SEO Isn’t Dead: How AI Is Changing Vacation Rental Search with Vanessa Humes and Jill McGee of ICND

AI Hype Versus Real SEO

Annie Holcombe 0:00

AI has emboldened people to be experts in stuff that they should have no business being in with.

Vanessa Humes 0:06

I think there's a lot of hype out there of hey, I can build this AI website and you're just gonna miraculously show up in the AI overviews and chat GPT and it's just gonna be this technology that's just gonna bring you to the top.

Alex Husner 0:21

It's so darn complicated, you know, and it always has been, and it just keeps getting more complicated.

Jill Highsmith McGee 0:27

I have been bombarded on social media with use this SEO plugin and everything will be completely fixed on your website. That is definitely not the case, and it's always evolving and changing. So a quick fix today is going to probably be very different in five years, but now with AI, it might be different next week.

Annie Holcombe 0:47

If your goal is to increase direct bookings, your website can't just look great. It needs to be understood by people, search engines, and AI. Today's websites must build trust, communicate your brand's value, and make the journey from inspiration to booking as seamless as possible.

Alex Husner 1:02

And that takes more than fixing one piece of your marketing. I've spent my entire career in vacation rental marketing, and I've seen firsthand how connected everything needs to be. You can invest in paid media, SEO, email, and social. But if those channels lead guests to a website that doesn't clearly tell your story or make the booking easy, you're leaving revenue on the table.

Annie Holcombe 1:21

That's where ICND comes in. For more than 25 years, ICND has helped vacation rental companies grow direct bookings by evolving alongside the digital landscape. From traditional search engines to today's AI-driven experiences, ICND has continuously adapted to keep clients ahead of industry changes.

Alex Husner 1:38

ICND has invested heavily in researching and testing traditional search, AI visibility, SEO, answer engine optimization, AEO, and generative engine optimization, GEO. This work helps to ensure vacation rental websites are optimized not only for Google, but also for AI platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, Cloud, Perplexity, and Google's AI overviews.

Annie Holcombe 2:03

Technology will continue to evolve, but trust will always influence booking decisions. ICND's mission has remained the same for more than two decades: helping vacation rental companies stay ahead of industry changes while building sustainable growth through stronger visibility, better user experience, and more direct bookings.

Alex Husner 2:20

If you're ready to prepare your business for the future of search, visit icnd.net to learn more. Welcome

Meet ICND’s Marketing Leaders

Alex Husner 2:28

to Alex and Annie, the Real Woman of Vacation Rentals. I'm Alex. And I'm Annie. And we are joined today with Vanessa Humes, who is the VP of Sales and Marketing for ICND, and Jill McGee, who is the senior digital marketing specialist. So basically the queens of digital marketing are on the show. So great to see you two. So great to see you guys too.

Vanessa Humes 2:49

Thanks so much for having us.

Jill Highsmith McGee 2:51

Yeah, thank you so much. Exciting.

Annie Holcombe 2:53

Well, we're very excited to get into the meat of this conversation. But before we do, why don't you ladies introduce yourselves and start with you, Vanessa? Give us a little bit about your background and kind of your role at ICND.

Vanessa Humes 3:05

So I started with ICND uh in 2009 after uh spending some time with Alex and meeting her in an agency in Myrtle Beach and started, you know, helping Brandon with support tickets from day one and have just grown with the space. And, you know, back then we were one of the first agencies to be doing internet marketing. And so we worked with a lot of real estate companies, small businesses, and also a handful of vacation rental companies. And then about 2014, we really took off in this space. And um, Brandon is married to a third-generation vacation rental manager in Oceanelle Beach, Slow and Reality Vacations. And so, yeah, we've just really been honed in on direct booking solutions and websites, digital marketing. And so I'm so excited to have Jill with me today to talk with you about AI. And she has an awesome background. So I'm gonna let you introduce yourself as well, Jill.

Jill Highsmith McGee 4:12

Awesome. Thank you so much. Yes, so I I started with ICND. I wasn't prepared for that. Let's see how long ago. I think it was 2019. Um, I started with ICND, and previously before that, I actually worked in-house as a digital marketing specialist for a large vacation rental company on the Outer Banks, and ICND developed our website, um, which kind of got me used to the CMS and working, you know, within the dashboard. Then when I started with ICND, really the world of digital marketing completely opened up. Uh, I've always been in the vacation rental industry. I have a pretty hefty background. My parents don't a small vacation rental company in Florida for a while. Um, it's definitely my husband's in property management, so we talk a lot about vacation rentals in our house. But uh with ICD, digital marketing really opened up. And I worked with our marketing director, Paul, and you know, met the whole team and Vanessa. Um, and I've been here for going on my seventh year now, working uh on multiple clients just you know around the nation, helping with SEO, PBC, SEM. Now we get to add AEO, GEO, all the other EOs in there. It's been amazing. And I and I love just diving into the data and learning more. And I feel like in this field, everything's always changing. So it's kind of keeps you on your toes.

Alex Husner 5:41

Yep. Well, and you know, I was just thinking as you guys were giving your bios, how many websites I've done with ICND over the years, either when I was at Condo World or now um with my directly Alex clients. I think there's like seven or eight. So I've worked with you guys for a long time, and uh you guys are are great to work with the whole team is, and the best thing is the support, right? Because in today's day and age, it's really hard to get things done with a lot of the providers, but you guys always very good on that side and obviously leading the way on the digital charge. And everything is changing though these days. So Annie and I actually did a presentation a couple last year that we talked about how it's not just SEO, it's not just this one thing, it's search everywhere optimization. You can't forget traditional SEO, but you have to be optimizing for the LLMs and understanding, you know, travelers are more and more using the LLMs as a research vehicle to find where they want to go. But to kind of get started, you know, what what are you guys seeing in 2026? Like maybe

Why Organic Traffic Is Dropping

Alex Husner 6:40

each of you share a trend that you're seeing across your clients of what's happening in search.

Vanessa Humes 6:45

Yeah, I think a big elephant in the room is, you know, my my Google traffic is down. So a lot uh everybody's looking at their Google Analytics and they're noticing that their traffic has decreased from Google because now they're showing up in the AI overviews rather than getting that initial hit to the website. So I think that is a great place to kind of dig in. And I know Jill has some insights with that as well of why that's happening, if we should be concerned about it, right? So a lot of times I'm picking her brain too, right? So, hey, I noticed I logged into GA4 and uh is there anything we need to talk about with this account? And it's like, well, church is changing and um we need to talk about it.

Jill Highsmith McGee 7:33

Yeah, I'll I'll echo that. I think one of the biggest trends that's happening right now is definitely you're seeing red lines in organic traffic. Year over year, organic traffic has really just kind of dropped off. And that's the you know, phenomenon, the zero-click searches that I feel like people have seen everywhere. So the question kind of is SEO still relevant because organic search is dropping, but it is still very much a powerful tool. It just encompasses the AEO and GEO now. I I do think what there's a statistic recently, uh Spark Toro, they recently uh released an article in 2026 that said roughly 68% of Google searches end without a click. Uh so that of course is it's a good generalization. Um, luckily, high-intent traffic-based searches for vacation rental companies like Hilton Head vacation rentals don't usually result in an AI overview. But this gives us a really good insight on the current, you know, search landscape that we're dealing with today. Is this organic traffic is being siphoned by AI overviews, and people are doing a lot of research through generative engines like ChatGPT and Gemini and Claude before they even make it to a website. So when they do get to the website, that click is so much more valuable because they're already primed and ready

What To Focus On Now

Jill Highsmith McGee 9:03

to book.

Annie Holcombe 9:03

I have so many questions. I don't even know where to start. But I'll start with one. And I think I feel like it'll it'll open up like a flood of other things. I was reading an article this morning. It was an interview with Marg from Hostfully, Margot Smorek. And she was talking about Airbnb is actually taking listings and then they're like reconfiguring them based on guest type. So they're like highlighting and rewording. And so it's frustrating, obviously, managers, because you know, you work in your PMS, you work with your digital team to really come up with the best, most optimized listing you think is perfect and it's going to speak to everybody and it highlights what you want, what the owner wants, all these things. And you send it to the channel, and then the channel says, Oh, no, no, no, that's not how we don't want it that way, we want it another way. So you're there's a balance in you know what's you what you're putting out there and what's actually being fed up to the guest. And so I guess my question is if I'm a property manager and you come to me, what do you tell me to focus on? Because it feels like there's there, this is the most ADD world I've ever been in, and I'm ADD. Like it's just all over the place and it's constantly moving. And Alex and I are interviewing, you know, people two or three times a week and having this conversation. What we talk about Monday could be different by Friday. And so, like for a property manager, how do they know what they should be focusing on? It had been for so long, optimize your listings. But if you're spending all this time to optimize a listing that on the front end, on the end, someone is gonna change it and optimize it for their benefit. Where's the best use of your time?

Vanessa Humes 10:32

I guess. Yeah, that's definitely a challenge. And I think it always goes back to that question, and and something that you know, Jill and I were talking about yesterday was like 10 years ago, 11 years ago, there was a big thing about is SEO dead, right? Because at that time you had Airbnb and all these big moguls on the internet siphoning so much of the traffic for those top keyword phrases that everybody was like, we don't need to invest in any kind of SEO. We'll just pay for our clicks, right? And so now there's so much more of an opportunity to optimize your site for these longer tail keyword phrases. So it really goes back to a lot of the basics and premises of SEO and the fundamentals there. But it's changed because there's so much more emphasis on, I think, what Airbnb is looking for is that originality. So they're looking not to have the duplicate content, right? So if you've been doing SEO for decades, you know that duplicate content is a no-no. That's how you don't get listed in the search engine. So now Airbnb is saying, okay, I've got all this information. I can tweak it so that it's not the same listing that you're using on your website. And I'm gonna try to look like an even better authority so that I can outrank you in the search engines and the AI agents so that our listing shows up better. So they're trying to outsmart you, but there are things that we can be focusing on, like trust factors, uh, trust signals, authority that you've been building again for decades with SEO. And, you know, we have things like FAQs on our property detail pages. So we're asking, and again, we've had these things for decades, but now these things are starting to come into play with questions that people actually ask. And then there's ways that you can um structure that data so that AI can read it better, search engines can read it better. And so yeah, I feel like, you know, Jill, if you want to tag in, there are more of some of those technical details without going too deep. But I think that I think that there's opportunities here where, you know, AI is looking for what's the best recommendation based on what that what that person's asking for, what's that best recommendation? And they're they're trying to set themselves apart, but really we have all of the answers. We're the experts as the property managers. So hopefully we can still succeed there.

Jill Highsmith McGee 13:13

You both made such good points about, you know, definitely the goal now is to build those trust factors. And the foundation of SEO has always been, you know, me, right? So experience, expertise, authority, and trust. So the foundations of SEO are still very much, you know, a top important factor for ranking in any AI overviews or in AI tools. But what we're seeing is that the goal now isn't necessarily just to rank for a keyword. The goal is building all of those trust factors through multiple forms of digital visibility. When Google evaluates a page, it reads the text, but it also does um something called entity association. So instead of just matching an exact string of characters, it uses natural language processing and it's been doing this for forever, since you know 2014 and prior. But it does that to translate those words into different concepts or entities and you know, a massive relational database. So when Google does this, that that's kind of how you should be structuring your property description pages, is creating adding keywords. So um originally I'm from the Outer Banks, and uh Jockeys Ridge is something that is talked about all the time. And people when they come to vacation there, they want to know how far am I from Jockey's Ridge. So including things like that, so that way you can kind of indicate to these large language models where your property is located, what's around it, and create that entity association, not just, you know, outer banks vacation rentals, but also including all of these landmarks that are surrounded and your distance to them and things like that, that's gonna help build your authority in Google's eyes and help build trust in all of these, you know, different forms of AI.

E-E-A-T And Entity-Based SEO

Alex Husner 15:13

Yeah, I mean, you guys just hit the nail on the head. It's like, you know, the fundamentals and the foundation of how SEO has always been done, you still have to do those because it makes sense, right? I mean, if you don't rank well in traditional uh search engines, you're probably not gonna rank well in the LLM. So, I mean, doing, you know, the FAQs certainly makes sense. And one thing that I always recommend to clients is if you're trying to figure out like what FAQs, besides kind of the basics about like a reservation policy, export from your website, you know, export the chats that come in through your ICND website or through your PMS or wherever your CRM is is handling messages and see what people are asking, like not just about your overall company policies, but about you know, questions related to that actual unit or that area of the beach that are gonna draw people to it. But uh one question I have is, and I've been on calls that this happens regularly, where someone will say, Well, if we go to ChatGPT and we type in what's the best vacation rental company in Myrtle Beach or Hilton Hat or A, whatever destination, then they don't show up. And they're like, Well, how do we show up there? And I know reviews is something that's also important here too. So I mean, that's looking at you know, you know, all the different review sites, Google reviews other ones as well. But how do sites get there? You know, I mean, like what is saying the asking for the best, like how are those sites getting there besides reviews?

Jill Highsmith McGee 16:35

I'll I'll I'll jump in with the the reviews. I think that is such such an important factor to help build that trust. And not only having the reviews, but also having review schema on your site is really important. Um, and you know, the FAQs also having FAQ schema, lodging schema, product schema schema is definitely going to be an important thing to have on your website to help indicate to you know these large language models that you have trust factors. But when it comes to you know, other things outside of reviews that you can do, is that kind of what else can we do to build?

Alex Husner 17:15

Yeah, yeah. Like what how is how are the LLMs deciding what company is the best in a destination? I feel like that's the most like common search that everybody's looking at in Chat GPT.

Annie Holcombe 17:25

Yeah, is there a way to trick it? The million dollars.

unknown 17:29

Yeah.

Vanessa Humes 17:30

I feel like we're back in uh like 2006 when we're all huddled around the uh conference room table and we're we were googling, you know, Myrtle Beach Vacation Rentals and going to the sites and seeing, you know, who was ranking and then trying to emulate what they were doing, right? Yeah, yeah. And and now we're able to ask Chat GPT and say, okay, how do we get our properties in there and how do we do this? And they're giving us a lot of this information. What Jill was explaining is, you know, it is really about your expertise, your authority, your trustworthiness. So it's still looking at a lot of what the search engines are doing. And it, but in addition to that, the reviews, looking at the backlinks, and also it have it's building a profile on you too. So, you know, me, a mom who usually travels with a larger group, uh, it it starts to know my travel dynamics and it's it might make different recommendations for me than it does for somebody who's just traveling as a couple and has different, um, has different end games. So it starts to build that profile of who you are, and that's why that content becomes so helpful to the to the AI agents to be able to know, okay, this is what your specialty is. And so I think developing that brand, developing that content around those specific kinds of keyword phrases, which again, we've always harped

How LLMs Decide “Best”

Vanessa Humes 19:03

on those long-tail keyword phrases of having a Breckenridge three-bedroom lodging with hot tubs, ski in, ski out. So, like that is where eventually you get to, right? So you might start with who's the best vacation rental company in Breckenridge, Colorado. And but by the time you actually tell it everything that you want, you're asking for something really specific that those pages can answer and driving that quality traffic to it. So it they really have an intent, and it we should be seeing higher conversion rates due to them matching up from what they're searching for to where they're actually going on the website. So just having an out-of-the-box website that doesn't have those build-out pages is not gonna solve for AI anymore. It's you really have to have that in-depth information to answer those questions.

Alex Husner 20:04

And that really goes to having a strong content plan, right? I mean, like you your point on the LLMs are dry are serving up content that is related to other things that you have been searching, and it's building a profile of who you are. So uh there's so many variables that are to be considered here, but it's like your content, if you know you're primarily families, or you are primarily couples, like Airbnb right now. I don't think families are staying here. It's mostly going to be couples or singles. So how you, I guess, have you looking at your content plan, you really need to be figuring out just which is again back to the basics, but your archetypes, your personas, who are the travelers that you want to recruit

Building Content For Personas

Alex Husner 20:44

to your destination and to stay in your properties. Before we get back to today's episode, I want to share something that we believe matters for the future of this industry. Every property manager wants more direct bookings. You invest in your website, your brand, your guest experience, because owning that relationship matters. But travelers still need a trusted place to discover vacation rentals before they decide where to book. That's why Savvy exists. It's a direct booking marketplace built exclusively for professionally managed vacation rentals, and it's not just another OTA. When a traveler books through Savvy, you remain at the center of the relationship, so there's no platform standing between you and your guest. You communicate directly with the traveler, receive payment, set your terms and conditions, and nurture the ongoing relationship. Here's what really got our attention. Since launching in early 2025, Savvy's monthly booking growth has averaged nearly 40%. Travelers are finding this option and fast. We love what the team at Savvy is building for property managers and the direct booking movement. If you're looking for a distribution partner that's actually built for you, not around you, check out savvy at savy.com/slash Alexandannie.

Vanessa Humes 21:54

Unfortunately, you know that it's a good thing, but it's a bad thing, right? So if I am a consumer who's Constantly asking about Airbnb. And I'm just using that as a broad keyword phrase. AI might just give me Airbnbs. It might not know to give me a professionally managed vacation rental. So, like there are definitely hurdles that we have to come overcome, but there's definitely opportunities there too. So, you know, I think that's where us as a as an industry promoting the professionally

Savvy Direct Booking Marketplace

Vanessa Humes 22:27

managed over Airbnb and what you get, that education to our guests is is, you know, really important. And the website has always been that nurturing and that guest loyalty piece. It's never not the fundamental, and the majority of the traffic that's coming to your website is not going to be new traffic most of the time. It's going to be your return guest and making it easy for them to book. And again, those fundamentals stay in place. But reaching new traffic from AI is going to be strategic, very strategic in your content and your data and how you're structuring your data with schema markup, how you're structuring, structuring your reviews, your FAQs. It's not just about building it, it's about making sure that AI and the search engines can read it and understand it and categorize it correctly. So I always ask, I'm like, oh, with all these AI tools and everything, Jill, your job must be so much easier now, right? Like and I think we get that from our clients too, right? Like, you know, with AI out there just telling you how to rank your website, it should be easy to do, right?

Alex Husner 23:41

Yeah, it should be.

Jill Highsmith McGee 23:43

That definitely is one of, you know, we do get that all the time. And and actually, I think it's made the value of SEO kind of like I said in the beginning, and we were talking about how there is less traffic that's hitting the website now. It makes that click so much more valuable. So it makes the stakes even higher to get it. So it's really just increase the value. And now instead of just SEO, we're doing you know, AEO and GEO, which are kind of all under the same umbrella, it's a similar strategy, but it makes what we're the work that we're doing, it makes it that much more important because you if you don't have these trust factors on your site at this, you know, stage in the game, you have no hope to show up. I think that's an important, you know, point. And and one other thing that, you know, while you were talking about this, it made me think, and just it it's it's so important to note that AI overviews are siphoning that organic traffic and we are seeing a drop. But the generative search tools like Chat GBT and Claude and Gemini and Perplexity, they're still only accounting for about 1% of all website traffic. So those, you know, AI overviews and ChatGBT and Gemini, Claude Perplexity, they're gonna be two separate things altogether. And they're both, you know, encompassing AI, but they are going to be separate. Um, and I think that is really important to note. And I feel like it's something that's often overlooked because they kind of merge together, but they do have different ways that you optimize for each one.

Annie Holcombe 25:19

That was actually gonna be my question because Alex and I did a live search um on an episode a couple weeks ago where it was like she went into Chat GPT and I went into Claude, and we both asked the same question, but about our specific markets. And she got nothing but OTAs. I got some market leaders here and then OTAs. So it was like that. So mine was serving me up two types of options, and hers only like had the one type of option. And so, like, that was like how how do you tell people to optimize for that? And I guess it overarchingly, it just feels like now's a great time if you you want to redo your website. Now's a great time to call ICND and get a new website because you can start from scratch and really, really things. Because I think people, to our earlier point in the beginning, got away from really optimizing their website because they're like, oh, you know, my traffic's coming from the OTAs, and if I get a scrap here and there, I'm okay. But now, like now, you can really go back to the basics and do things. But in terms of optimizing for those different platforms, like what does that look like in practice?

Jill Highsmith McGee 26:14

Absolutely. So I, you know, I'll I'll jump in on that one. When you're optimizing for Google's AI overviews, that's gonna be AEO. So when you hear people talking about answer engine optimization, that is for things like AI overviews, you know, featured snippets, things like that. Uh, but when you hear people talk about optimizing for ChatGBT, claw, perplexity,

AEO Versus GEO In Practice

Jill Highsmith McGee 26:39

that's gonna be GEO. And that's the generative engine optimization. Um, and then you hear SEO, which we all kind of know, search engine optimization, that's Google. And also Bing. And, you know, now we've seen actually surprisingly in the last uh year or so, an uptick in uh duck duck go, or for you know, duck duck-go traffic hitting websites as well. But all of them are going to have similar optimization tactics. Uh, just to name a few, you know, internal linking structures are really important. Uh, creating a strong site map, a strong robots.txt file that gets on the technical side, um, but also creating the trust factors, you know, having that about us page, having different uh pages on the site that answer the questions that people are frequently asking, and having these strong property description pages that have, you know, your meta tags that are properly identifying the key variables on the page, like the property name, the location, the view. Um, all of those things do have such a large impact. And I think the reason that SEO is so much more valuable right now in this, you know, day and age is because there's so much out there. You know, the internet is so saturated that to stand out in that crowd and get that top real estate on page one of Google, which is only a few, few organic listings now, um, or even show up in the AI overviews, you really have to have everything kind of buttoned up and done very well. And it's still the same SEO, but there's not really any hiding anymore. There's there's no um quick fix. You have to kind of do all of the things and do them really well and execute them properly to show up in these different forms.

Vanessa Humes 28:29

Yeah. And I think there's a lot of, you know, hype out there of, hey, I can build this AI website and you're just gonna miraculously show up in the AI overviews and chat GPT, and it's just gonna be this high-tech technology that's just gonna, you know, spring you to the top. And that's not what we're finding. Like we're seeing that our sites are outranking and getting more AI visibility than a lot of the, you know, flashy things out there. And, you know, there's a lot of buzz about different technologies that I'll let Jill talk more in in depth about, you know, as far as like page types, and you know, you need to have a certain page type type with the LLMS and the.md files and things like that. I think in some other industries they work really well, but in our industry, we're not seeing a really big traffic increase or huge impact. And there's a ton of studies out there too that are kind of in the same wavelength. So, you know, again, we're trying to like sift through all this information that's getting thrown into the industry. So it's, you know, it's great. Like it's it pushes us to investigate more and make sure that we're at the top of our game, but we're really like focused in on the data and the traffic and the conversions and the direct bookings. Like we're still, you know, that that's the that's the name of our game to this day. But yeah, I mean, Joe, if you want to go into a bit more with like what the the hype is about those types of files, that'd be awesome too.

Debunking LLMS.txt And Quick Fixes

Jill Highsmith McGee 30:11

Yes, I I think that is kind of what we're seeing. I mean, I know I have been bombarded on social media with use this SEO plugin and everything will be completely fixed on your website. Um, and that is definitely not the case, uh especially because the key with digital marketing, just like we talked about in the very beginning, is it's always evolving, right? Back in the day, there were, you know, social media was brand new. Instagram, people thought that they didn't need to use that. And it's always evolving and changing. So a quick fix today is going to probably be very different in five years, but now with AI, it might be different next week. So I I think that's a really important factor, you know, regarding LLMS.txt files and markdown files. I don't think that they are the magical bullet that the industry, you know, some people think that they are. Um, I do think that they're interesting experiments, though. So the companies that will win an AI, basically what they're gonna do is they're not gonna chase all these new file formats. They'll be the ones creating, you know, the clearest, most trustworthy, and best structured information on the web. So when you see these, you know, LLMS.txt files or publishing markdown files, they're not necessarily wrong, but I don't think that they need to be adopted either. I think it's a good experiment. And um something, you know, Vanessa and I were talking about earlier is we actually were doing a case study right now, and we can send it out to everybody that is overlooking our websites that are showing up in AI search tools. Uh, and it's it's a really interesting case study. And we're in the process of also evaluating if these, you know, LLMS.txt files actually do move the needle at all. I think the the biggest thing to kind of really emphasize is that right now we're still really early. And adopting all of these new, you know, styles isn't necessarily the silver bullet that many people think that they are, because we still have to collect a lot of data and observe what's happening. One thing that we're also doing is we're building data studio reports for all of our clients. And we've been doing this for, you know, the last three years, um, just pulling in all AI traffic and how you're seeing where which landing pages people are visiting from Chat GPT, Gemini, and Claude. And the really interesting thing is that they're showing up much deeper into the funnel than they were previously. So if somebody were to use uh, you know, find you on Google and click one of those old school blue links, that organic listing, they're probably gonna find your prime search result page, your, you know, Hilton Head Vacation Rentals or uh visit your home page. But when it comes to ChatGBT, the landing pages that are surfacing are actually your property description pages. So the user is much further into the funnel than they would be for traditional search, which I think is, you know, a really interesting kind of shift in how we should optimize. So it is a little bit different, but there is still a lot of the same factors that go into it. The other item that outside of the LLMS.txt files and the.md files, which I don't know if we explained what they were, but basically they're just they're just uh markdown files. So they remove all of you know the HTML that makes it pretty on the front end and make it easier for different large language models to absorb that content, but they're not necessarily they they haven't been proven to have any ranking, you know, impact. But when it comes to items that do have a ranking impact, it would be, you know, a site map or a robots.txt file that's built, you know, very targeted and strong. So those items we actually can see that they do have an impact.

Vanessa Humes 34:05

And that's all like today, right? And I think, you know, if again, going back to the days when Amazon Alexa came aboard, and that's really when the first answer engine type of optimization came up with rich snippets and the schema markup. Schema markup was really only good to get your reviews as a data point in your search results, right? And now today it's a lot more valuable. So it that's again what we're kind of saying is like it's not the holy grail that's just gonna get you ranking in there because that's what a lot of people are looking for, but it's one of the stepping stones. So if you go out there and you do a scan that's looking for everything, it's gonna highlight that as something that might be needed or required, but there's so many other things that impact it. And that's why SEO has always been an art rather than just something that you can do to your website. It's about so many different things that impact your search results.

Alex Husner 35:10

Yeah, I was just thinking as you were saying that, like it's so darn complicated, you know, and it always has been, and it just keeps getting more complicated. It's like, you know, there's so many factors that go into it. And even if you're doing all the best practices, if you have a site that is not structured properly or you know, your content is is sparse or whatever the case may be, you know, you're you're out of the game. So it's like you really have to be strong on everything that you're doing to successfully show up in all the different ways you can be discovered. And that's really hard for a vacational company. I mean, like that, you know, every day they are managing properties. That's what their job is. They weren't, they didn't start these companies to become digital marketing specialists,

Deeper-Funnel AI Landing Pages

Alex Husner 35:51

you know, and that's clearly why you guys have a very important role in the food chain here. I guess that's uh that's that's what your clients work with you for. But you know, thinking back to back in the day when we used to do tons and tons of content about the destination and where where to go, things to do, restaurants, all the stuff. A lot of companies that I talk to now are like, I don't know if that's even worth it. I mean, I I believe that it still is, but how do you how do you kind of guide clients as far as what type of content besides the FAQs that they should be writing that is going to still be beneficial to get them to show up both in traditional SEO and in the LLMs?

Vanessa Humes 36:27

Yeah, I'm with I'm with you on that. You know, it's the destination information is always great, but you know, to Jill's point about that intent to book, so if you look at what's the top 10 restaurants in Myrtle Beach, that's great information, but it's not something that is going to, it's not gonna bring in likely someone who is looking for a vacation rental on Myrtle Beach. It's gonna pull in locals, it's gonna pull in people who already have accommodations. But if you are focusing that information about, like um, you know, the 10 best places on that have a golf course view that you can stay in Myrtle Beach. And, you know, these questions that again are more based not on FAQs, but are answering a question and then taking them to uh properties that fit that actual answer. So, you know, structuring it about like how can we take our inventory and the niche that we specialize in and create content that would drive traffic to those pages by answering a question. So not necessarily, hey, what's the best place to eat or best place to stay, but what which resort in Myrtle Beach has the best views or which resorts in Myrtle Beach have the best amenities for kids and positioning your content that way versus, you know, top 10 best places to go.

Alex Husner 38:07

You have to have an end game of what you're trying to accomplish with it, too, of like, you know, if you if you have a lot of resources and time and you have people that can write that content knowing that it's not gonna immediately translate into a booking, I mean, it's still great to do it. But if you're gonna use some of this content also in your social media and in your emails, you know, it that then it does have more of a commercial value in a way, if it's also supplementing so that you're not just sending property after property after property. And I'm sure you know you guys see this a lot too. It's like that gets a little old. I mean, like people aren't just going on vacation just for the property. I mean, they're going there for whatever the occasion is or the experience or the people that they're going with. And uh that that that's one thing that just kind of drives me nuts when I don't see it. It's like,

Content That Drives Bookable Intent

Alex Husner 38:52

well, you know, what's the why? You know.

Speaker 38:54

My name is Miller Hawkins. I'm the president and broker in charge of Boo Realty, as well as the Atlantic Resort Group. Both are under the Monarch Collective umbrella. I was asked several years ago while I was on the VRMA board of what my exit strategy is. Kind of hit me of, you know, I'm approaching 60 years old at the time, and I'm not ready to retire now, but at some point I've got to have an exit strategy. I was introduced to the Monarch Collective a little over three years ago. I did not want to sell and give them the keys and leave. I wanted to stay on board for three, four, five years. And that's what their MO is. They don't want to buy a company from somebody and automatically go in and assume operations. They basically said from the get-go that when we do partner with a company, we work with you and support you in your current role as president to uh make life easier for you. We will support you and work alongside of you until the day comes when you do decide to leave. Before acquisition to after acquisition, as far as the brand, nothing has changed at all. The only thing they've done is support it. They brought in the resources, but they brought in the support team, everything on the back end. Marketing, revenue management, financial accounting, everything. They want to free up our time so we can grow our company, run our company like we've done without the burden of all the back office things. We have grown a number of owners. We've grown financially. The loyalty and the attitude with our owners, the attitude with our guests, the attitudes with our employees has done nothing but go up. The advice I would give to a vacation rental owner who is remotely thinking about selling their business in the next five years. Don't wait until that time to start the conversation with the Monarch Collective. Reach out to them now. They have an acquisitions team that will fly to your location, they will meet with you, they will get to know your business. I strongly suggest you reach out to the Monarch Collective now. The best business decision I ever made was to buy Bu Realty back in 95. The second best decision I have ever made was to partner with the Monarch Collective the way we did.

Speaker 1 41:00

If you're curious about what the next chapter for your vacation rental business could look like, Monarch Collective offers a free, no pressure conversation to help you explore your options. No strings attached, just a straight conversation with people who deeply understand this industry. Visit gomonarch.com/slash partnerships to learn more.

Jill Highsmith McGee 41:20

With websites, you know, that that evergreen content and that the 80-20 rule that you use for social media, where it's not just posting the property over and over and over again, because it does get old.

New KPIs For Zero-Click Search

Jill Highsmith McGee 41:32

They've seen that property, especially if your inventory, you know, is still kind of the same. Um, I think that does get old. But I feel like the big question right now is how do we measure success anymore? So, how do you measure success when organic traffic is dropping? Um the biggest, you know, the KPIs are changing. So those performance metrics that we used to gauge our success on, which was, you know, click-through rate maybe, or some something like that that we could see and it was tangible. It is shifting and there are a lot more zero-click searches. So, how do we gauge that now? And I think the the new metric to really look at to see if the content that you are writing is valuable is going to be conversion rate. So I I would much rather see 500 visitors to a website that, you know, were highly engaged, so engagement rate as well, highly engaged visitors who are ready to book and further along in the booking funnel than you know, 5,000 visitors that had a low engagement rate, low session duration, and bounced off after 20 seconds because they got, you know, what they needed. And I think kind of to your point, this is content if you do have, if you have the staff and the team and the bandwidth to write all of this really great educational content about the area, that is likely going to surface in these AI overviews, but it's not necessarily going to generate a click. So a way to potentially gauge is this, you know, is this content working would be if you're seeing impressions served for certain long tail keywords in your Google Search Console. So if you see these impressions being served, not necessarily getting a click, you're kind of having that billboard effect of you're showing up in the AI overview with this long tail, you know, rich content that talks about the area, but you're not getting, you know, that high intent ready-to-book traffic, which is going to come from those pages that are, you know, those dedicated search result pages of Hilton Head, vacation rentals with a pool, those, you know, specific ones. But I think there is there is space for both. So if you do have it, you know, it's definitely always important to create rich content and have, you know, we kind of have this debate of content, you know, is king. And it's always for how many years has content been king?

Alex Husner 43:53

That's kind of you know, yeah, the queen is is ready to take the throne. What's coming next?

Annie Holcombe 43:58

As long as the digital world is better. Yeah.

Jill Highsmith McGee 44:01

Right. I think data is now, you know, it's the new queen. I think looking at the data, reading the data, and being able to find the patterns in it, that's going to be kind of the compass that you need to decide what you do for your content. So it's kind of a little double-edged

What Working With ICND Looks Like

Jill Highsmith McGee 44:18

sword.

Annie Holcombe 44:18

So in terms of like, I guess, next steps for a property manager. So I I have a website, haven't done anything with it. What is what does it look like to partner with ICND in terms of like, hey, I need help. What do you where what's the first like discovery call, discovery that you do with them? And like, what does that process look like?

Vanessa Humes 44:37

Yeah, we really dig in and try to figure out what their goals are, right? So if you've never done SEO before, you've never done digital marketing, we we start with the basics, but also examining the market and how competitive the market is, how many properties, where the properties are located, are there specific niches that we can dig in and promote? So those long tail keyword phrases. And then we work with our talented team like Jill and they dig in some more and put together, um, put together uh a plan for them of what we feel like we can get achieved. But really, you know, it's we're looking at the strategy. It's not like a one size fit-to-all approach to any of our clients. We're looking at what are your goals? What do we feel like we can really help you achieve with your means too? Like, you know, some people have big budgets, big teams, and we can really help be an extension of their teams. Some people are like, I don't even know where to start, you know, nor do I have this budgeted, but I know I need to do it. So, like, if you were in my seat, what would you do? And that's where, you know, having someone with experience like Jill, a lot of our team has had vacation rental management marketing experience. And that is really key to be able to hone in and understand their market, understand what they're up against, showing that return on investment with the tracking and the conversion rates, um, studying the data and how people are traveling through the website. And what are those just small tweaks that we can make to the funnel to increase those conversions just a little bit? And that means so much to that return on investment.

Alex Husner 46:31

Yeah, I would say context is king as well as content. So, you know, context of understanding this industry when you're choosing somebody to, you know, do marketing, an agency to do marketing like you guys, I mean, that it's a world of difference because just understanding digital marketing is not the same of all the crazy things that we have in the interlaps of vacation rental marketing. So I think that's a key point there.

Vanessa Humes 46:56

Yeah. It would be really hard to come into digital marketing right now because you have to have all the basics knowledge of SEO, pay-per-click, email marketing, social media, and now adding in that whole new level of discovery with AI is it's really just, I mean, I'm excited for it. To be honest, I was getting a little bored. Like, what are we gonna do next? That's just how I roll. But yeah, this has been really fun. You know, it's it's something else to learn and master, and another little notch in our belt of what we're we're getting to do and and help our clients, and it's more visibility, if you ask me. So um, yeah, it's really it's exciting times.

Jill Highsmith McGee 47:44

It it is exciting to collect all of the new data that's coming in. I think, I think really, you know, building these reports and seeing how where these pages are ranking and kind of getting these wins, it does every day you're kind of like, oh, that one worked. Check it off the list. Um, so I I agree with you. It is it is fun to dive into the data and be able to see the patterns and replicate what's happening. And it's exciting, you know, when you do see your your clients show up in Chat GPT and you know can replicate that. That is that is kind of fun.

Alex Husner 48:22

Yeah. And I mean, maybe as some kind of parting advice for companies that are looking into 2027 and they know that they want to really sharpen their pencil.

2027 Advice And Where To Start

Alex Husner 48:31

Like, what what do you think is most important for them to be looking at at this point and to invest in to grow their direct bookings?

Vanessa Humes 48:38

I mean, my biggest thing is like don't take your hands off the wheel. Like, don't just think it's a don't go for like a one-stop shop of this is everything you you think it needs to be. Do your research and understand what people are talking about. Talk to many different companies, find somebody that you really trust that you know has the best, um, the best in mind for you and um the experience to back it out, back it up, the reputation to back it up. Because I do feel like, you know, just like SEO is is dead, people said that so that they had something to sell you, right? And we're what we're trying to say is like SEO wasn't dead then. We still found ways to win with it back then. SEO is not dead now, it's just changing. But you need to have somebody who's an expert in all of these things to sh, you know, put the light at the end of the tunnel and show you the way.

Alex Husner 49:38

Yeah, that's keeping up with all of it, right? Because you know, we talked about earlier vacation rental managers don't have time to be keeping up with every single digital and AI marketing trend.

Vanessa Humes 49:48

I mean guests and owners. And I yeah, we tell our teams that too. You know, it's like if you want to ask them about 400 count sheets and how to run a laundry facility or what's the best housekeeping protocol, they're gonna know that. But we have to be the guides to show them how to build their website, how to build their direct bookings, and how to stay on top of AI for sure.

Annie Holcombe 50:11

Yeah, and I feel like AI has emboldened people to be experts in stuff that they should have no business, no business being being in with. Um, well, ladies, this conversation at my head is spinning because I've just been I don't the AI stuff is just so crazy to me. And it took me a while to feel comfortable with it. Now I'm like, oh my God, it just unlocked like this creative monster in my brain. So I feel like I can word vomit to it all day long. But um it's super interesting. And I think you know, you guys provide such a valuable service. And I know me personally, everybody that I know that works with your team loves it. And, you know, you provide a level of service that I think a lot of other um digital marketing companies or website companies are not providing. I I know of one in particular that I won't name, but um, they were working with somebody I know, and they the manager went back to them and said, Hey, like where why are their rankings? What's going on? And they were like, Oh, our bad. We weren't doing anything for the last four months, you know. Like they were still charging, but they just weren't doing anything.

Alex Husner 51:08

More times than I would like to report.

Annie Holcombe 51:11

It really, really does. So, I mean, I think that it's it's great to have a leader like you guys in the industry, and and we just appreciate everything you do to bring all this to the front. And tell and and I think you help people realize it's not so scary. Like you've you've got you've got a friend in ICND, and you know, they're they're here to help you, and it's not it's not um smoke and mirrors, and you're not trying to like throw buzzwords at them. You really are trying to break it down, you know, in in bytes that they can understand and work with.

Vanessa Humes 51:37

Yeah, no, we appreciate that. We appreciate all those kind words and appreciate the opportunity to come and talk with everybody. And like Jill mentioned, she put together

Resources Links And Closing

Vanessa Humes 51:46

a great guide. So um we'll have that on our website at icnd.net forward slash AI. And so you can check that out, get some more information um about AI visibility, what you need to be doing, where you need to be focusing. And so that would be a really helpful piece for you to take home with you.

Jill Highsmith McGee 52:06

Yeah. If I if I had one, you know, silver bullet, I would just say strong SEO. And I hope I hope that, you know, it's just consistency and building those trust factors with, you know, strong technical SEO, high quality content, schema markup, fast pages, and you know, eat signals. Um, I think you know that's it, that's still definitely the foundation for any any rankings. Um but I I I do love to hear that. I I hate to hear four months, it definitely is a long time.

Vanessa Humes 52:42

So stomach drops just hearing that.

Jill Highsmith McGee 52:45

Like I know, I talked to some clients weekly. I'm on the phone with them all the time. So that's that's terrible.

Alex Husner 52:54

Yeah. It it happens, it happens often. And the hard, I mean, again, it goes back to pr property managers don't have time to be digital marketing experts. And if they don't know what to inspect, well, how do they know what to expect? Uh, and I think that's that's the hard part. But again, to Vanessa's point, that's why you go with somebody who has a track record and is trusted and is and truly an expert in this, um, so that you make sure that doesn't happen. But um well, we're excited to have you guys come back on too. We've got other opportunities this year for um one of the real talk roundtables, and we've got some things heading into next year with you guys too. So yeah, it's gonna be fun. This is a this is an ever-changing topic and uh something very near and dear to our listeners' hearts. So, or at least on their radars. Maybe they don't love it, but they know that they have others.

Jill Highsmith McGee 53:42

Yeah, and next time we talk, it probably will change. So for sure.

Annie Holcombe 53:47

And that could be next week. So yeah, yeah.

Alex Husner 53:50

Well, we will put in the show notes the link to uh the page that you just said. I think it's pretty straightforward, anyways. But we'll put that and your contact information. And if anybody wants to get in touch with Annie and I, you can go to alexandanipodcast.com. And if you're enjoying the show, we would love for you to leave us a review. We're trying to get some more reviews these days. Uh, Apple, Spotify, wherever you listen to the show, uh, we'd love to hear from you. So until next time, thanks everybody.