SEO Strategies Every Host Needs to Know: Niching down your SEO Strategy with Craig Webb

Summary and Highlights

Why SEO Matters for Short-Term Rentals

• What is SEO?
  SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the practice of enhancing your website to rank higher on search engines like Google. Craig also defined it as “Serving Excellent Opportunities”, emphasizing its role in helping your ideal guests find you.
• Why Invest in SEO?
  • Boost your website’s visibility to the right audience.
  • Drive direct bookings and reduce OTA commission fees.
  • Build long-term credibility and online presence.

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3 Key Components of SEO

Craig explained SEO in three clear sections:

1. On-Page SEO
   • Optimize your website content for search engines.
   • Use specific keywords to describe your property and target audience.
     Example: Replace “Apartment” with “Pet-Friendly Vacation Rental in Nashville with Hot Tub.”
   • Write robust content (200+ words per page; 1,000–2,000 words for blogs).
2. Off-Page SEO
   • Build credibility through backlinks.
   • Collaborate with local businesses to exchange website referrals.
   • Get listed on directories like Google Business Profile, TripAdvisor, and Yelp.
3. Technical SEO
   • Ensure your site is mobile-friendly (80% of hospitality searches happen on mobile).
   • Fix site speed, broken links, and design issues that hinder usability.
   • Submit your website to Google Search Console for indexing.

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Actionable Steps to Start SEO

Step 1: Create a Keyword Plan

• Use a spreadsheet to map each page of your site.
• Assign a unique 3–5 word phrase for each page (e.g., “Luxury Family Cabin in Colorado”).

Step 2: Register on Google Search Console

• Submit your sitemap to help Google index your pages faster.
• Monitor performance metrics like broken links or page load speeds.

Step 3: Start Blogging

• Publish blogs to target specific niches, such as “Top 10 Pet-Friendly Activities in [Your City].”
• Consistent blogging boosts authority and drives organic traffic.

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Common SEO Pitfalls to Avoid

1. Vague Content: Avoid broad terms like “Apartment” or “House.” Be specific about your property type and audience.
2. Ignoring Mobile Optimization: Test your website for ease of use on mobile devices.
3. Thin Content: Create pages with at least 200 words and blogs with 1,000–2,000 words.
4. Not Submitting to Google Search Console: Without indexing, Google doesn’t know your site exists.

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How SEO Pays Off Long-Term

Craig compared SEO to planting an apple tree:
“Unlike ads, which only drive traffic while you’re paying, SEO is a long-term investment. The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll reap the rewards.”

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Craig’s Advice for Choosing an SEO Agency

If you’re ready to hire an SEO agency:

• Look for Transparency: Agencies should show work progress and discuss results openly.
• Prioritize Recommendations: Choose someone with proven results and positive client feedback.
• Focus on Communication: Regular calls can align SEO efforts with your business goals.

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Key Mindset for Success

Craig’s powerful reminder:
“You are where your attention is.”
Focus on becoming the person you aspire to be, rather than waiting for the perfect moment. Take action now, and the results will follow.

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What Should You Do Next?

SEO doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Start small:

• Plan your website pages with relevant keywords.
• Register on Google Search Console to ensure Google indexes your site.
• Write blogs to position yourself as an authority in your niche.

Ready to dive deeper and learn more? Join our conversation and listen to the podcast – exclusive on Direct Booking Simplified Podcast! 🎙️🎤

Transcript

Craig: You are where your attention is. And my attention was always on the problems. And I just moved my attention to where I wanted to be. And I wanted to be a business owner running a digital marketing agency. So that’s where I kept my attention. And I didn’t say, Oh, when I leave my job or when I do this, I can be that.

I had to be it now. You can’t say, I’ll do that when you have to live and be the person you want to be for it to happen and live within that mindset, within that framework, rather than it being a one, two, three process that you follow, you’ve actually got to start becoming that person and live in that space to be able to achieve it.

Cause otherwise it won’t come. It won’t ever arrive. It will always be in the distance.

Gil: Hey folks, welcome back to Direct Booking Simplify, where we break down the strategies and tactics to win in direct bookings. On today’s show, I have Craig Webb. Craig, welcome to the show.

Craig: Thank you for having me. Wonderful to be here. Really pleased to be invited.

Gil: Yeah. It was hard to find someone like you. I’ve been hunting for someone like you for a long time. I’m glad Jody from Hospitable Hosts referred me to you, but I’ve been wanting to bring more folks that were experts in the technical side of, um, of marketing specifically around SEO, because there’s not a lot of marketing experts in this domain, specifically in, in hospitality in our little world.

Um, so I’m really glad and happy to have you on the show to kind of share kind of your knowledge on all things SEO.

Craig: Thank you. Yeah, I hope I can pass some of that knowledge today to some of your listeners.

Gil: Yeah. And from what, what I gathered You are what I consider an expert. You have a course, you have services as well, too. We’ll get a little bit into, into that. So, but all in all, I think you come with a wealth of knowledge. Um, so I, I, I bet that our listeners will get a lot of value out of today’s, today’s conversation.

Craig: hope so. I hope so.

Gil: Yeah. Maybe to kick us off, Craig, do you mind introducing yourself kind of how you got into this in the first place?

Craig: Yeah. So I, I’m in the UK, probably tell by my accent. I’m in Oxfordshire. Um, I was a hotel manager for the last 20 years and before that in hotels, hospitality for, for 32 years. In fact, um, I’ve done every job in hospitality, washing up to running restaurants, weddings, events, catering, uh, accommodation.

accommodation hotels. So that’s really where my, my skills lie, but sort of food and beverage led, um, high end hotels is where I ended my career. And I ran hotels where it is for a company who managed hotels on other, on behalf of other people. And one of the hotels I was running was in administration. So it was actually, owned by the bank.

The bank pulled it from the owner, gave it to us as a management company to run and said, there you go, there’s the keys. Um, if you do a really good job, we need to sell the business and you’ll lose your job. So that was, that was a good start. So if I did a good job, I’d lose my job. But cause came with that is that because it was an administration, we couldn’t spend any money.

So that created this pain point where I felt like I had two hands tied behind my back and I had to be creative of how I could try to get a business. You know, I didn’t have a sales and marketing team. I didn’t have a sales manager. There was just little me and a, and a laptop. So I just tried to find ways of giving myself a bigger digital footprint by listing on different sites, trip advisor and things like that.

Now we’re talking 2000. 2009 I think it was. So there wasn’t Instagram or anything like that around Facebook just about, um, you know, so it wasn’t like it was now. There wasn’t the digital presence, but I’ve learned all the way through that when, uh, Instagram has come along and then you learn Instagram and you learn Facebook.

So I was learning all those tactics. And then, Ultimately, it was SEO that really got me interested in the digital marketing. And I felt I could have the best impact on my business on the middle of the business account. So I felt that by saving money on the commission and driving more direct bookings, we could protect the, protect the income we did have by saving the middle of the profit and loss account, which would convert to the bottom line, which would make the bank happier.

Yeah. So that’s really what I, I focused on. Um, an SEO enabled me to do that. That was the tool I used as, as a a business manager to enable me to drive direct bookings.

Gil: How did you come to the discovery that SEO was that unlock? Or did you try a whole bunch of things out before really deciding that SEO was going to be that big unlock for you?

Craig: Yeah. I tried other things first did, did lots of, um, Facebook pages. You know, I had a, I was running competitions on Facebook before even businesses had a Facebook page. So I was crying, trying to always be a bit creative and be ahead of the curve with that sort of thing. Um, the, the, the SEO side, I think I worked at a couple of really nice hotels that had their own websites and I found it fascinating how you could change the content on a website and then go and type in your search and your website would appear and that I used to get really excited by that like oh well if we change this can we get on page one and if we change this can we get higher on page one and I just kept Guessing and testing, guessing and testing to improve it.

Gil: Wow. So how did you, I guess I’d maybe like dial back a little bit. Um, When you got into this, you were, you try to pull a bunch of things out before landing on, on SEO there. Do you think that those same learnings, those same tests would apply today? Do you feel that SEO would make such a dramatic lift in your online presence as it did back in 2009?

Or are some of those obsolete now that there’s more options out there?

Craig: Really good question. It used to be a lot easier. Uh, and we call it black hat and white hat SEO. So black hat SEO is, um, shady tactics, which used to be normal tactics, like keyword stuffing. And now we have white hat SEO, which you should practice good tactics and, um, things that Google want you to do to ensure that your website ranks.

Um, yes, it’s a lot harder. Uh, Um, it’s just changing all the time, you know, it’s just a case of keeping up with it. Yes, it is. It’s harder because the, the OTAs really control the front page of Google. So you’ve got 10 places on page one and Airbnb, Booking. com, Verbo, TripAdvisor, that’s page one, occupied. So to do even really well, you’re at the top of page two.

However, in my teaching I try to teach people to, let’s use an American term, the riches are in the niches. Sorry about my no American accent there. If we focus on the our niches, we can go ahead of the OTAs on Google. So the OTAs are focused on broad search terms, accommodation, hotel, bed and breakfast. But if we talk about our niche terms, for example, pet friendly, hot tub, self catering apartment, that sort of thing.

These are called long tail keywords. But more specific search, then we can outrank Google. So I try to teach to put three things together. Your, your location, specific location, not, not county level, you know, specific town together with your accommodation type, whether that be apartment, contractor stay, uh, romantic villa, whatever your type of accommodation is, along with perhaps who you’re targeting or the reason they’re staying.

Romantic, uh, hiking break,

Gil: Silence.

Craig: coming. Yeah, so put those three things together and you’ve got a long tail keyword that you can easily rank ahead of the OTAs on. Um, and then you’re also putting yourself in front of your target audience. Whereas if you’re just on booking. com, you’re going to get anybody.

Anybody will book and of course, anybody will still book. But the fact is you’re matching the search criteria to the searcher’s intention. That’s their intention to look for your thing and you appear.

Gil: got it. Got it.

Craig: Yeah.

Gil: Okay, Let’s step back just a moment there. I think there’s a lot of folks that hear the word SEO, and we don’t actually talk about what the actual acronym stands for behind the scenes. And I think, many folks may not even know what the acronym stands for. Do you mind kind of giving us a one on one course on what actually is

Craig: Okay. So SEO stands for search engine optimization, which in itself is a bit confusing because what does that mean? It just means appearing or optimizing your website so it appears higher on Google. I like to call SEO serving excellent opportunities. Uh, that’s because we’re in the service industry.

We’re in hospitality. Uh, we, we want to give excellent service and we want to give opportunities for our customers to find us. So I call SEO serving excellent opportunities. Uh, but that’s just my, my way of teaching it.

Gil: So when you’re teaching SEO for someone that’s not familiar with it, I always think of it as like matching what people are searching for against what you’re actually providing there. Um, that, that, that’s kind of how I, I think about it. Um, but help us break down, what are the different parts of SEO that someone should be familiar with?

Um, there’s obviously like, you know, Give an example. There’s like the technical side of SEO, which is like page loads and all that stuff. And then there’s also then the content driving of SEO. Uh, how do you, how would you break it down?

Craig: uh, yeah, exactly that. So there’s on page SEO. That’s the content on your website. So that could be two different sections. Your, your main web pages, home, about us, contact, that sort of thing. And then your blog pages. So you can, you can write blogs about things to do in the area. So you become an authority and an expert. the area in which you are operating, particularly around if you’re trying to attract a certain audience. So say you’re trying to attract people that are fishing locally, for example, then you want to talk about the places to go fishing in your area. So you’re an authority on that subject. Um, so that’s on page SEO.

Um, you’ve got off page SEO, which is Other resources or other websites linking to your website. And that could be your Google business profile, your TripAdvisor listing, your, uh, directory listings like Apple maps, Yelp, Yelp, one nine two. com, all those sort of business directories or other local businesses that might recommend you say the local restaurant might recommend you as the place to stay when they’re When they’re dining with you with them, um, so that they’re called backlinks So you might recommend local restaurants on your website and they can recommend local places to stay on their website.

So that’s off page SEO. Uh, and then we’ve got technical SEO, which you just described. And that’s really ensuring that your mobile speed is good and it, it appears and displays well on a mobile. Because most people design a website on a desktop, but your desktop is where the website is built. But then it has to be then almost built again for the mobile.

And I have access to dozens and dozens of, uh, Google Search Console and Google Analytics. And I can say probably 80 percent of users for hospitality are on mobile. So it has to be built that it works and that the buttons are not too close together and that the, it’s not, the text is not overlapping the images and all those little things prevent the customer from booking.

Um, there’s another one I’ll add on top of that, which is called CRO. What’s it called? I say it, I say it all the time. Um, conversion rate optimization.

Gil: Okay.

Craig: So we’re looking to get the customer from the homepage to credit card out booking page as quickly as possible. And it has to be easy to do that. Um, the homepage is the top of your sales funnel.

The checkout page is the bottom of the sales funnel. Ideally, we need to get them from top to bottom very quickly. Through good conversion rate optimization, and that could be removing those friction points as we go through, as the customer goes through their booking journey. What question might they bring up at this point?

So in the middle of the sales funnel, they start thinking, Oh, can I take my dog? Or do they have a cot? Um, is the parking? But we need to answer those questions. at the right point in the sales journey so that it creates a domino effect. They believe this is definitely the right place for me because you provide the facilities and the services that I need.

Gil: Yeah,

Craig: helps convert the booking.

Gil: on CROs, specifically conversion rate optimization, is that something that is really more for what, when you’re building out your website to make sure that it’s optimized to convert, obviously. See that, that, that, that is true. But also is that also monitored by Google to figure out whether or not when they’re serving us particular webpage, that it performed well and should rank higher thus,

Craig: I don’t think Google would know if your website converted well. I think certainly if you’re running Google ads, it would. Um, but it’s very true that if people take, More time on your site and take more action on your website. For example, they call you or click the email or fill out a contact form or download a brochure.

Uh, or completing, you know, complete something on your website. The more action they take. their signals to Google that this is the right website for the customer. So they, they made a search, they arrived on my website and they took action. So therefore they will reward you for that.

Gil: Got it. Yeah, that was giving my follow up question. Like, how does, how does Google know? So like, if you’re thinking about Google’s doing a matchmake between the search queries, what people are putting in the search box and your website, how does Google know that they made a good match there? It sounds like dwell time.

Craig: time. That’s it. That’s the other one. Yeah. How long someone is spending on your site. Yeah,

Gil: Yeah. So Google takes it as if they’re serving you someone. That has the intent of going to your web page. If they’re spending more time on that page. then that was a valuable serve to that end user. And if someone was being traced back to your website or sent to your website and they bounce within the first X seconds, that means that Google did a bad serve and then will therefore, uh, not punish, but they’ll, they’ll try to make sure that they’re not matching those types of queries back to that user.

Craig: exactly. Exactly. And the thing is there are good, you use the words bounce. So that’s when someone goes on your website and leaves very quickly, but there are good bounces because people can land on your website and all they want to do is call. Uh, they call you within five seconds and click X and they’re gone and that’s fine.

They’ve made a call. Um, Google doesn’t necessarily know that unless they’re on their phone and they’re, they’re clicking on their phone. So. Yeah, it’s not an exact science.

Gil: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So just to kind of summarize what we just talked about there, there’s, I think we broke down like three different parts of SEO. There’s on page SEO, which I think of it as the content that you’re providing to the user and what you can optimize within the content to there’s off page SEO, which is what I think of as, as like giving your website legitimacy, um, making it so that, um, Google knows that this is an established business.

People are referring back to it. People are sending them links to it. It has profiles. It has, it’s on directories. It’s a legitimate business. And then the third is really around how the site performs itself. Does it have good site hierarchy? Is all the headers tagged h1 through h2 and so on? Is it mobile optimized?

Like you mentioned, do we have overlapping tags or are the, all the, what we call like, the, the, the, the tap, the tap locations. Are they too close together? The buttons too close to the texts that are the links. Um, those are like the performance, uh, technical SEO. Would you would you agree with that? Or is there something that I might be missing?

Craig: think you pretty much covered it. Google does look a little bit at, um, like social following and social signals as well. So social media does play a bit of a part in it. And certainly that, for example, if you created a blog on your website, shared it on social media. It can drive traffic to your website Um and other people can share it.

So I think social media can play a part Um, and I think google is looking more at it

Gil: Yeah, and that’s what I think kind of falls into that second bucket of off page SEO, the legitimacy side, where it’s not necessarily another site linking to you, it’s actually your own content linking between different sources. Um, so it’s actually a pretty decent way to drive. Yeah.

Craig: exactly. You’re trying to create as big a digital footprint as you can for your business.

Gil: Yeah. So I guess like if someone’s approaching SEO for the first time, we talked a little bit about how to figure out what the key words are, what the different parts of SEO, what’s, what’s those foundational pieces that people should think about? What’s the big buckets of SEO that people should really break down and understand and chip at like moment by moment, because it’s, it’s a lot to chew and it’s a lot to

Craig: It is a lot to chew, it is a lot to chew. I think initially, just don’t even start on your website. Start in an Excel sheet or something and right at the top have a different tab for a different column for the different pages of your website. And under each page, try to create a three to five word phrase that that page is about.

And it should be different for each page. And think about, like I said a minute ago, your home page is broader. Your broad sales funnel, the middle of your website, like your accommodation pages is the middle of the sales funnel. Um, and the checkout pages at the bottom of the sales funnel. So think of a three to five word phrase that represents that page.

That’s different on every page. that you could create content around, um, and try to get that page rank for. And if that’s all you do, you’re better than probably 90 percent of the other people that are not doing any SEO at all. Uh, at least you’ve done the content that Google will understand what your page is around.

Uh, let, let me give an example to, to explain why we need to expand the content is because people will create. a page and I see this quite a lot and it will say, for example, apartment. Here’s, here’s a good one in the accommodation sector. They’re talking about their apartment, but they’re not being very specific that it’s for a vacation rental apartment or holiday if you’re in the UK.

Um, now if someone’s looking for an apartment, are they looking to buy an apartment or rent an apartment to live in? Or were they looking to stay in an apartment? whilst they’re working in the area, or for a vacation. So we need to be really specific about the type of apartment. And then Google will understand to match that with the search, the search intent of the, uh, of the browser.

Yeah, so contractor accommodation in the town, for example. Um, by expanding the content on each page, Google will really understand what you’re, what you’re talking about.

Gil: Got it. So even before you do like traditional like keyword research where you’re actually using outside tools, you’re asking listeners here really to evaluate each different page. Who do you want to attract to those pages? What would they be looking for? What’s the criteria? What could they be searching for on to even get to your page in the first place?

Think about that more broadly and try to create content above for that specifically. And that will actually generate significant gains already in SEO without having to use fancy tools.

Craig: Exactly. And you said that you were getting a little bit techy earlier ’cause you said, uh, H one and H two. Well that’s just, um, H one is your heading one. The most important. Heading one per page. Heading two is a, a second most, like a, a paragraph title heading three might be a sub heading. Um, and that’s how you can structure your page with the keywords and the, and the headings in there.

Gil: Yeah. Would you say that that when you evaluate, I mean, maybe actually like That actually leads me to a good question is like, what are, when you’re onboarding some of your clients, what are some of the common mistakes that you find that people make as they’re building out their pages that you look for almost immediately?

Like what’s that checklist that you have on there? Uh

Craig: the one I just used. Being not specific enough with what they’re offering and just saying house or apartment or home It’s not specific enough What’s the other thing they do that just thin content like a hundred words on a page? It’s not telling anybody anything That’s Really, Google wants at least 200 words per page.

And if you’re writing a blog, 2000 words, it needs to be really robust. You know, lots and lots of content. Um, what else do I look for? Um, just something a little bit interesting, a bit that speaks to their target audience. Everyone’s heard it. If you speak to everybody, you’re speaking to nobody. We need to be a little bit specific about who we’re targeting and try to make it resonate with them.

It has to feel like they’ve landed on the right website. Almost like this person was talking to me. They know I’m bringing my dogs. They know I’ve got a car. They know cot. Things like that.

Gil: That’s interesting because we talk about this a lot with some of the guests I have on the show that’s It’s actually more on the copywriting and on the branding side where, when you’re creating content and this is actually one of the things that we talk about in our, our eBooks. Like if anyone is ever curious, like if you go on and craft your stays at co there’s a, there’s a guide there.

And the first part of building out your dry booking engine is really understanding who your ideal guest avatar is, what they’re looking for and starting to really be very clear about the type of content that someone wants to look at. And it sounds like. That’s not just beneficial to help convert users that are on your web page, but it sounds like it’s also beneficial for Google to know that these are people that we should be sending your direction.

Craig: Yes, I think so. I think so. Uh, yeah, it’s just about being specific, isn’t it? You know, if you, if you’ll say, if you type into Google accommodation in New York. You’re going to get so many different results and actually the browser won’t type that because they know it’s not going to bring them anything specific they’re going to search by an area of the city and The type of accommodation they want whether it be a hotel a bed and breakfast an air B& B You know a campsite not to be camping in New York, but you know, you get my point

Gil: Yeah.

Craig: There’ll be being more specific in their search.

So we have to be more specific with our content.

Gil: Do you find that nowadays people are being a bit more specific in their searches to find out what they need?

Craig: I think so, because there are so many results that come up. I think often people type something into Google and then it doesn’t really bring up the results thereafter. So they’ll rephrase it and add a couple of words to it, be a bit more specific.

Gil: yeah, I wonder if, and I bet probably Google does do this where they’re probably evaluating, um, other searches that you’ve done. They know a lot more about what you need and what you like. You might not put family accommodations in there, but they know that you’re, you’ve probably done similar searches in the past.

And when they’re serving you results, they may actually take that into consideration.

Craig: Yes, that’s true. That’s true. And they would also take, take into consideration your location. Um, So when you type in, for example, restaurant near me, it’s only If I type it from where I am in Oxfordshire, it’s going to show me Oxfordshire restaurants, not near where you are in the US. It stands to reason.

And that’s why we have location services. Or if, for example, I’ve been looking up flights to Barcelona, it might probably start showing me hotels in Barcelona as well, won’t it?

Gil: Yeah, I think that that’s actually a very, very powerful one that we overlook quite often. At least folks that are not in this and in SEO and in optimizing their pages. Um, that location is probably one of the most critical parts of making sure that you’re sure that your page actually ranks because you’re absolutely right.

If you look in. Restaurants, like best places to eat. Anyone that puts that into a Google search is going to get a very different result than the person that, that they may, that that’s in their network. Unless they’re like in the same vicinity there, it’s very, very different. Like the other day where, or Jessica, I get ready for the holidays and it looked like pumpkin patches.

And I just put a really broad search on like, Best pumpkin patches for kids. And Google knew that I’m in the Bay Area in California. And these are the ones that rank really high. These are the ones that I would actually like want to, to research against. And they’re serving me those. They’re not serving me.

Ones that are further away, even

Craig: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. It’s important. And I’ve seen these things where, um, I’m sure you’ve seen the, the things on social media where a restaurant is called, the actual restaurant name is Restaurant Near Me. Have you seen that? And they’re trying to beat the algorithm because it doesn’t work. It’s not, in any way, even if, A restaurant in California came up for a search for me in Oxford, UK for a restaurant near me.

I’m not going to visit. It’s a complete waste of time, even showing on my search results.

Gil: yeah,

Craig: It’s a waste of energy. So

Gil: is,

Craig: gain the system like that.

Gil: is that one of those things where you, you mentioned this, what was it? Black cat and white hat.

Craig: Black hats. Yeah,

Gil: Yeah. Is that the black cat scenario there?

Craig: Yes, exactly. Yeah, exactly. It’s just trying to beat the system and it’s just, it’s pointless really, isn’t it? Just do it properly.

Gil: Yeah. I hear that SEO is like one of those things that is inherently organic. It’s going to take time to build. And when you’re approaching SEO, you really want to think about What’s the long term play there? It’s not something like ads where you put a few dollars in there and you can drive a whole bunch of traffic in there.

What you’re trying to do is to create authenticity. You’re trying to let Google know and any of the other search engines know that this is the type of website you are and kind of build a network around that. It’s not like you start to invest into it and you’ll see this inflection point. It’s one of the things that builds over time as Google sends more traffic to you as you create more content in there that you start to build this credibility where you’ll start to win in search over time.

Craig: Hopefully, yes. And the analogy I use to represent that is that if you want some apples now, you just go to the supermarket, go and buy your apples. But if you want apples regularly, plant an apple tree, and next year you’ll have your own apples and your own supply of apples. Well, that’s SEO. It’s not going to give you apples this year.

You’ve got to wait a couple of years for them. Um, an SEO doesn’t take two years, but it takes time. Uh, maybe three months to start seeing, seeing results.

Gil: Is that fast?

Craig: It can be. It can be. Yeah. I mean, you can, you can publish a web page and have it ranked very, very quickly, like two weeks. It could, it could be ranked top, but on a niche term. Yeah. It’s much more difficult when there’s more competitors.

Gil: Yeah, I found, I maybe just stumbled upon this, but a lot of folks. don’t actually register their website on google search console as an example and that’s like one of the the big misses if you’re trying to do any if you’re trying to drive any traffic from the search engines would you agree

Craig: Exactly. Um, I had a web developer come to me once and said, I’ve done this website for this client. It’s been live for six months. He is getting no traffic. It’s not even visible. I did a quick search. I said, you haven’t done a, you haven’t submitted a sitemap to Google search console and he’s a web developer and he didn’t know that because he builds websites, but it’s, it’s a two, it’s a different skillset.

So he wasn’t even aware that it was a thing. Um, so sure enough, submitted his sitemap to Google within a few weeks, he starts appearing

Gil: yeah so for listeners here um google doesn’t know every single website out there. Um, it doesn’t just blindly crawl every single permutation of a URL. What it does is you have to tell it that I have this website. I’m the owner of it. This is the site map of the website. Um, and the site map will tell the user or tell Google, this is how my pages are structured.

This is how they’re linked together. This is the content behind them all. And then Google will take that map, that site map, And then Olsen crawls, basically bots that simulate a person or a browser and it’ll go through every single page on that site map, link them together, create some type of internal map themselves.

And then it tries to then store this on their side, basically indexing it so that the next time they’re serving searches, they can use this data to make sure that it serves incorrectly. And if you don’t tell Google that this is a website and this is a site map, it’s not going to know to crawl.

Craig: exactly. Yeah. You explained that better than I could. Um, similarly, if you. make a new page or a new blog, you can submit to the new page. Now, if it’s a new page, Google will eventually come back and crawl your website and find it, but it might not come back and crawl for 12 weeks, six months. You can submit it and it, you’re getting it up the queue a little bit faster if you submit the new page.

So, and Google Search Console also tells you Whether a page is loading too slowly, whether there’s errors, broken links, uh, that, that sort of thing. So it’s a very helpful tool to find, um, find issues with your site.

Gil: Yeah. On our platform, whenever, so we, we issue subdomains to, to folks, we basically issue them a temporary domain that they can use. It could be like X, Y, Z dot craft to stay as a co and they can use that to build out their website. Okay. And then we allow folks to bring in their own custom, custom domains there.

And the first thing we do when we initiate the custom domain registration is that we actually registered that domain onto our, onto our platform. We’ll give Google the sitemap on there so that anytimes anyone registered and they don’t have to think about this because a lot of folks don’t know that they have to register domain, the register domain, provide the sitemap and so on.

So we take care of all that kind of behind the scenes. We actually don’t even, we actually don’t even like. Need the user to take necessary action on those things, because again, this is not something that common folks really think about outside of the world of SEO to do some of these things it’s, and we just try to make it a lot easier.

Craig: Yeah, I, I find a lot of the time I, I get clients who come to me and they say, my website’s not working and they don’t know how to log into it. And their domain is expired and they don’t even know where the domain is hosted. And they’ve lost all access to their domain, to their website and they want it back.

Um, oh, I’ve done it, but it’s really good to perhaps have someone look after it for you. Cause it’s just one of those things you can just forget so easily.

Gil: Yeah, you should definitely have auto renew on your domains at the very least.

Craig: a hundred percent, get your credit card in there and have it set up to auto renew.

Gil: And it’s not that expensive. Like in the U. S. it’s like 12 for Google or Google, like, um, go daddy to, register your domain on an annual basis. It’s not very much at all.

Craig: exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It’s really, it’s really worth doing. You have to do that.

Gil: Yeah. Yeah. Do you think that anyone or everyone has the skills to invest into SEO or do they need to hire someone to do it?

Craig: Um, I think there is this conception that SEO is hard and scary and complex, but a lot of it is not, it is really quite simple. And we’re, we’re literally talking about making up or creating a three to five word phrase for each page and adding those five words in the content. That’s really as basic as it starts and anyone can do that.

So yes, it can get more technical and I struggle sometimes, but you’re learning all the time and you, you stretch yourself and get outside your comfort zone, but. Anybody can start with SEO.

Gil: Yeah.

Craig: Don’t need any skills at all. If you can turn a computer on and log into your website, you can start SEO.

Gil: That’s really good to know. I think that’s very comforting for a lot of folks too, because it is this daunting thing. And like, again, kind of going back to it, like a lot of folks may not even know what the acronym even stands for. And it’s always this like big ominous term, like it’s thrown around, like if you look, follow any of the Facebook groups, you’ll talk, the people will talk about SEO, but a lot of folks are scary to even approach it themselves.

They always feel like they have to hire an agency to do it. And like agencies do a good work. Um, but what you’re telling us is like. There’s actually a lot of leverage that you can do very early on, even before you decide to hire an agency. There’s a lot of stuff you can do to move the needle even by yourself.

Craig: Absolutely. Yeah. Just, just get started. Um, you know, there’s plenty you can do yourself. I always also say, yes, there are agencies, but like with anyone that there are unscrupulous agencies that charge an absolute fortune for doing very, very little, um, you know, and really will take. hundreds of dollars a month for doing little to no work.

Um, so yeah, just, just be careful.

Gil: Yeah. How would you advise someone to, if they’re looking to, they’ve done that first step there, they have their Excel sheet, they’re mapping out each one of their pages and, um, they’re describing what that page is about. Um, and they’re doing all that kind of first pass stuff. Yeah. And they’re now looking to improve their SEOs even more.

They’re investing into it more. What do you, what do you advise folks as they’re looking at agencies what to look for?

Craig: If they’re looking for an agency, was the question. Yeah. Okay. Um, someone that is recommended to you, I wouldn’t just get anyone off the internet because there are lots of companies and really you don’t know what they’re doing. Um, you’re looking for some transparency. I get clients that ask me, do I get a report every month?

And I say, no, I do one better because I can make your report, which can say anything and have some pretty figures and graphs on there that can hide the truth. Why don’t we jump on a zoom call and we’ll go through your Google analytics data and we can digress it together and, um, and dissect it and see where, where we can make improvements.

So I think an agency really has to show honesty and transparency of what they’ve done. We track all of our work in a spreadsheet. So if a client says at any time, well, what have you done for your money this month? We can show them this is what we’ve done. But we always recommend to get on a call at least every couple of months with an agency to see how they’ve been progressing and what they’ve been working on.

And for you to tell them what’s new in your business, what new. You know, what challenges you’re facing. Do you have some quiet periods coming up? Do you have a new target audience? Um, yeah, so open communication, open dialogue, but going back to doing your own SEO, if there’s, if there’s one thing you can do yourself, and that’s create blogs.

Gil: Um,

Craig: nothing else, just keep creating blogs. And that will be the one thing that can drive the needle forward, move the needle forward.

Gil: Yeah, I’ve seen a lot of folks that drive a lot of traffic through just organic content that they that they produce on their own blog. We’re actually looking to implement a blog on our platform in the next few months, and that’s one of the things that I think will really move the needle in terms of organic traffic back to these pages.

Craig: it can. And it’s also, there’s an algorithm from Google called EAT, E E A T, which is experience, expertise, authority, and trust. So everything you do in your content has to be built around those four pillars. You’re showing your experience, expertise, authority, and trust in that subject. So for you talking about websites and channel managers and your experience in the industry and hospitality and short term rentals, the more content you can create around that, the more trust and authority you’re building.

Gil: That’s interesting. Um, maybe one of the last questions specifically on on the topic. Um, do you believe that all folks should be investing into SEO? Is it a necessity?

Craig: It’s one tool in your marketing armory. So, If it really isn’t for you, don’t do it. But if social media is exciting and you like social media, do that, you know, post regularly, post into Facebook groups, hang out where, where your ideal client avatar is hanging out. Um, if you want to attract cyclists, hang out in cycling Facebook groups, right?

So no, you don’t have to do SEO. You, I think you need to be doing. something to drive traffic to your website, whether it’s SEO, social media, email marketing, and maybe Google ads. Um, you, you have to be doing something. You can’t just build a website and leave it. Uh, you’ve got to do the marketing. The SEO is just one of those options that’s available to you.

Gil: Yeah, content marketing SEO is kind of like going back to your origin story. It’s one of those things that you nurture over time. Um, and kind of back to your, your seed analogy there, you invest time in now, it’ll pay dividends down the road and it doesn’t cost you anything more than your time. Um, you’re not going to have to spend perpetual ad dollars to drive traffic into it.

And there’s definitely, there’s lots of. reasons why you want to run ads. Uh, I definitely recommend folks to run retargeting ads because once you drive someone to your website, they may not actually convert the first time over. So like running retargeting ads is important, but SEO, um, and really at least during that first pass is very important, um, to create a long term sustainable like flow of traffic.

Craig: Precisely. Well, like when you say about ads, you know, you put 10 on ads and once it’s gone, it’s gone, but with SEO, you do the work. And it’s there repeating every time someone comes to the website, every time someone is making that search, it’s working for you.

Gil: Yeah. Awesome. Craig, was there anything else that we didn’t get a chance to cover today that you wanted to share with folks?

Craig: Uh, not really. I guess if people want to learn more, um, have a look at my website. I’ve got a link to a free mini SEO course. It tells you a bit of detail about how, how to get started in SEO, what it is. And then there’s three sort of 15 minute lessons, bike sized lessons on how to do a bit of keyword research, how to connect your Google Analytics, Google Search Console accounts, how to do some off page SEO, just to give you wet your appetite and learn it a little bit more.

Uh, and then I’ve also got a free course as well about how to maintain your website, particularly WordPress. It can be quite difficult to work, to maintain and, and, uh, look after your WordPress website. So I’ve got a bit of a free training going on about, uh, how to add a button, how to change a picture, how to add a link, that, that sort of thing.

So, uh, you’ll find all that stuff on my website. Uh, webmarketing. info. Two B’s in web. I like my name.

Gil: Yeah, I’ll be sure to attach that into our, our show notes as well too. Um, and alongside that, you also have a services arm of, of your business as well, too, right?

Craig: Yeah. So primarily we’re an SEO agency. Uh, and then we, we teach SEO and there’s a course as well, if you want to do the paid course, which is like 20 a month or something. And I try to keep things as cheap as I possibly can to help as many people as I can to at least take some action. Um, you know, even if you did the course for a couple of months and it saved you one booking commission, that would be great.

I’d be really happy. Um, you know, if you, if you take in a, a five night booking, a couple of hundred dollars a night, it’s a thousand dollars, a 15 percent commission, that’s 150 for one booking. Um, the, the, we’re spending, I don’t know, as businesses, we seem so happy to be repeatedly spending this commission money when by investing the time and energy once we can save that.

over and over and over.

Gil: Yeah, I think I was looking at my portfolio last year in 2023. I think I paid Airbnb close to 10, I think it was like 15 to 20 grand in commissions.

Craig: Well, as a hotel, we were paying about 6, 000 a month.

Gil: it, it really adds up, adds up.

Craig: So, yeah. And what can you do with that? You put that money, reinvest it in your property. So what can you, as a, as a property person, you can pay off your loans quicker. You can increase your loan to value ratio and get a better interest rate on your loans. You can invest in your products and have better beds, better facilities, which can increase your average room rate or average nightly rate.

Um, everything works in favor of your business. If you can do something else with the commission money,

Gil: Yeah. I mean, you can redeploy that to, to your own marketing campaigns and your own, your own, your own like longterm tactics as well, too, rather than buying the next booking.

Craig: And I’m all for OTAs. The first time a customer comes, That’s the cost of acquisition. You’re buying that customer. That first time is your responsibility then to get their contact details at some point pre during stay, and then you can remarket to them, get them on your database, get them on your email address, uh, get them on your social media.

Then you can retarget to them. Please only pay for them to come once, um, through the OTAs. After that, you remarket themselves.

Gil: Yeah, hopefully the lifetime value is not just that one booking, but it’s repeat bookings time and time again. Awesome. Uh, Craig, I usually end with two questions. One’s a mindset question and one’s a big takeaway question on the mindset question first, uh, What’s that one piece of mindset advice that you would give to someone?

That’s starting something completely new. Silence.

Craig: And I was always focused on the negative or the problem and the problems I was living in running.

In fact, I was running two hotels with 60 staff. So there were a lot of problems. Um, and I lived by the mantra that you are where your attention is. And my attention was always on the problems. And I just moved my attention to where I wanted to be. And I wanted to be a business owner running a digital marketing agency.

So that’s where I kept my attention. And I didn’t, I didn’t say, Oh, when I leave my job or when I do this, I can be that I have to be it. Now, you can’t say, I will, I’ll do that when you have to live and be the person you want to be for it to happen and live within that mindset, within that framework, um, rather than it being a, a one, two, three process that you follow.

You’ve actually got to. start becoming that person and live in that space to be able to achieve it. Because otherwise it won’t come. It won’t ever arrive. It will always be in the distance.

Gil: Yeah.

Craig: You are where your attention is, is how I can succinctly explain that.

Gil: Yeah.

Craig: But I could do a whole nother podcast and that would take up another two hours.

Gil: I love that topic. We talked about this on, on this show. Um, there’s the book like psycho cybernetics is that talks a bit about the mindset and really projecting yourself forward to be that person that you want to be. Um, and I think what the, kind of the reframing that you’re doing is not to think about.

Your wife and where you want to go as a progression, where you need to meet certain milestones to be that person you’re what you’re saying is. Where that hat be that person you want to be and that over time you’ll identify with

Craig: Exactly.

Gil: behavior and it starts to change you. It’s like James Clear’s Atomic Habits where like our habits are based on our identity and the better that you can establish that identity to who you want to be, the more that you start to behave like that and you start to perform consistently like that.

Craig: Quiet, quiet. And just stepping outside your comfort zone. Every time. That’s been the biggest thing for me. Just doing what I’m afraid of.

Gil: Yeah. How’s that ride been for you?

Craig: Perfect.

Gil: Yeah. Yeah. A lot of folks that go into entrepreneurship, but that first very beginning is a very frightening part because you’re giving away a lot of stability. You’re giving away all the things that you’ve worked for for so long, your career for however many years you’ve built upon that. And you’re now saying, I’m putting all that aside.

I’m taking a huge leap on myself. And those first, it could be years. It takes a long time.

Craig: I, I worked for the same company for 17 years and I, I’d say I, my identity was the company as well. And it took me a long time to try to change that identity. And I put a lot of value on my length of service with the company and that sort of thing. And actually within a week of me leaving the company, I realized that I didn’t matter to them. Um, so I was putting value on something that was of no value. Okay.

Gil: That’s a good point. That’s a good point. Um, switching over to the last question I have for you. What’s the, this might be a very easy one. If you’re going to answer, what’s the one big tactical takeaway that you want our listeners to know? To stop this recording or stop this show and start to put into practice today.

Craig: do you mean in SEO?

Gil: Yeah. Yeah.

Craig: yeah. Okay. Um, I think just, just start because the sooner you start, the sooner it will start bearing fruit. Um, I can’t really say any more than that. Just, just get on with it and stop procrastinating.

Gil: Yeah. Stop being scared of it.

Craig: Yeah,

Gil: Awesome. Well, Craig, I will make sure to leave our listeners with some of the resources that you provided today. I thank you for just sharing your wealth of knowledge and just all the things that you have learned throughout the years and being an expert in SEO. Um, I really appreciate it.

Craig: no problem. Thank you ever so much. Really enjoyed it.

Gil: Awesome. Thanks. Bye Craig.

Craig: Take care.

Yeah.