TLDR: Every month, dozens of hot tub dealer websites cross our desk, and a growing number of them look and read identically. The reason is usually the same: a well known website development and content syndication company in the hot tub dealer space is building the site and pushing the same blog content to hundreds of dealers at once. Layer in imagery pulled straight from the Watkins Wellness digital asset library (or something similar) and you get a category where almost nobody looks distinct. Consumers can’t tell who to trust, and search engines and AI platforms increasingly ignore duplicate content altogether. The fix is to define who you are, why you’re different, and what problems you specifically solve, then build content and imagery that only your dealership could produce.
—
Any given month, I analyze somewhere between 50 and 100 hot tub dealer websites. It’s part of how we stay sharp on the category. And after a while, a pattern becomes impossible to ignore: a huge number of these sites look the same and sound the same.
Scroll to the footer, and you’ll usually find why. A well-known website development and content syndication company in the hot tub dealer space built the site, and that same company is pushing identical blog content out to hundreds of dealers simultaneously. Swap the logo and the phone number, and you’re reading the exact same article that’s live on a competitor’s site three states away.
Pair that with imagery pulled directly from the Watkins Wellness digital asset library (or something similar), sometimes with a light filter or crop, and you end up with a category where almost no one looks distinct.
Same photos.
Same words.
Same claims.
It’s a problem.
Why Sameness Kills Trust
Think about how people actually shop for something as significant as a hot tub or a pool or a swim spa. Unless they are absolutely loaded and the type to buy a hot tub from whoever is exhibiting at the local Costco that Saturday, they’re not making a five-minute decision. They’re reading category pages, comparing products, working through blog content, looking for a guide who can walk them through the process and answer the questions they haven’t even thought to ask yet.
When every dealer’s content reads the same, that buyer has no way to tell who actually knows what they’re talking about. No one stands out as the clear expert. No one feels like the safer choice. The buyer isn’t evaluating expertise at that point; they’re just guessing, and guessing usually means going with whoever has the lowest price or the pushiest salesperson, not the dealer who would have actually served them best.
That’s the real cost of sameness. It’s not just an SEO problem. It’s a trust problem, and trust is what turns a browser into a buyer.
Why Search Engines & AI Platforms Make It Worse
There’s a second cost, and it’s a pretty big one. Search engines have gotten very good at detecting duplicate and near-duplicate content, and they tend to reward the original source while ignoring the copies. I’ve even seen them penalize the copies outright.
AI platforms take this even further. When someone asks ChatGPT or Claude which hot tub dealer to trust in their area, that AI is pulling from content that’s specific, detailed, and genuinely useful. It has no reason to surface a dealer whose blog post is identical to fifty others. There’s nothing distinct to cite.
So the dealers relying on syndicated content aren’t just blending in with human visitors. They’re becoming invisible to the tools more and more buyers are starting their research with.
What To Do About The Imagery Problem
Please don’t get me wrong, the Watkins Wellness asset library isn’t the enemy here. It exists because most dealers don’t have the budget or the time to run a full product photoshoot for every model in every finish. Using it isn’t a mistake. Using it and stopping there is a mistake.
There are really two honest paths forward:
Option one: build your own assets. Invest in a real photoshoot. Photograph your actual showroom, your actual installs, your actual customers if they’re willing. This is the strongest option because nothing about it can be duplicated by another dealer, and it shows buyers exactly what working with your business looks like.
Option two: layer real design work over the manufacturer content. If a full photoshoot isn’t realistic right now, the Watkins Wellness imagery can still work, but it needs custom design treatment on top of it. Your own color palette, your own typography, your own graphic overlays, and layout choices, so that even shared source imagery ends up feeling unmistakably yours. The raw asset can be common. The presentation shouldn’t be.
Either path gets you out of the trap of looking like every other dealer using the exact same photo with a different logo pasted in the corner.
By the way, this applies to using the assets on your website and your social media. The latter is also a huge problem.
What To Do About The Content Problem
The imagery fix and the content fix follow the same logic. Generic, syndicated blog content answers generic questions. It was written to apply to every dealer everywhere, which means it applies deeply to none of them.
Start by defining the following:
- Who you actually are
- What do you do differently than the dealer down the road
- What problems do you solve that others don’t
- Why should someone choose you specifically, not just your brand of hot tub
Then build content around that point of view.
Write about the questions your actual customers ask in your actual market. I wrote a great post on how to pull that out of your customers here. Here are some examples:
- What does it cost to run a spa through a real winter where you’re located.
- What installation issues come up constantly in your area’s older neighborhoods.
- What do you tell customers who are choosing between two models that look nearly identical on paper.
That’s content nobody else can syndicate, because it doesn’t exist anywhere else. It’s specific to your business, your team, and your customers, and that specificity is exactly what builds trust with buyers and gives search engines and AI platforms something worth surfacing.
The Bottom Line
Sameness feels safe because it’s easy. Someone else designed the site, someone else wrote the content, someone else supplied the photos, and the box gets checked. But in a category where dozens of dealers are all leaning on the same syndicated company and the same manufacturer asset library, easy is exactly what makes you invisible.
Standing out doesn’t require a massive budget. It requires deciding who you are, what you solve, and why you’re different, and then building your website, your content, and your imagery around that answer instead of around whatever was easiest to plug in.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it bad to use content from a website syndication company at all?
Not inherently. The issue is relying on it exclusively. Syndicated content can be a reasonable starting point, but it needs to be substantially rewritten with your dealership’s specific point of view, market, and expertise, or it will never outperform the hundred other dealers using the identical version.
Is using Watkins Wellness imagery going to hurt my SEO?
The imagery itself isn’t a search engine ranking factor in the way duplicate text is. The bigger issue is brand differentiation. If every dealer’s site looks identical, buyers can’t tell you apart, which hurts conversion more directly than it hurts rankings.
How much does a professional photoshoot for a hot tub dealership typically cost?
It varies widely based on scope, location, and how many products and spaces are being covered, but even a modest shoot focused on your showroom and a handful of real installs can meaningfully change how original your site feels compared to competitors.
We don’t have budget for a photoshoot right now. What should we do first?
Start with the design layer over existing manufacturer imagery, and prioritize rewriting your highest traffic pages with content specific to your market and expertise. Both moves cost time more than money and can be done incrementally.
How do I know if my current content is actually duplicated across other dealer sites?
Take a distinctive sentence from one of your pages or blog posts and search for it in quotes. If it turns up on other dealer websites, that content is syndicated and is very likely working against you rather than for you.
Greg is the founder and CEO of Stryde and a seasoned digital marketer who has worked with thousands of businesses, large and small, to generate more revenue via online marketing strategy and execution. Greg has written hundreds of blog posts as well as spoken at many events about online marketing strategy. You can follow Greg on Twitter and connect with him on LinkedIn.
