| Once I stopped thinking like a property owner, | | | | Condo With Pool 10 minutes to Disneyworld". The |
| and started thinking like a small business owner | | | | trick is to help your renter find what they are |
| that wanted to increase their sales, I realized that | | | | searching for! |
| SEO was one of the most important strategies I | | | | Say you have a ski rental in Copper Mountain, CO |
| had in booking myself solid, and it was the | | | | Here are some key words to start with: |
| foundation for all that I was going to do. | | | | * Ski Rental Copper Mountain, CO |
| The foundation of your SEO strategy is | | | | * Ski Chalet Copper Mountain, CO |
| keywords. At the simplest level, keywords are | | | | * Copper Mountain Ski Chalet |
| the words that your renter will sit down and type | | | | * Vacation Rental Copper Mountain, CO |
| in the search engine when they begin their | | | | * Ski-In Condo Copper Mountain |
| vacation rental search. Since over 80% of all | | | | * Copper Mountain Ski Rental |
| research now starts at the search engine level | | | | I could go on with dozens of variations of all of |
| (as opposed to people going to bookmarked | | | | these. What you will need to do is decide what |
| sites), this is a critical concept to understand. | | | | are the best phrases to target for your business. |
| For example, a renter might type in "Lake Front | | | | You also want to include common keyword |
| Vacation Rental, Pocono Mountains, PA". A | | | | misspellings and keyword variations to maximize |
| vacation rental that uses those exact key words | | | | your traffic. (IE variations on the above would |
| is likely to appear at the top of Google's free | | | | include "Stow" as a misspelling). |
| search results (If you only had vacation rental, | | | | Once you have determined potential keywords |
| Poconos" you are less likely to appear because it's | | | | that people are searching for, head on over to |
| not very specific and there's a lot more | | | | Google or Wordtracker's free Keyword tools, |
| competition). You want to research and identify | | | | type them in, and see what kind of traffic these |
| high traffic keywords and keyword phrases so | | | | searches get. These tools will also provide you |
| you can reach the highest number of renters with | | | | with additional variations of your keywords based |
| your web site / ad listings. | | | | on actual monthly Google searches. You'll be |
| Selecting Your Keywords | | | | amazed at what comes back, there are word |
| To define what renters are searching for, put | | | | combinations that I never would have thought to |
| yourself in their position and start brainstorming | | | | use, but were bringing in 45 searches per day |
| words they might use when looking for a rental in | | | | (and I now rank very highly for those terms!). |
| your area. Keep in mind terms like "Lake Front | | | | Once you have defined your keywords, there are |
| Rental" are going to be extremely difficult to rank | | | | strategies you will need to follow about how to |
| for, and more importantly those broad phrases | | | | incorporate them throughout your site and all of |
| really don't tell your renter much about your | | | | your online efforts. This is the foundation for all of |
| property. You want to be as specific as possible, | | | | your online work. Learn how your renters are |
| so a better example would be: "Private Lake | | | | searching for you, and you'll be miles (and |
| Front Rental, Lake Michigan" or "Vacation Rental | | | | bookings!) ahead of your competition. |