Vacation Rental Marketing—You Don’t Need to Be a Search Engine Genius!
If you know a bit about vacation rental marketing and Search Engine Optimization you are practically a genius already. In reality, most people do not even know what SEO means. Bear in mind when reading this article, the old saying, “A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.” And, this is especially true with SEO.
Why should you care about SEO? Well, I think you might want to get more traffic—vacation rental traffic that leads to bookings which go directly to your site. If that’s you … read on!
At Vacation Rental Brand our mission is to make vacation rental marketing with SEO simple and transparent—that is why we created the A LA CARTE menu. Subsequently, our clients start slow, move at their own pace, and learn SEO strategies as their brand vitality and search engine visibility grows.
Have you ever heard the expression, “You don’t know, what you don’t know?” Likewise, VRB clients avoid costly SEO penalties and fast-talking SEO hustlers—who can do more damage than good! Above all, with straightforward info from Vacation Rental Brand, you quickly learn to spot counterfeits as well as the real thing. Meanwhile, let us educate you about this key business tool. Finally, to succeed in the SEO game, you do not need to be an SEO genius!
What is SEO & How is SEO Related to Vacation Rental Advertising?
Before I write further, I want to define what search engine optimization is. As always, the Vacation Rental Brand team does not want to “hurt your brain,”—rather, we want to inform. But first, below is the simplest definition of SEO.
Definition: SEO represents the collection of compounded actions made to influence search engine results in favor of your website.
Now, these efforts take many forms. Consider that these combine like magic to make an impact on where your website lands in search engine results! Done well, this symphony of SEO events will bring targeted traffic to your online business.
The Main Parts of the Search Engine Game
The thing that makes the SEO game complicated is the many aspects that work together to create search engine results. Although many trends and “fast methods’ are pushed, the truth is that SEO success is not just one magic bullet! For instance, when users go to a search engine to look for something, they type in a keyword or a key phrase. Obviously, our expectation for beneficial vacation rental marketing, is for a certain keyword or key phrase to lead travelers to your website. Finally, when the search engine returns the list of websites, the goal is for your travel website to appear near the top.
Keywords & Key Phrases
Keywords and phrases are the first in the series of events that search engine algorithms explore to return website results. Therefore, keyword research for phrases which will attract travelers to view properties at your website, is a great first step. As a result, professional content writers build website content around defined keywords relevant to your offering. For instance, vacation property keywords usually include property or property management name, geographic area, and tourist attractions and area events. Obviously, keywords such as vacation rentals, vacation properties, and short-term rentals will also be part of your keyword phrases.
Travel Writing Content that Ranks
Consider four types of content writing for vacation rental sites:
- Travel Guides
- Third Party Reviews
- Travel Blogs and guest articles
- Off site Travel Articles
Travel Guides for Online Marketing
Good SEO for vacation rental marketing includes many types of articles. Certainly, you will want to include travel guides on your site. Of course those travel guides will review your geographic area and the attractions in the area. Include links from the local attractions to your specific property listings in that area. Content leads people interested in those local attractions to your vacation rental property listings. In addition, the links are also a search engine plus. When search engine software looks for reasons to place your website in its results they scour your website for links.
Third-Party Property Reviews
Indeed, part of travel writing content will include specific third-party reviews of your various properties. Although third party reviews are extremely valuable, they are difficult to compile. Of course, you can copy existing reviews from listing sites, or review sites such as Trip Adviser, or Oyster. The problem with that is the search engines may penalize your site for “plagiarism” or duplicate content. Or, hire a third-party review from The Vacation Rental Travel Guide, which offers extensive vacation property reviews.
On site and off site Travel Blogs
Thirdly, generic travel blogs help with ranking with search engines by providing relevant links, plus building authority for your site. As your site increases in its authority for travel, this tells the search engine algorithm to rank your site higher,
Blogging & Guest Blogging on Relevant Travel Sites
Lastly, blogging on other non-competing travel sites with links to your property listings is another type of useful content. When hiring a content writer, some writers will post an article leading you your site to their existing blog.
Travel Writing & On Page Optimization
Travel writing on a consistent basis (once a week minimum) with optimized content will help your site rank high in search engine results for keywords that matter.
However, we must connect all the dots. With content writing we need to consider two main connection strategies.” One is the page optimization and the other is links. But first, what is on page optimization?
On page optimization is focused on connecting the key words in the content with the key words being searched. Of course, keyword research will give you all kinds of clues regarding this. The big picture though, is to cover all the key words and key phrases throughout the different pages of your site.
Google Readability & Optimized Content
For good on page optimization, this means the content will offer two main aspects–Google Readability and SEO components. Readability is a feature that was created by Google Search Engine to locate content that is easily readable for 7th grade and higher. For instance, these include 21 different features such a sentence length, article length, transition words, headings, paragraph length, and vocabulary, to name a few.
Another famous phrase: You get what you pay for!” If you hire a content writer, be sure they understand Google Readability and SEO and are able to provide the top tier grade for that.
Content Must Pass Optimization Tests
In addition the SEO portion of on-page optimization includes such pieces as image tags, keywords in headlines, meta description (what shows in search engine results) and more. Together about 21 points must be hit, in order to get reliable on-page optimization with for any hope that the page will ever see the light of day on search engines.
In summary, all travel content must include excellent on-page optimization which is often as time consuming to do, as the actual writing itself. Ask your content write for an Optimization Test (samples pictured). As a result, understand that optimized content will be more expensive than the cheaper articles that do not include on page optimization. Pay a little more, and get something that works as opposed to paying less for something that has little to no value for your ranking.
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