Keeping more of every booking, and finally getting found.

Where they started

Can-U-Canoe (opens in a new tab) rents cabins by the river in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, and it’s a good business. The owners reached out to me because they wanted to get more out of their rentals and grow.

The thing in their way was fees. Their bookings were going through Airbnb and VRBO, and those fees were taking over 30% of the business’s revenue. What they wanted was simple: a way for guests to book with them directly, so they could keep more of the profit.

They did have a website. It was on Wix, it was rickety, and a lot of it didn’t work the way it should.

What I found when I looked closer

Once I started digging, the fees turned out to be only half of it. The site was there, but the internet barely knew about it. There was no real SEO, no sharing images, a broken favicon, web addresses all over the place, and Google’s Search Console didn’t even know they existed.

Here was a good business that was nearly invisible online, and the owners had no idea. Nobody had ever told them, and most small businesses never hear about any of this. It’s easy to let this stuff slip by when you’re busy running a business. That’s where someone like me comes in, someone who’s spent years optimizing these experiences at companies large and small.

That one got to me. It’s still the best example I have of a good business with no real stamp online.

What I set out to do

So I set out to do two things: give guests a way to book direct, and make sure those guests could find the site in the first place. A booking page nobody can find doesn’t help anyone.

I sat down with the owners and worked out what the new site needed to do, for their guests and for them. Then I rebuilt it from zero.

The hard part

The hardest problem was search. Their cabins and bookings live in Lodgify, the system they use to run the rentals, and the way it shares its data turned something that sounds simple, showing what’s open on your dates, into a real puzzle.

I cared a lot about getting this one right, because it’s the moment a booking is won or lost. Someone is picking dates for a trip. If they can’t see whether a cabin is open or what it costs, they go back to Airbnb, and the owners pay the cut again.

I walked the owners through the options and how each one would play out. Swapping out their booking system was never on the table. Their whole operation runs on Lodgify, so the job was to work inside what they already had, limits and all. I built the new site on top of it and shaped search and pricing around what Lodgify could give me, so guests get a great experience today and the setup can grow with them from here. The owners keep managing their cabins the way they always have.

Now a guest picks their dates and sees which cabins are actually open and what they’ll pay, right there on the site. That’s the part I loved.

Then I went back through everything that had kept them hidden and fixed it, so Google knows what’s there now.

What changed

The new site was worth it right away. Sales were up about 15% the next quarter. It loads fast, and it’s easier to find in search than it ever was.

The outcome has been nothing but good, and we’re only at the beginning. I’m still working with them on more for their brand and their site.

Why I love this kind of work

None of this was fancy. Most of it was the boring kind of work that’s easy to put off. But the owners had built something good, and the internet wasn’t giving them credit for it. They didn’t need someone to reinvent their business. They needed someone to look closely, tell them plainly what was wrong, and fix it.

That’s the work I love. Every guest who books straight with them now is a little more of their money staying where it belongs.