg logo doesn't need to
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  be. You've got to have things as
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  light and nimble as you can. So it loads fast because if it
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  doesn't load, they're gone. 3 seconds, they're gone.
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  Great advice. Yeah, I think when I look at our
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  stats, I think about 70% of our traffic is is people looking on
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  their phone. And I imagine that's similar
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  across a lot of a lot of websites.
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  Get your mobile version optimised.
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  It is very, very important. Again, Greg, so 5th and final
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  tip please. 5th and final tip, I would say use the free tools
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  that are available to you. I've I've just mentioned Page
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  Speed Insights by Google, but there is also Google Analytics
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  and Google Search Console. It's very, very simple to
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  connect to WordPress site using Google Site Kit.
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  You literally just click the buttons, it connects them all
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  for you. Or you go to Google Analytics
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  and Google Search Console give a little bit of code to add to the
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  head of the website. If that's a bit techie, ask your
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  website developers do it for you.
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  But that's going to tell you all round detail, nice granular
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  detail, who your demographics are, male, female, what device
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  they're on, where in the world they are, their interests, even
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  some really good insights of of their interests.
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  And Google Search Console tells you what keywords people are
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  typing into Google and have found your website.
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  So it can give us some really good clues to build more content
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  around the thing that people are finding us for.
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  So not only that, Google's Google Search Console can tell
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  us pages that are broken, broken links, ones that are not not
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  listed, whether you've got a site map.
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  So lots and lots of information. If you haven't got that, you're
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  kind of doing steps one to four that I've talked about
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  completely blind. So you've got no data to fall
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  back on. So the first thing we do with
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  any client, it is Google Analytics and it is Google
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  Search Console connected. And that gives you that that
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  sort of all that information you need.
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  You can even see when they're visiting times of the week when
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  your peaks and troughs are. When I used to manage hotels, I
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  could see when our visitors were and we knew that the the phone
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  calls or enquiries were going to come on a Friday night because
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  that's when people. So then we could adjust our
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  rotor accordingly and say well actually we'll need some more
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  phone cover on a Friday because the stats are telling us that's
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  when people are looking. So it's all very helpful.
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  Take a look at your analytics, see what's happening, and I
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  think also within when it comes to creating content as well if
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  you're in a specific area. Ask.
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  ChatGPT and other large language models, what are visitors to
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  Cornwall searching about? And you know, if you're based in
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  Cornwall, if they're searching about.
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  Pet friendly holidays if they're searching about great Wi-Fi if
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  they're. Searching about surfing, create
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  content accordingly. It's similar to what we do at
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  host planet. You know, we continually ask the
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  LLLMS what a what a short term rental hosts and property
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  managers, what do they want to know about?
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  And then that's an opportunity to to go and create content.
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  OK. Then so web marketing, Craig,
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  give us the lowdown about your business and where people can
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  find out more information. OK.
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  Yeah. So a lockdown business as I used
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  to be a hotel GM, which I just referred to in lockdown.
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  I thought I'm approaching 50. You can't do this forever, you
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  know, clearing up after weddings all the time.
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  And I, I was always interested in the website and SEO and the
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  marketing side. So set up the company and
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  lockdown. I did go back to work to, to
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  finish a few weddings off, but then went full time three years
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  ago and we now do SEO for about 60 clients.
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  We host about 250 websites and all the tech support tickets and
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  we build any business website, but mostly direct booking
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  websites and their connections to their channel managers.
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  So yeah, webmarketing.info, that's where you'd find me.
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  Check it out. We'll put all those details in
• 17:42
  the show. Notes Craig.
• 17:43
  It's been a real pleasure. Thanks for joining us on House
• 17:45
  Planet Bite Size. Thank you, James.
• 17:48
  Now I want to ask you something. If someone asked ChatGPT right
• 17:51
  now, best vacation rentals in your destination would your.
• 17:55
  Brand show up. Drop a comment below and tell us
• 17:58
  are you actively investing in your direct booking website SEO
• 18:02
  or are you still relying mostly on OTAs because the house to
• 18:06
  win? The next phase of this industry
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  will be the ones who own their marketing.
• 18:11
  And. Their audience.
• 18:12
  All right, that's it for this episode of host Planet Bite
• 18:14
  size. If you found this useful, hit
• 18:16
  like Subscribe and share. Share it with another host or
• 18:19
  property manager. Who wants more direct?
• 18:21
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• 18:24
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• 18:27
  business. This is host Planet bite size
• 18:30
  powered by Housefully. Until next time, happy hosting.