Many unsuccessful vacation rental investors wonder, “What am I doing wrong?”
You’re likely contemplating:
My holiday rental website looks fantastic.
Every day, I receive a respectable amount of incoming traffic.
However, I still don’t appear to be able to turn website visits into reliable leads or customers.
You’ve come to the ideal location to kickstart your business if you’re a vacation rental owner, bed & breakfast owner, or professional vacation rental property manager searching for advice on increasing your leads.
Short-term rentals are becoming more and more popular, and investors are increasing.
Who is surprised, then?
After all, it’s a very profitable business enterprise. Peak seasons allow short-term rentals to generate a substantially higher revenue than annual long-term rentals.
Stunning, no?
Finding short-term guests can be a breeze with the aid of businesses like Airbnb and VRBO. However, relying solely on listing websites might not be a wise long-term action. Rental property managers and owners require a well-designed vacation rental website if they want to succeed in this business. However, some people can initially have problems drawing visitors to their website.
Fortunately, this article explains what you can do to rectify the situation and immediately increase your vacation rental website leads. Check out these nine suggestions to increase online reservations.
1. Emphasize the features that improve the guest experience.
Offering benefits customers won’t find in most vacation rentals is the best approach to entice potential guests to rent your property and return it.
Because of this, you must ensure that all unique features and amenities are described in detail on your website.
Typically, these amenities consist of the following:
- TV and internet of a high speed
- pet-friendly rental conditions
- gift baskets for guests
- dryers and washers
- A swimming pool,
- jacuzzi,
- fireplace
Thoughtful amenities that people frequently forget to pack, such as alarm clocks, toothpaste, soap, shampoos, hangers, and hair dryers.
These extras elevate your visitors’ experience and give your vacation rental a competitive advantage.
2. Embrace live chat on your website.
What happens if a prospective visitor has a brief question they’d like answered before deciding whether or not to come?
How can they receive quick responses?
Well, a live chat feature can help with that. Since it enables users to access more information quickly, it has emerged as an essential feature for websites that offer holiday rentals.
A live chat function can be useful because many tourists want to learn everything there is to know about a place before choosing it. It enables users to your website to conveniently and swiftly ask inquiries.
3. Offer worthwhile information downloads to draw in leads
Giving your website visitors access to useful and information-rich downloads is another excellent strategy to enhance your company’s reputation.
Your lead conversion rate will increase as your brand gains notoriety for producing worthwhile content.
Downloading content enables you to request your visitors’ email addresses or other contact details. By doing this, you’ll be able to expand your email list and follow up in the future with newsletters and other marketing initiatives.
This product can help you increase the conversion of lookers into bookers, whether it’s an eBook, checklist, or a straightforward guide to the most interesting things to do while on vacation in your area.
4. Upload expert photos of your vacation rental
Most visitors to your website will first look at photos of the rentals to see whether they would be interested in staying.
For this reason, you must ensure that the images you publish on your website provide an appealing yet accurate representation of your property.
Be aware that the caliber of these images will determine how interested potential tenants are. Professionally taken photos will present your offerings more professionally and appealingly.
A skilled photographer will know where and how to showcase the property’s best features, making it simple for you to persuade a visitor to make travel plans.
5. Keep your contact details accessible.
The key to promoting dialogue is ensuring that your visitors know how to contact you as soon as they land on your website.
No matter which website page a visitor is on, you must make it incredibly easy for them to access your contact information. This is especially important if live chat is not an option for you.
Contact information should therefore be kept at the footer of your website. This not only makes it simple for visitors to discover your phone number, but it also benefits local SEO and raises your company’s visibility in local search results.
Additionally, making contact information readily available reduces the possibility that visitors would second-guess their decision or look elsewhere.
6. Make the most of customer reviews and video endorsements
No matter how highly you recommend your rentals, they won’t be as persuasive as real guest reviews or video testimonials.
Reviews and endorsements increase your vacation rental company’s perceived reliability and credibility and serve as positive social evidence for your website. Reviews can, therefore, significantly affect your conversion rate.
Make it a practice to request reviews or video testimonials from every guest after their stay. You can then repurpose this content for your website and social media to highlight your satisfied customers.
7. Employ the bot for Facebook Messenger
One of the reasons the Facebook Messenger bot has been gaining popularity recently is that it makes it simple for you to automate your campaigns, just like email marketing!
All you have to do is create an effective marketing strategy. Once that’s finished, you can include it in Facebook Messenger’s mass messaging or auto-reply functions.
Ensure to include links to your social media outlets in the website’s footer if you want to increase your Facebook fan base. This will direct visitors to where they can discover the most recent information about your holiday properties.
8. Produce valuable, SEO-friendly travel content
Starting a blog for your vacation rental and focusing on subjects your potential visitors might be searching for is an excellent way to increase traffic to your website.
These articles may cover local topics, activities, or even directions to the best bars in your location. For first-time travelers, this kind of knowledge is a treasure!
There are many different types of content ideas available to get you started.
9. Use newsletters to market your short-term accommodations
Email newsletters are yet another efficient approach to attracting leads from your vacation rental property website.
When a visitor contacts you about your properties, ask them if you can send them regularly informative newsletters to keep them informed to expand your email list. In addition, you may include a sign-up form for a newsletter on your homepage.
Newsletters can allow potential guests to keep your property in mind as a possibility for their next vacation. Additionally, it’s a fantastic and practical method to inform people about discounts, promotions, awards, or enhancements to your rental property.
Utilize a company-branded email whenever possible. It appears more professional, visitors will be able to recognize your brand immediately, and it decreases the likelihood that your emails will be classified as spam.
The following actions will help your vacation rental website generate more leads.
Where does your present vacation rental website fall short, you could ask?
Use the advice in this article to help you think of a few potential improvements you may make to your lead conversion rate.
In the end, your internet appearance matters to the bottom line of your business, so if there’s something you feel you can’t manage on your own, think about hiring an expert to provide help.
