Have you recently “Googled” the website for your vacation rental?
Only some individuals will scroll past the first page of search results, so if you are there, you are probably losing out on visitors.
With a solid SEO plan, you might raise your Google ranking and increase traffic to your property website. More than 135,000 individuals search for “vacation rental” each month.
Do you need to learn how to rank your website in the top spot?
Be at ease; there is a remedy, and it is known as vacation rental SEO (search engine optimization).
Following these easy SEO tactics can help you get a good rating on your website, whether you are a property manager or owner of a vacation rental or just starting with SEO.
However, we have a surprise for you before you start.
Get to the top of Google by downloading the whole SEO guide for vacation rentals!
SEO advice for managing properties and renting out vacation rentals
If you’re here, you probably run your business website as a property manager or owner of a vacation rental.
Don’t worry if that isn’t the case, though. You can quickly and easily create your website using various tools, like Lodgable.
It’s time to optimize your website for search engines once you’ve finished with that.
Consider all the potential tourists that Google or other search engines may connect you with. Your website traffic and direct reservations will grow due to improving rankings.
For the best chance of getting a booking, you should aim to have your vacation rental business show up among the top three results.
Your vacation rental or bed and breakfast website can rank highly on search engines like Google, Yahoo, or Bing by using a few simple tactics.
Here are five quick suggestions to assist your vacation rental company to improve its search engine visibility (SEO).
1. Select the appropriate vacation rental keywords
Your ranking is determined by the search engine’s analysis of specific keywords on your company website. When creating the material for your website, think about the search terms visitors would use to locate a vacation rental or bed and breakfast in your neighborhood.
Unsure of where to look for relevant keywords? Check out our blog post “Vacation Rental SEO Hacks: Keyword Research” to learn how to use free tools like Google Keyword Planner and Ubersuggest to find important search terms that could drive targeted traffic to your website.
2. Pick relevant keywords
A smart place to start is by using the location and type of your property. For instance, “Charlotte bed and breakfast” or “Maui vacation rentals”. The primary difficulty, though, is that you probably won’t be able to compete with the OTAs who already hold the top rankings because these keywords are probably going to be quite competitive.
Choosing relevant but less-competitive keywords for your main keywords will help you rank better for that particular term.
It may be difficult to rank on the first page for those more general terms if you’ve just launched your first website or have never used an SEO strategy previously.
Instead, make an effort to target more precise terms with less competition. Long-tail keywords, which include at least three words and lower search traffic, are a good place to start. “Vacation home rentals for weddings,” for instance.
Although fewer people may use that keyword in their searches, there is a greater probability of being on the first page, which may ultimately result in more traffic.
Having said that, avoid stuffing your content with keywords. Your material will be keyword-heavy if you completely concentrate on what you think search engines want. By doing this, you could face penalties from search engines as well as your website’s visitors.
To properly optimize your website, there are a variety of approaches to conducting keyword research for your vacation rental.
3. Improve your photos
You should completely optimize every one of your photographs to allow search engines like Google to “read” them. There are three techniques to optimize them:
- File size: Whenever you can, try to keep your file size under 100KB.
- names of files Use titles that accurately reflect your home, such as vacation-rental-Santa-barbara-villas.jpg
- The descriptive text also referred to as “Alt text” Includes keywords that define your property, such as Santa Barbara vacation rental villas.
Check out our blog post on “How to Optimize Images to Improve Vacation Rental Website SEO” for more details.
4. Make use of pertinent page headings
You’ve probably noticed that every time you search for something on Google, the results have all (or nearly all) of the same layout. The results are typically broken down into three sections: a short grey description, a green URL, and a blue title.
These three elements are described using the following terms:
- URL and the meta title
- Â Meta description
- They combine to form the “snippet.”
The meta title or title tag is unquestionably the most crucial element of the snippet because it typically grabs the user’s attention (or doesn’t!) and influences them to choose your link over that of your rivals.
Think of it as your “first impression.”
5. Craft an effective meta description
The brief text passage that appears in search results beneath the title is known as the meta description. It gives you a chance to market information to searchers and inform them of the purpose of your page. Even though it may not directly improve your SEO rankings, this is crucial for drawing users to your page:
A relevant snippet will impact the click-through rate on your vacation rental webpage settings since potential guests will use it to decide whether they want to learn more about your company.
Ideally, the description should be between 150 and 160 characters. Google still counts this length in pixels, or the amount of space the text occupies on the page. Using a tool like Google SERP Simulator, you may check the length of your meta description.
These components are included on every page of your website, thus, optimizing them from an SEO perspective is essential to ensure that potential visitors can find you on search engines.
How can the snippet on your vacation rental website be optimized?
Simply choose the appropriate keywords and employ them if you attentively read the preceding paragraph on keyword research and follow our pieces of advice.
Search engines anticipate that title tags and meta descriptions will contain pertinent keywords and phrases that briefly summarise the page’s content.
You will be one step closer to increasing the number of people finding you on search engines if you do it for every page of your website.
6. Establish a page for your collaborators and advertise your links.
Following internal optimization, it’s time to move on to off-page optimization. All activities that can be done outside of your website to raise its ranking in search engine results pages are referred to by this term.
Begin by asking nearby companies to link to your website on their ‘Partners’ page. Vacationers may visit these locations for information on neighboring businesses, restaurants, and attractions.
You’ll be able to improve traffic to your website and get reputable links that will raise the value of your website.
A strategy for encouraging recommendations for your company is link building. You may influence how search engines and potential visitors see your hotel or bed and breakfast by establishing links.
7. Create a blog about vacation rentals and create quality page content.
Creating a blog about vacation rentals is key to effective content marketing.
You can start writing one or two blog posts a month and using your social media outlets to market your pieces because there are so many options for vacation rental material already available. Blogs are a fantastic method to give website visitors extra information. Additionally, they have the potential to significantly increase conversions and direct reservations, especially in the vacation rental sector.
As time passes, online users and potential visitors will start to circulate your blog entries, generating links and recommendations that will boost the SEO of your website.
However, it is important to stress the need for patience and avoid unrealistic expectations. Results after starting a blog can take weeks or months. This may take longer if your company is smaller and you are less experienced with conducting business online, but it will be well worth it in the end.
Your blog may become your most effective online marketing tool if it has an impact. Even better, it is free!
8. Disseminate your materials via social media
You can utilize social media as an SEO technique in addition to your website.
Setting up a profile on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter takes a few minutes, but doing so will help people find you when they’re looking for vacation rentals.
Keep each of your profile descriptions distinct as you write them. Material that is not “cut and pasted” is more responsive to search engines.
When updating or adding content to your social media platforms, consider how you might strategically employ the keywords in your username and profile.
Create content for social media platforms, upload pictures, and videos, and share all the pertinent details about your vacation rental. The easiest strategy to attract new potential visitors and persuade them to stay at your home during their vacations is this.
Additionally, you can benefit from user-generated content as a property owner. Specifically, the pictures and videos that people shoot while visiting your site. For visitors to tag their uploads, create a hashtag and tell them what it is (a hint: your business name would be a wonderful place to start).
You may even set up a “social media moment” on your site if you want to encourage social media interactions. This might be a scenic outside space, a painted interior decor, or even a distinctive aspect of your house, like an outdoor pool. The importance of making vacation rental properties instagrammable was highlighted by the Netflix series Stay Here about vacation rentals.
Lastly, provide social networking buttons on your website to make it simple for users to share your material.
After you master the fundamentals, there are a variety of different actions you can take to improve the SEO of your website. Keep an eye on our blog for more professional guidance and expertise in the sector!]
Still, have more questions?
We have a team of SEO experts that are ready to help you achieve booking success. Schedule a demo to learn more about how our team can help you improve your direct booking site. Sign up for a free demo here
