Are you seeing declining organic traffic for lodging sites?

[Rich Owings]

I've got a couple of lodging clients and they drive me crazy. For the most part, I see declining organic traffic. But the tactics that have worked so well for every other type of client are doing nothing for them. Occasionally I'll see brief gains or periods of flat traffic, but the historic trend line is a decline. I don't know why it took so long but today I started thinking about how much traffic is being diverted to Google Hotels and OTAs. So I'm wondering if this is the reason. I'm curious if others with lodging clients are seeing the same thing.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Hey Rich,

Are there any specific dates when you have seen traffic drops? Or has it just been a gradual, constant decline?

 

[Rich Owings]

Just a gradual trend.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Are you seeing a decline in conversions as well?

 

[Rich Owings]

Great question. I'll ask the owners. I'm not privy to their booking data.

 

[pony]

Are your clients not participating in Google Hotels? I'll just say that there has been and industry wide shift from organic > meta search due to big changes in G's end.

 

[Rich Owings]

@pony, do you mean thru Hotel Ads (Get started with Hotel ads - Hotel Ads Center Help One of my two lodging clients shows up prominently with direct booking available. The other avoids it due to OTA discounting.

 

[pony]

Yes. And your client is valid in their hesitancy to join due to the OTA madness. Spending the time and energy to make sure they are matching rates property leads to a debate on whether or not the traffic is worth it but not being there seems to be a huge detriment.