In an industry dominated by giants like Booking.com and Airbnb, standing out online as a hospitality brand can feel nearly impossible.
Craig Webb, Director of Webb Marketing Services, shares how he helps hotels and accommodation providers build their own digital presence without getting lost on page two of Google. From mastering local SEO and managing complex booking tech stacks to optimizing PPC spend and creating practical SEO training videos, Craig’s approach is all about empowerment and smart strategy.
In this
Website Planet interview, he reveals how hotels can reclaim control over their bookings—and reduce those hefty OTA commissions.
How do you tailor your digital marketing strategies specifically for hospitality and hotel clients?
Achieving a digital presence in the accommodation sector is particularly difficult because the space is dominated by online travel agents (OTAs). They tend to occupy all of page one of Google.
There are no quick wins, but hospitality businesses must build their own brand through email databases and social following.
The OTAs will dominate the broader ‘accommodation’ results in the SERPS, but having good local SEO and focusing on local and niche search terms means a good position on Google is not impossible.
What is your process for selecting the right platform (WordPress, WooCommerce, Wix, etc.) for a client’s website?
As an agency, we always build with WordPress because of the flexibility it offers. It is portable (ie, client can host anywhere), and has the capacity to integrate with the many other platforms used in the hospitality sector.
The accommodation tech stack is slightly different from most industries. Ie, we’re not selling an item from stock or an appointment to book something.
When selling accommodation, your ‘inventory’ is sleeping accommodation that is available for a particular date.
That one unit of accommodation can be booked on multiple platforms at the same time. So to avoid overbooking, the availability and pricing must be refreshed very frequently across those multiple channels.
The way that tech is connected through a Channel Manager is key to avoiding issues.
How do your SEO training courses work, and what can participants expect to gain from them?
I started building a bank of training videos where I record my screen, talk about what I am doing, and why.
The student can then watch it back in their own time and implement the SEO tactics.
I try to break it down in really simple terms, without jargon.
The benefit for the participant is to rank a website higher and get more direct bookings, and avoid paying the OTAs around 20% commission on each booking.
What involvement do clients need to have in the ongoing content, social media, or marketing work once a campaign is launched?
For social media, the client would still have quite a lot of involvement. Our clients are all over the world, and we cannot be in their location to shoot a reel. So we would liaise and edit and then post.
I’d say with socials, the client still needs to be doing 50% of the work. Obviously, that’s different for a local client who can be visited.
For SEO, they tend not to get involved much. At the start of a campaign, we have a call and they complete an onboarding form that helps us understand their target market, location, niches, and specialism.
From there, we can do their SEO, including technical and content SEO.
We will contact them monthly to update them on work done and also ask them about any news, local events, or fresh blog ideas they might have. This then guides our next month’s work.
How long do you recommend clients commit to SEO or digital marketing before seeing measurable results?
It does depend on the client’s budget. Some clients want us just to take care of technical SEO and get the site SEO to a good place for them to take over.
Others want us there for a long-term relationship, even if it is just 6-8 hours a month of work, so we are always there to update content, images, and seasonal changes.
In terms of time taken to get results, I have just launched my own website for a serviced accommodation property. (Webbhill stays.com) And we are ranking high on page one within a couple of weeks (for niche terms in our city).
If left alone and SEO is not continuous, then ranking can slide as competitors update content and outrank you.
How do you optimise ad spend in PPC campaigns for maximum ROI in the hospitality industry?
PPC in hospitality can be eye-wateringly expensive. Especially if bidding on keywords like ‘accommodation in city’.
To maximise the ROI, it’s best not to get in a bidding game with Airbnb and Booking.com (you’ll lose -they have deeper pockets).
It is best to focus on specific local keywords or the ‘type’ of accommodation, such as ‘serviced apartment’. Couple this with regular campaign management, bidding on phrase-match keywords, as this helps ensure ad spend is not wasted.
Find out more at:
www.webbmarketing.info
