A lot of people think that SEO is very dry. I used to think so too, but I have really grown to appreciate it. The greatest thing about SEO is that it’s all about getting FREE traffic to your property listing! I think of renter’s being able to find my property faster because I’ve learned to speak their language. And the great news is that once you’ve done the research, you can use your search engine knowledge over and over and over again…..incorporating the key words in your headline, ad listing, blogs, social media, and videos, and driving free traffic to your site as a result.
As a small business owner that is looking to grow their business through your web site, search engine optimization (SEO) is going to be one of THE most important strategies that determines your success in booking yourself solid.
It continually amazes me that most property owners never use any SEO strategies for their sites. I can’t tell you how many owners I’ve met and then taken a look at their website only to realize it’s totally lacking in SEO so it’s not ranked in Google, MSN or Yahoo for any kind of meaningful search engine traffic.
What we’re going to focus on first is keywords. Keywords are the words that your guest will use to ask the search engines what they are looking for. For example, a renter might type in “Beach Front Vacation Rental, Bar Harbor, Maine”. A vacation rental that has that exact text in their ad is likely to appear on the first results page of the search results. (If you only had “Vacation Rental, Bar Harbor” in your description you’re much less likely to appear on the first page because it’s not a very specific description and there’s a lot more competition.) You want to identify highly used keywords and keyword phrases so that you reach the highest number of potential guests with your listing.
Keyword Phrase Selection
To define what keywords are used for your rental, put yourself in the guest’s position and brainstorm what keywords they might use when looking for a rental in your area. Keep in mind, the really popular keywords, like Beach Vacation Rental are going to be extremely difficult to rank for….and broad phrases like that don’t tell the visitor much about your property. You want to be as specific as possible, ie “Beach Vacation Rental Sarasota, FL” or “Condo with Pool 10 minutes to Disneyworld”. Help the renter, and the search engines, find what they’re looking for! !
Say you have a ski rental in Stowe Vermont. Here are some key words to start with:
- Vacation Home Stowe Vermont
- Ski Chalet Stowe, Vermont
- Stowe Ski Chalet
- Vacation Rental Stowe Vermont
- Ski-In Condo Stowe
- Stowe Ski Rental Home
I could go on with dozens of variations of all of these. What you will need to do is decide what are the best phrases to target for your business. You also want to include common keyword misspellings and keyword variations to maximize your traffic. (IE variations on the above would include “Stow” as a misspelling).
Once you have identified keyword variations, you can head on over to Google’s free keyword tracking tool. They will tell you how much traffic each keyword receives on a monthly basis, as well as provide additional suggestions on your keywords. You’ll be amazed at how people are searching for you, I got several keyword results that I never would have guessed, and now I rank very highly for keywords directly related to my rental that get over 50 searches a day!
Want to start generating more traffic to your site by targeting the right keywords? Booked Solid Rentals offers keyword consulting packages to help you start off strong in this critical component of your vacation rental advertising. Contact info@bookedsolidrentals.com for more information. 
