Making Your Holiday Rental Website Work

Getting Bookings

Congratulations, you have already made the smart decision to furnish your Holiday Property with a website. Now we are going to explain how to get it to work for you.

Why this is important

In 2017, when we started launching Holiday Home websites, we found that many Owners would do nothing other than rely on Google to reward their website with bookings, possibly only logging in to their website when it was time to update the pricing. This has never been a winning approach for a new, unestablished website.

This brief guide will demonstrate how your website will bring you bookings – depending on the steps you now choose to take.

Let’s strategise this together!

Choosing Your Strategy

Here we present a number of very simple and commonly used strategies to grow the reach of your website. You don’t have to choose one, you could choose them all  (apart from the first one!)

They will all work for you in different ways but with very different levels of return.

  • 1. Doing Absolutely Nothing

    What it is

    Choosing to Do Absolutely Nothing is at best described as a faith-based approach to marketing.

    Either you will be expecting prospective guests to scroll to Page ‘Umpteen’ of Google Searched to find you, or you are fortunate to have a holiday home with no alternative accommodation available in a surrounding 10 miles. Which is unlikely.

    There are SEO services that will help you climb the rankings but these can be time consuming and come at a cost, and therefore out of scope of this article. In any case we wouldn’t recommend paying for SEO at least until after you have established a Strategy here.

    Just because your website is in the public domain doesn’t mean it is going to be found easily. You do need to have a think about how your potential guests are going to find your website as Google takes a little time to warm to new websites.

    What will happen

    As websites get older, visited more often and interacted with they will naturally become more visible on search engines which explains why ‘Doing Nothing’ is a slow building process.

    This kind of organic SEO can deliver results, and a free Google My Business listing will certainly help support your search engine visibility, however you will almost certainly need to be patient before you start seeing sizeable returns.

  • 2. Linking to Your Agency Listing

    Airbnb, VRBO and Booking.com it has to be said do a very good job with all the marketing millions they spend to introduce potential guests to our properties. Those millions have to come from somewhere however, and after being presented to guests as booking fees, guests will often look elsewhere to avoid paying them. Specifically they will look to book direct and you can make it very easy for guests to do this.

    But how can you link your Agency Listing to your Website – surely you can’t?

    What You Can’t Do

    You should never try to break the terms and conditions of your Agency Agreement.

    Your Agreement is likely to forbid you mentioning your website or adding a hyperlink to your website. Trying to add external links  to your website will be automatically removed if you do try and add them.

    Take advantage of your Agency listings but don’t be reliant on them. TripAdvisor has checked out of listing your holiday home and will soon be taking all your hard-won reviews with it! Aim to take control through your website.

    What You Can Do

    Within your Agency Listing you should create a descriptive link and also a visual link. A descriptive link is simply plain text contained within your Agency listing’s property description that offers enough detailed information for your guest to use in a search engine to find your website.

    An example of a good descriptive link could be “Welcome to Honeysuckle Cottage located in Coniston” If your prospective guest chooses to Google ‘Honeysuckle Cottage in Coniston” it should return the website.

    However a more general description such as “Welcome to our Holiday Cottage in the Lake District” is going to return a thousand other results when Googling “Holiday Cottage in Lake District”. So you need to be more specific with your description and possibly consider rebranding your accommodation. ‘The Cottage‘ for example is not going to help your property get found easily!

    A visual link requires the primary or main photo on your agency listing to be the same image as a photo on the homepage of your website. This gives the guest confidence that they have found the website that matches the agency listing they previously visited.

  • 3. Attract Repeat Customers

    Whereas most businesses employ sales and account managers to maintain a steady recycling of business, Holiday Home Owners tend to have a more short-term view of the world. As we tend to only look at the 12 months ahead of us and it is unlikely for guests to stay more frequently than once a year, repeat custom is often overlooked.

    Yet it is so much easier to get bookings from repeat customers than new customers. We already know who they are, we know what they like and we have the means to incentivise their next visit!

    It requires absolutely no effort to summon repeat business as an existing Owners Websites customer.  An automated email can be set to go out to all your guests on a given number of days/months after their stay. Thank them for their stay and make them feel special with a VIP code that they can use on their next booking – or they can choose to pass this on for family and friends to use!

    The only limitation with this is you do need to know your guest’s email address. No problem if they previously booked direct or you’ve exchanged direct emails with your guests – but what if they booked elsewhere and your Agency hasn’t provided it to you?

    Well, there is a way to even reach those guests. Next up, introducing ‘Guest Services‘

  • 4. Guest Services

    Many Hotels and Restaurants are already switched on to serving their customers with information through their websites. This approach is widespread due to benefits on many different levels that can be gained from engaging with customers this way.

    Our previous strategy, ‘Repeat Customers’, highlighted the difficulty seeking repeat bookings from guests that hadn’t previously booked direct.  Here is how we can do it in just 4 Steps.

    Step 1: Guest Arrival / Check-In

    Guests arriving at your accommodation are invited to check-in by scanning a QR code, printed on a welcome note or wall plaque. This code takes them to your properties ‘Welcome guide’ hosted on a dedicated page of your website.

    Step 1 Benefits

    • Website Interaction helps SEO
    • Optional automated email to Owner informing you of Guest’s arrival
    • A dynamic online-only welcome guide makes it easy to maintain with less printing,etc .

    Step 2: Guest Information / Damages

    Alongside the information provided within your welcome guide can be guidance as to damages / breakages. This can include giving your guest the ability to pay online for any damage caused during their stay and therefore not feel uncomfortable about an awkward conversation with the owner afterwards.

    Step 2 Benefits

    • Website Interaction helps SEO
    • Get Paid for Damages
    • Automated email warns Owner of any issues that need rectifying before the next guest.
    • Improved Guest experience

    Step 3: Guest Departure / Check-Out

    Guests should be asked to check out upon departure, again by scanning the QR code. Online they have the option to review their stay, provide private feedback and register their email for a discount off their next stay (transferable to friends and family if you wish)

    Step 3 Benefits

    • Website interaction helps SEO
    • Gather Reviews and private feedback
    • Automated email tells Owner when the property has been vacated
    • * Obtain Guest’s Email Address *

    Step 4: Repeat Customers

    Now you have your guest’s contact details you can maintain direct contact.

    Step 4 Benefits

    • Now You Can Grow Your Repeat Bookings
    • Automated email(s) to all guests (Agency included). Schedule x number of days after their stay with VIP code to entice them to stay again

Choosing Your Strategy

Here we present a number of very simple and commonly used strategies to grow the reach of your website. You don’t have to choose one, you could choose them all  (apart from the first one!)

They will all work for you in different ways but with very different levels of return.

1

Doing Absolutely Nothing

Benefits

Your website will become more visible on Search Engines – but very slowly

What it is

Choosing to Do Absolutely Nothing is at best described as a faith-based approach to marketing.

Either you will be expecting prospective guests to scroll to Page ‘Umpteen’ of Google Searched to find you, or you are fortunate to have a holiday home with no alternative accommodation available in a surrounding 10 miles. Which is unlikely.

There are SEO services that will help you climb the rankings but these can be time consuming and come at a cost, and therefore out of scope of this article. In any case we wouldn’t recommend paying for SEO at least until after you have established a Strategy here.

Just because your website is in the public domain doesn’t mean it is going to be found easily. You do need to have a think about how your potential guests are going to find your website as Google takes a little time to warm to new websites.

What will happen

As websites get older, visited more often and interacted with they will naturally become more visible on search engines which explains why ‘Doing Nothing’ is a slow building process.

This kind of organic SEO can deliver results, and a free Google My Business listing will certainly help support your search engine visibility, however you will almost certainly need to be patient before you start seeing sizeable returns.

2

Linking to Your Agency Listing

Benefits

  • Increase Direct Bookings from New Guests
  • Make your Property more Affordable
  • Pay less Commission to Agencies

Airbnb, VRBO and Booking.com it has to be said do a very good job with all the marketing millions they spend to introduce potential guests to our properties. Those millions have to come from somewhere however, and after being presented to guests as booking fees, guests will often look elsewhere to avoid paying them. Specifically they will look to book direct and you can make it very easy for guests to do this.

But how can you link your Agency Listing to your Website – surely you can’t?

What You Can’t Do

You should never try to break the terms and conditions of your Agency Agreement.

Your Agreement is likely to forbid you mentioning your website or adding a hyperlink to your website. Trying to add external links  to your website will be automatically removed if you do try and add them.

Take advantage of your Agency listings but don’t be reliant on them. TripAdvisor has checked out of listing your holiday home and will soon be taking all your hard-won reviews with it! Aim to take control through your website.

What You Can Do

Within your Agency Listing you should create a descriptive link and also a visual link. A descriptive link is simply plain text contained within your Agency listing’s property description that offers enough detailed information for your guest to use in a search engine to find your website.

An example of a good descriptive link could be “Welcome to Honeysuckle Cottage located in Coniston” If your prospective guest chooses to Google ‘Honeysuckle Cottage in Coniston” it should return the website.

However a more general description such as “Welcome to our Holiday Cottage in the Lake District” is going to return a thousand other results when Googling “Holiday Cottage in Lake District”. So you need to be more specific with your description and possibly consider rebranding your accommodation. ‘The Cottage‘ for example is not going to help your property get found easily!

A visual link requires the primary or main photo on your agency listing to be the same image as a photo on the homepage of your website. This gives the guest confidence that they have found the website that matches the agency listing they previously visited.

3

Attract Repeat Customers

Benefits

  • Get Repeat Bookings from Previous Guests
  • Improve Your Customer Service
  • Offer more value to Guests

Whereas most businesses employ sales and account managers to maintain a steady recycling of business, Holiday Home Owners tend to have a more short-term view of the world. As we tend to only look at the 12 months ahead of us and it is unlikely for guests to stay more frequently than once a year, repeat custom is often overlooked.

Yet it is so much easier to get bookings from repeat customers than new customers. We already know who they are, we know what they like and we have the means to incentivise their next visit!

It requires absolutely no effort to summon repeat business as an existing Owners Websites customer.  An automated email can be set to go out to all your guests on a given number of days/months after their stay. Thank them for their stay and make them feel special with a VIP code that they can use on their next booking – or they can choose to pass this on for family and friends to use!

The only limitation with this is you do need to know your guest’s email address. No problem if they previously booked direct or you’ve exchanged direct emails with your guests – but what if they booked elsewhere and your Agency hasn’t provided it to you?

Well, there is a way to even reach those guests. Next up, introducing ‘Guest Services‘

4

Guest Services

Benefits

  • Improve SEO
  • Increase Repeat Bookings
  • Gather Reviews
  • Recover Damages
  • Property Management
  • Increase Direct Bookings
  • Better Customer Service

Many Hotels and Restaurants are already switched on to serving their customers with information through their websites. This approach is widespread due to benefits on many different levels that can be gained from engaging with customers this way.

Our previous strategy, ‘Repeat Customers’, highlighted the difficulty seeking repeat bookings from guests that hadn’t previously booked direct.  Here is how we can do it in just 4 Steps.

Step 1: Guest Arrival / Check-In

Guests arriving at your accommodation are invited to check-in by scanning a QR code, printed on a welcome note or wall plaque. This code takes them to your properties ‘Welcome guide’ hosted on a dedicated page of your website.

Step 1 Benefits

  • Website Interaction helps SEO
  • Optional automated email to Owner informing you of Guest’s arrival
  • A dynamic online-only welcome guide makes it easy to maintain with less printing,etc .

Step 2: Guest Information / Damages

Alongside the information provided within your welcome guide can be guidance as to damages / breakages. This can include giving your guest the ability to pay online for any damage caused during their stay and therefore not feel uncomfortable about an awkward conversation with the owner afterwards.

Step 2 Benefits

  • Website Interaction helps SEO
  • Get Paid for Damages
  • Automated email warns Owner of any issues that need rectifying before the next guest.
  • Improved Guest experience

Step 3: Guest Departure / Check-Out

Guests should be asked to check out upon departure, again by scanning the QR code. Online they have the option to review their stay, provide private feedback and register their email for a discount off their next stay (transferable to friends and family if you wish)

Step 3 Benefits

  • Website interaction helps SEO
  • Gather Reviews and private feedback
  • Automated email tells Owner when the property has been vacated
  • * Obtain Guest’s Email Address *

Step 4: Repeat Customers

Now you have your guest’s contact details you can maintain direct contact.

Step 4 Benefits

  • Now You Can Grow Your Repeat Bookings
  • Automated email(s) to all guests (Agency included). Schedule x number of days after their stay with VIP code to entice them to stay again

Get the Basics Right too

As an Owners Website customer you don’t need to worry about much else as we will have taken care of the technical aspects of your website.

There are still a couple of user-configurable controls that you may need to be aware of though that could affect your strategy so be mindful of these if updating your website yourself.

> Accept Instant Payment

Instant Payment leads to Instant Bookings.

Many guests would prefer not to engage in a time consuming back and forth email exchange before their booking is confirmed and may look elsewhere.

> Write Engaging Text Content

If possible write from your guest's perspective about the experience that they can expect - very important on the HomePage which you should instead think of as your SalesPage.

> Make Sure Emails Are Being Received

This won’t become an issue for Owners Websites customers on any of our hosting plans.

However, if you host with your own Hosting provider check your Domain Configuration to make sure you have your DMARC settings configured correctly – and use an SMTP service.

If your website is several years old we recommend our Self Managed Hosting customers upgrade to our Managed Hosting Service. This will update your website’s software (including booking system and security plugins) to their latest versions and keep them up to date.

View Managed Hosting

Websites Designed For Bookings

Does your holiday home require a Professional Website?

Any website designer can build a site for you with a home page, pretty gallery and a contact page.

Owners Websites build sites with hospitality business know-how baked in. Websites are designed on our own feature-rich, subscription-free booking platform designed to process AND generate bookings for you.

Compare our all-inclusive Annual costs of running your Owners Website

Holiday Rental Website Review