You're listening to Get Fully Booked with Sarah Orchard.

Are you ready to master your marketing so you can ditch your reliance on the online agents and grow your direct bookings?

I'll be sharing with you exactly what it takes to grow your direct bookings and the simple marketing steps to get more profit in your pocket.

Hello.

Hello, and welcome back to the Get Fully Booked podcast.

I'm your host, Sarah Orchard.

Now, if you spent any time online recently, which, which I'm sure you have, you've probably heard people saying things like, SEO is dead, Google is finished, AI is taking over search.

We hear it all the time.

And honestly, depending on who you listen to, it can all sound a bit dramatic.

And you probably feel like you've been doing everything wrong so far in terms of your search engine optimization on your website.

But there is some truth buried beneath all of the chatter online.

And the way people search for information is certainly changing.

More people are asking questions in ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, all of those lovely AI tools which we've all started using.

More people are doing that instead of just typing keywords into Google.

And Google itself is increasingly using AI generated answers at the top of the search results.

You've probably seen that yourself when you've been searching.

So what does that mean for your holiday cottage glamping site, Airbnb, or boutique accommodation business?

Do you need to throw your SEO strategy in the bin and start from scratch?

Well, I personally think absolutely not.

But there are some important changes that you do need to understand.

So today I'm going to cover why SEO and GEO aren't actually two completely separate things.

They're sort of like cousins, really, why FAQs are becoming one of the most powerful pages on your website, and how to increase your chances of being cited by the AI tools.

Are you ready to learn some more?

Let's dive in.

This is going to be a juicy episode.

So you've probably heard this new acronym that's being used, geo.

I'm wondering what the hell it is.

It's Generative Engine Optimization.

So basically, that just means making sure that AI tools can find your website and understand what you do and recommend your business.

Now, some marketers out there are treating GEO as if it's an entirely new discipline.

And I personally think that maybe some people are jumping on the bandwagon to try and get money out of people because they feel like they're going to tell you that you need to do all this new stuff.

Um, but personally, I think it is a little bit misleading because if You've actually been doing good on site SEO on your website.

You're actually much further ahead than you probably realize.

Think about what search engines and AI tools both want.

They want helpful information.

They want it to be accurate.

You know, they want to trust it.

They want it to be well structured so that they can easily extract that information and share it when people are searching.

So does that sound familiar?

Well, that's exactly what good SEO has always been about.

And the difference is that traditional SEO often focus just on ranking your web pages for specific keywords, whereas GEO focuses much more on becoming a trusted source of information that AI can confidently reference or cite in its results to people that are searching.

So in other words, SEO asks like, how do I get my website found?

Whereas Geo asks, how do I become the answer to the question questions that my ideal guests are asking?

And that is quite a subtle difference, but it is an important shift.

So, for accommodation businesses, this means creating content that answers real guest questions, rather than simply stuffing location keywords into a page.

So instead of writing luxury glamping Somerset, you know, 20 times on a webpage and trying to, like, stuff it in as much as possible, you need content that answers questions like, what's the best area of Somerset for a romantic glamping getaway?

Are there glamping sites near Cheddar Gorge in Somerset?

What can couples do near Wells for a weekend getaway?

The business that answers these questions best are likely to become the businesses that AI recommends.

I've got an interesting fact for you before we move on.

Research has suggested that roughly 15% of Google searches every day have never been searched for before.

Yes, I did say that.

Think about that for a second.

Every single day, people are asking brand new questions.

And AI, I think, is accelerating that trend because instead of typing short keywords, maybe four or five words, people are asking full conversational style questions.

They're treating search engines more like a human expert.

In fact, for many of us, it's our new advice bestie.

I use it every day, which means your content needs to sound more like a helpful host and less like a keyword checklist.

And let's be honest, hospitality businesses should be brilliant at that, because helping guests is literally what we all do every day.

The second point I wanted to share with you today was about FAQs.

And if there's one thing I'd encourage every accommodation business owner listening today to do after this episode is go and create a really good FAQ section on your website.

Not a tiny page with five sort of very basic questions.

A genuinely useful resource.

And why?

Because AI loves questions and answers.

That's, you know, that's his lifeblood, isn't it?

It's like people ask it questions and it provides answers.

The more that people interrogate it, the more answers it comes up with.

So think about how people use ChatGPT.

You know they do, they ask questions all the time.

Think about how people are using Google now.

Increasingly they're asking questions.

Think about what your guests are doing before they book.

They're asking questions.

See the common theme.

So your website should be answering them.

Start collecting the questions that you get all the time in guest emails, in phone inquiries, on your Facebook and Instagram messages, maybe through some of your online booking agent platforms, things that are commented on in reviews.

Every question you repeatedly answer should potentially become great and powerful geo website content.

So, for example, people might ask things like, is the hot tub private?

Can we bring a dog?

Where is the nearest place to walk the dog in the morning when it needs to go for its morning walk?

How far is the nearest pub?

Is there a mobile signal?

What's the difference between your accommodation options?

Is your site suitable for children?

These questions don't just help our potential guests, they also help Google and AI systems understand your business.

And one of the biggest mistakes I see is accommodation owners hiding useful information because they think it's too obvious or not putting it there at all because they don't think, you know, that anyone would need the answers to those questions.

Trust me, if guests ask the question, put it on your website.

And my third point is around how do you actually get sighted on AI?

Because I get asked this all the time.

It's like, what do I need to do to be the business that AI, you know, like ChatGPT comes up with in a, in a, you know, when someone goes on and has a chat with it?

Now, the reality is there is no magic formula, but there are some clear patterns emerging that I think you need to be aware of.

So AI tools tend to favor businesses that demonstrate authority and consistency across the web.

So I've got a few points here that will help you.

So this means making sure that your business information is consistent.

So your website, your Google business profile, your social media, your directory listings should all match.

Use the same name, try and be really consistent.

Always give the same location and the same contact details.

This just helps like Google and AI tools, to actually know that it's one and the same thing.

Secondly, create genuinely useful content.

Not sales, not fluffy marketing messages or too much sales content, helpful content, local guides, Things to do nearby, travel tips, seasonal recommendations, sharing your local knowledge.

That sort of content a guest would actually find useful and you can guarantee that people will be searching for it.

Thirdly, earn mentions from trusted websites.

So try and get mentions on tourism websites if you've got your local visit wherever, like visit Somerset, local attraction websites, get some press coverage.

See if you can get featured in industry publications or partnership pages with some of your partners and suppliers that you work with.

All of these add and sort of build your trust and authority on the web.

The more trusted sources that mention your business, the more credibility you will build.

And the AI tools particularly love that.

And another great one is obviously making sure that you've got lots of Google reviews as well, because they actually do contribute not only to your search rankings, but now increasingly with the AI tools as well.

Fourthly, demonstrate your expertise.

You are the local expert, so share your local knowledge.

After all, who knows your destination better than you?

You?

You live there.

People want to know your take on on what they should be doing when they holiday or visit your area.

If someone asks an AI tool, where should I stay for a walking holiday in the Lake District?

Or what's the best romantic getaway near Cheddar Gorge in Somerset?

You want your content on your website to be the answer to that question.

So the goal isn't necessarily to rank for every single possible keyword.

The goal is to become the trusted source of information.

And that's what AI systems are increasingly looking for.

So as we wrap this up, if you're worried that AI is going to make SEO irrelevant, don't be.

I don't think it is.

Most accommodation businesses still haven't mastered the SEO basics.

And the good news is that the fundamentals still really do matter and add up.

So remember, first, SEO and GEO are not enemies.

As I said, they're closely related.

Think of them as cousins.

And secondly, FAQs are becoming incredibly valuable because they mirror the way that people search today.

And thirdly, you want AI tools to recommend your business, so focus on becoming the trustworthy source rather than chasing the SEO algorithms.

And at the end of the day, whether it's Google ChatGPT or whatever comes next, the businesses that provide the clearest, most useful information are usually the ones that win, not only with the tech, but also with the people who spend the money.

And that is real people, as in your ideal guests.

And that's actually great news for independent accommodation providers like us, because you already have something that the big OTAs like Airbnb and booking.com struggle with local knowledge, your personality, your hosting experience.

So use it and share it and make it easy for both people and AI to find you.

Keep marketing, keep doing a great job hosting and keep getting fully booked.

Thank you for listening today and if you enjoyed this episode, you know what to do.

I'd love it if you could leave me a review because you know how much us hosts love those five star reviews.

I'll see you next time.

Thank you for listening to Get Fully Booked with Sarah Orchard if you want to see if you are ready to ditch the likes of Airbnb and grow your direct bookings, put your business to the test with my free Direct Booking Roadmap quiz.

Head to my website get fully booked.com quiz and let's get you more direct bookings and more profit in your pocket.