@Helsi’s suggestions are spot on. You need to think about your business like a brand. Who is your target persona? What are they doing while staying with you? Your direct booking site is the first time a guest interacts with your business so the experience should be catered to them. Everything from your logo, your photography, styling, and of course content.
What is your target guest searching for in addition to accommodation options in your area? You can think of a list ideas yourself or use tools like Google Keyword planner (free), ubersuggest (free), SEM Rush (Paid), or Ahrefs (Paid), to lookup search volume for keywords related to search queries and plan your content around that. What you want to do is get in front of potential guests by creating content that provides information your guests are looking for when planning a stay. Don’t have time to write / not a great writer? Use ChatGPT. With the right inputs you can create incredible website content in under 5 minutes.
Your website content doesnt need to be all written by the way. For example, if you are located near a ski resort or surf spot then your guests may want a look at the conditions. Purchase a webcam and provide a live feed on your website. I could go on for hours, but hopefully this gets some ideas flowing. Don’t forget YouTube is 2nd largest search algorithm in the world. Do you have hikes near your stay? Go for some of your favourite hikes and film the entire hike, first person. Post a series of these hikes to your YouTube channel. Make sure the videos are branded, the titles and description not only speak to the hike but your business.
Here are a few other (free) quick wins to drive direct bookings:
- Brand your OTA listings. Adding your business name (not your website URL) in your description, title and first line of your host bio will signal to prospective guests that you have a direct booking site.
- Create a Facebook, Instagram, and maybe even Pinterest account. Complete each profile with a link to your direct booking site. Again, you want the content to speak to your ideal guest. Yes, social media is a lot of work, but consider what happens when a prospective guest Google’s your brand / business name. You will now have three profiles/accounts that come up in the search results with your brand name and a direct link to your DBS.
- Capture your guest’s email through email-gated wifi or one of many other techniques. Use your PMS or an email marketing tool like mailchimp to trigger an automated send 24hours before they checkout to see if they would like to extend their trip, letting them know if they book directly using the link available then they will save on OTA service fees.
- Use your PMS automated responses to convert an OTA guest into a direct booking guest. This strategy is a little more controversial as it requires the guest to cancel their OTA booking before booking direct. I could describe this in more detail if anyone likes but will leave it at that for now.
By the way, Im with Dtravel (mentioned above), and we are 100% focused on driving the direct booking movement forward by helping operators start and grow their direct booking business.
How do we do this?
We make it easy for hosts to quickly create a professional and modern direct booking site powered by our advanced booking engine that improves conversion and increases profit potential. We also make it easy for operators with an existing direct booking site to swap their booking engine for our industry leading booking engine.
We also provide complimentary onboarding and free marketing consultation. If you’re interested in using Dtravel to power your entire direct booking site, want to swap out your booking engine for Dtravel’s booking engine or just want to talk direct bookings then we’re here for you!
Apologies in advance for the long post and Dtravel plug (admins feel free to remove if not appropriate), but one other thing I should mention that will drive you more direct bookings is our partnerships, the first of which being with a major blockchain-based OTA. Anyone with a Dtravel powered site or using the Dtravel booking engine will appear in search results for this OTA. Once the integration is live (coming very soon), you will have the option to opt-in into showing up in search results and get free traffic to your direct booking site without paying commission.