Marketing Vacation Rentals

Reputation is the cornerstone of increased reservations: once your vacation rental builds a good reputation, the domino effect begins and reservations start flowing. To kick start the process, consider using awards nominations to boost the profile and reputation of your accommodation. In most cases, getting nominated is free (or relatively inexpensive) and takes no more than 10 or 15 minutes.

Writing and submitting articles about your vacation rental is probably the cheapest and most cost effective form of advertising that can help increase traffic and bookings.

Article writing increases traffic to your listing as it is picked up by several travel and vacation websites and blogs through RSS (really simple syndication) feeds.  Adding vacation rental articles helps to create quality back links to your property listing or website, which is important in increasing organic web traffic (search engine optimization - SEO).

Once your article is published you can promote it through your blog, on Facebook, Twitter and / or on your own website.

Having a Vacation Rental Blog can help you market your property online and get more bookings.
Some of the main advantages of having your Blog are:
1. Use your Blog to drive additional traffic to your website or Vacation Rental listing(s) - increase your bookings
2. Inform visitors and guests about recent changes to your rental property
3. Attract visitors interested in the local events near your Vacation Rental.

Writing a blog can be a challenge, especially when you first start one.  Here are some tips and ideas you might want to consider.

1. Updated photos or videos of your property, close ups or new additions will add more interests in your rental.  If you added new features to your property or changed something, write about it and add a photo/video.
2. Add lots of information about the local area, links and travel resources.
3. Write about upcoming events to add more interest in your location.  Add related articles or news information about such events from the web.  This will help people who are interested in finding out about local events in your area find you and possibly book your property.
4. Don't forget to write about recent events that you attended.  Add related videos, photos and your comments.  Write about what it is that you enjoyed at such events.
5. Write about what makes your property unique.
6. Don't forget to write your own opinion about the advantages of renting a vacation home over a hotel or motel room(s).
7. Share your thoughts about recent additions that might have happened because of a recent feedback that you've received.
8. Add a page with frequently asked questions together with answers.  Encourage visitors to ask additional questions, if they feel that something is still not covered by the already given answers.
9. Ask your readers questions.  This is a great way to get your readers involved with your Blog and create connections.  Not to mention that you can get valuable feedback to your questions!
10. Offer discounts to your readers for booking early or during seasons that you know might be slow.

Promoting a VR web site is a constant struggle. One big struggle is getting the site found on the web. Search engines and links from our directory listings are the most popular ways to push traffic to our sites. Some folks will tell you that Link Building is the answer. While it is certainly true that link-building is good for Search Engine Optimization (SEO), you need to be sure that you’re exchanging links with quality, relevant sites.

Did you know that each time you update your listing we will move it up on the corresponding listing category pages?
We feel that it's good to show new and updated information first, and therefore each time you update your listing we will move it up the list on corresponding listing category pages.  Feel free to take advantage of this and update your Vacation Rental listing(s) often.
Your listing also moves up the day you renew your membership with us.

In part one ( Tips on How to Market Vacation Rental Homes Online ) we talked about the basics of how to market your Vacation Rental Home.
In this article you will find more details on how to create your own website and Vacation Rental Listing to successfully market your Vacation Property.

When you create your Vacation Rental listing, focus on quality photos and detailed description.  Meta tags, keywords and title are also very important.

Most of the time, when adding a listing to Vacation Rental Directory site, you do not have control over the Meta Tags and Keywords (all explained below) of your listing page. 
However, you should know that when you list your Vacation Rental Property on VR Referrals, you CAN set your own Meta Tags and description on your Vacation Rental listing page.

Great thing about having your own website is that you are in total control of it.  But "having" a website is not enough, you still need travelers to find it!

So how do you build a website that others can find?

Having a Vacation Rental Home and being able to successfully rent it on short term basis not only can help with bills, but it can also add up to a nice income!

According to United States Travel Association:

In another publication "Impact of Travel on State Economies 2010" U.S Travel Association reports :

Vacation Rental is a great alternative to a hotel, because it provides travelers with additional comfort, homey feeling, and in general the cost of renting a Vacation Home is lower or at least comparable to a hotel, ...with no guests in the room next door!  Quite often a vacation rental will feature more amenities and features, such as more space, fully equipped kitchen, DVD library, books, etc.  Not to mention the outside yard or a grill that guests can use.  Since Vacation Rentals can range from budget studio apartments to expensive private villas, the biggest advantage of renting a Vacation Home most likely is that Vacation Rentals offer the advantage of experiencing how life in one's destination is truly like for the locals.

How do you market your Vacation Rental so that travelers actually know about it?
There are few choices that Vacation Rental Owners can pick from when considering marketing their Vacation Home.