Why SEO Is Not For You

For those of you that have read the book, you will know that I talk about this in there in a little bit of detail. But this is something that I am seeing loads. When people are booking a call with us for a new website, a lot of people are saying and I asked the question, why do you want a direct booking website? And they say, well, I want to rank number one on Google when someone search for dirt, dirt in there. And this is why I wanted to do the video because I want to be able to send them to this to go. You've got to really change your mindset of what you think search engine optimization or SEO means because it's not what you think it is. And you're not going to. If you come into this with the wrong goals and the wrong mindset, you're going to be disappointed. And I'm going to do a separate video on what a website is. And this is really important on what a website is. But I wanted to do this to really sort of change the mindset of what everybody thinks SEO is and, and why you go into it with such lofty expectations and nothing comes of it and you're going to be disappointed. So the best way to do this and bearing in mind there's going to be a bit of visual on this. So if you're listening to the audio on Apple, I mean, Spotify has got the video now. Fantastic. If you listen to the audio only version of this, you may want to jump onto a computer when it's safe to do so and watch this, whether it's your phone or wherever it may be. So let me just share the screen. I'm going to give you a couple of examples.

One of the biggest problems when it comes to converting a looker into a booker for a direct booking is the trust factor. Whether you like it or not, your guest is looking to make sure that you are who you say you are. So how can you do that? Well, the number one accreditation and recommendation certification service in the industry is iprac. And I'm so happy to say that IPRAC is sponsoring this podcast and is the lead sponsor for all Boostly content. The reason why we partnered up is because I have been working alongside IPRAC for many years. I recommend them to every Boostly customer, client and team Boostly member. The reason being is that unlike other accreditation services, they are not just country specific, it is global and it is worldwide. They've got over 10,000 members and they've got over 250,000 product properties, which means that you can display your IPRAC certificate on your website and on your socials and know that you are going to be providing that trust that your future potential guest is looking for. I reached out to IPRAC and I.

Asked them if they've got a special.

Offer for Boostly members. And so if you go to boostly.co.uk trust t r u S T, you will go to a special Boostly landing page where, where you can book in a call and a demo. And if you sign up, you get a very special exclusive discount that only Boostly members can get. So, thank you, iprac, for being our sponsor. Thank you to listening to this very short message. I hope that you go and check out IPRAC today. I hope that you go and join them just like hundreds of other Boostly members have done, because it will help massively with you increasing your diary bookings. Right, let's get back to the show.

So somebody came to me and said, right, what I want to do is I want to rank for vacation rental in X. Now I'm doing leads, just as this is an example, just because a buddy of mine who will never watch this, he is, he's got property now in, in Leeds and this is just something I was searching, checking out for him. So I've done vacation rental in Leeds. Now, you could have the equivalent of what you wanted to search for. Just think of the most generic search term possible. It could be short stay, accommodation, leads, it could be apartment leaves, excuse me, it could be places to stay, hotels, bed and breakfast, whatever you want it to be in Leeds. Now, this is what is classed as a short tail keyword, as in that it is very popular, loads of people are searching for it, everybody's vying for it. And I want to show you how unrealistic it is, is to expect to be at the top of the search, because everybody goes, I want to be top of search without actually knowing what top of search is or does or whatever. And again, I am no expert on SEO, all right, There are amazing people in this industry who are much more cleverer, but I like to think that I can put everything into simplistic terms and show you what it is. And if you want to delve into this further, I can put you in touch with those amazing people. So I've done the search for vacation rental in Leeds, short term keyword. Now, even if you were to go for this, if you want to go, right, I want to crack this, I'm going to do all of the SEO, I'm going to spend tons of money and waste Loads of time doing it. Even if you were to be even semi successful and say you got to the bottom of page one, let me just show you what's in your way. So first and foremost, Google giving up more and more spots to people that are going to pay their money. Where you see ad here, this is basically means that there's a Google Ad. So Sykes cottages are spending a lot of money on Google Ads to make sure that their brand is seen there. This is the first thing that people see. Now, even if people don't click on an ad, you are then hit with the Google Vacation rental section, otherwise known as Google My Business, otherwise known as the Google Map. Google are trying to get in on the party here. They want money. They want a piece of the pie in the vacation rental, short term rentals, whatever you want to call it, pie. So even if you get a website and you don't have a Google my business listen or Google Vacation Rental listing, then again, you've got another hurdle to bounce. And then this is the organics. All right, so cozycozy.com is a listing site. You've got home to go. It's a listing site, VRBO listing site, Airbnb listing site, booking.com listing site. You've got holidayletons.co.uk listing site Casamondo, listing site, Wimdo listing site, Sykes Cottages listing site, holiday listing site, TripAdvisor, Hotels Combined Trip 101, Expedia. The list literally goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on. So if you realistically think that you have got more money and more time and bearing in mind the money and the investment these people are putting in to get into this spot is something that you will never ever achieve in five to 10 years. If you're kind of trying to do this yourself for this short tail keyword, then it's practically impossible. And again you go, well, hang on a second, I'll just pay an ad. These ads are gonna be very, very expensive. Sykes will be wasting and spending so much money just hoping that one of it clicks and bounces and gets you onto their site. And again, this is even before we get on to the fact of how important a website is. That sticky, it's like a mousetrap. Like if you can send them to your website, it's not being properly set up, then you're just wasting money and clicks. Okay, so instead of trying to go after these short tail keywords, what you need to do again, and we're going to delve this back into the book. You've got to think about your customer avatar. You've got to think about what they would be searching. You got to think about how to take advantage of this. So you can maybe go for a long tail keyword. So it could be instead of vacation rental in Leeds or you know, whatever it may be, you could be and say that you've got a, an apartment that's in Yorkshire. Say it's got a hot tub, you've got private parking, ideal for friends and families and whatnot. You could instead go for the people that are searching for vacation rental in Leeds or apartment in Leeds with hot tub. That is more of a long tail keyword. Less people are searching for it, less people got websites and copy about it. So it's more likelihood that you'll get seen for that. So my, my whole goal with this video is to make sure that you go into all of this when you think of SEO, you go into the right mindset and just to know that even if you were to save it, you pick a topic and a keyword that you can rank on Google very high for. Say you get to the number one and again we bring it back to here. So even if for whatever reason you were able to get very high and you ranked number one on vacation rental in leads, Google give up up to five spots to advertise on there and then you've got the map. And you know, the way that we go as a world now, we have very we click the first thing that we see. So you've got to make sure that you're doing this right and coming to with realistic expectations. Make sure that you are treating Google like your homepage. Make sure that you've got a presence everywhere and especially on the map. So if you haven't yet got a Google my business map, go and check out my videos on Google my business. There's tons of them in the YouTube channel. There's tons of content. Obviously Boostly Academy members, you've got a full breakdown from some experts in SEO as well on how to crack this. From the amazing field tester, there's a video in the Academy right now, boostlyacademy.com and, and you just got to make sure that you go into this with realistic expectations. This is why I'm recording this, this podcast episode. This is why I'm creating this video. What I want for you to do is to really change your mindset on what you think about SEO actually means. All right, go do that. Thank you very much for listening to this. This video for watching this video, for watching this podcast episode. I'll be back again tomorrow with another video with another podcast, but please make sure that you think about SEO with a different mindset. And if you want me to do more videos on this, if you want me to bring experts in, then let me know in in the comment section below and I'll reach out and I'll make it happen. Have a great day. Speak to you soon. Thank you so much for watching.