Dedicated Holiday Letting Websites With Live Availability Calendars & Online Booking System
SEO : Long Tail Keywords
Think like your website visitors
1. Getting Visitors To Your Website
Google will put the most relevant websites at the top of search results, which is why when people search "holiday cottage" or "self catering cottage" all the big name websites appear first, same as if you type "car", you get Auto-Trader, not the little garage down the road.
Those are the big keywords most website owners will go for, trying to compete and usually fail. While you should obviously put all the usual search words on your home page - "self-catering", "serviced apartment", "dog friendly", "letting", "rental", "holiday", "vacation" and your region and village/town/city and all the synonyms that apply to your particular holiday property, it is understanding why potential guests are coming to part of the world. While the "high" season is probably simply a holiday, the majority of the year or the "low" season there are 101 reasons why somebody is looking for somewhere to stay. Find the reasons and you will fill your rooms.
The big keywords aren't all they seem either - "holiday cottage" can mean somebody is looking for information on how to buy, insurance, how to sell, letting law, tenancy agreements, etc. All the main holiday letting advertising websites have bounce rates around 35-40%, if they claim 1m visitors a month then around 400,000 visitors hit the back button immediately because they are on the wrong website.
Whilst the big one or two word search phrases are difficult to achieve good search results for, what does work for small websites and the big websites can't do easily is what is known as "long tail keywords" or "long tail SEO".
Those are the big keywords most website owners will go for, trying to compete and usually fail. While you should obviously put all the usual search words on your home page - "self-catering", "serviced apartment", "dog friendly", "letting", "rental", "holiday", "vacation" and your region and village/town/city and all the synonyms that apply to your particular holiday property, it is understanding why potential guests are coming to part of the world. While the "high" season is probably simply a holiday, the majority of the year or the "low" season there are 101 reasons why somebody is looking for somewhere to stay. Find the reasons and you will fill your rooms.
The big keywords aren't all they seem either - "holiday cottage" can mean somebody is looking for information on how to buy, insurance, how to sell, letting law, tenancy agreements, etc. All the main holiday letting advertising websites have bounce rates around 35-40%, if they claim 1m visitors a month then around 400,000 visitors hit the back button immediately because they are on the wrong website.
Whilst the big one or two word search phrases are difficult to achieve good search results for, what does work for small websites and the big websites can't do easily is what is known as "long tail keywords" or "long tail SEO".
Images courtesy Tod D'Mahe
Long Tail SEO - Long Tail Keywords
For every 1000 people searching for somewhere to stay in Yorkshire only 500 will actually type "holiday cottage yorkshire", the other 500 will be searching for something else, could be 500 different search terms, "mountain biking accommodation yorkshire dales", "what's on in harrogate in april", etc.
Individually these search terms aren't worth much, but added together, these searches equal or exceed the simple "holiday cottage" - that's a lot of potential visitors.
Few, if any of these visitors are wanting to solely stay in your cottage, sit indoors all week commenting on how nice it is - finding accommodation is a means to an end, not the end itself.
Your guests are golfers, bird watchers, cyclists, walkers, attending weddings, vintage car enthusiasts, touring motorcyclists, fishermen, business people attending a conference, artists, photographers, history buffs, skiers, competitors in sporting events - the list is endless, they are coming to your region for a reason and need somewhere to lay their head.
To start this kind of search optimisation you need to be able to add more pages to your website - ideally one page for each subject.
Individually these search terms aren't worth much, but added together, these searches equal or exceed the simple "holiday cottage" - that's a lot of potential visitors.
Few, if any of these visitors are wanting to solely stay in your cottage, sit indoors all week commenting on how nice it is - finding accommodation is a means to an end, not the end itself.
Your guests are golfers, bird watchers, cyclists, walkers, attending weddings, vintage car enthusiasts, touring motorcyclists, fishermen, business people attending a conference, artists, photographers, history buffs, skiers, competitors in sporting events - the list is endless, they are coming to your region for a reason and need somewhere to lay their head.
To start this kind of search optimisation you need to be able to add more pages to your website - ideally one page for each subject.
How To Add Extra Pages To Your Website
How easy it will be for you to add extra pages to your website is going to depend on how it was built. If you are using any kind of content management system (CMS) then it should be straightforward - just log in to your CMS admin section and start adding. If you built your website yourself, editing the pages on your PC, then uploading them to the website hosting server, then it shouldn't be too difficult either.
If you used a web designer to build your site then it's just a matter of writing your text and emailing it off with any images and instructions - you may want to get a quote for how much this work will cost first though.
If you used a web designer to build your site then it's just a matter of writing your text and emailing it off with any images and instructions - you may want to get a quote for how much this work will cost first though.
How To Add More Pages To One Of Our Websites
To add an extra page to our CMS just decide where it is going and click the green+ button. Go to the page and give it title, choose a template and which navigation menu it is going on, then just start typing or pasting your text. Add a photo, links, more paragraphs, more boxes, resize them or move them around. The admin section looks exactly the same as what your visitors will see to make editing as easy as possible.
Every installation of one of our websites allows 50 pages - about 28 of them are already used, so you have 22 to "sell" your part of the world.
Every installation of one of our websites allows 50 pages - about 28 of them are already used, so you have 22 to "sell" your part of the world.
Think Like Your Visitors
In deciding what to write about, imagine you have relatives coming from the other side of the world. You would probably make a list of what they would like to see and do, recommend places even if you don't take them on a guided tour yourself.
Do a search for "what's on in XXX" to find all the events that are on in your area. Try fill every week of the year. Suggest some itineraries - Monday, visit the cathedral, take the guided tour, have dinner at XYZ restaurant.
Imagine you are your guests - a retired couple, a young family, honeymooners, businessmen, etc. People have birthdays, anniversaries, family reunions, weddings, funerals all year round.
Below are a few categories to get you going - you are killing two birds with one stone by adding useful content, people searching for "abc information in xyz location" will discover you have accommodation, and guests who have already decided to stay with you have the information they need to have a pleasant stay.
You probably leave tourist guides, information from the local tourist office, lists of local shops, supermarkets, doctors, etc on a table in your holiday property for your guests - put it on your website.
Remember if you don't write the words, Google won't index you and potential guests will never find you.
Do a search for "what's on in XXX" to find all the events that are on in your area. Try fill every week of the year. Suggest some itineraries - Monday, visit the cathedral, take the guided tour, have dinner at XYZ restaurant.
Imagine you are your guests - a retired couple, a young family, honeymooners, businessmen, etc. People have birthdays, anniversaries, family reunions, weddings, funerals all year round.
Below are a few categories to get you going - you are killing two birds with one stone by adding useful content, people searching for "abc information in xyz location" will discover you have accommodation, and guests who have already decided to stay with you have the information they need to have a pleasant stay.
You probably leave tourist guides, information from the local tourist office, lists of local shops, supermarkets, doctors, etc on a table in your holiday property for your guests - put it on your website.
Remember if you don't write the words, Google won't index you and potential guests will never find you.
General
Where to buy food, where to eat.
Hospital, doctor, 24 hour chemist.
What to do when it's raining.
Where to take the kids.
Where to hire bikes, rowing boats.
Necessities to bring - tea-bags, marmite
Best beaches, walks, places of interest.
Where's the cinema, theatre, nightclub.
Tours & guides.
Hospital, doctor, 24 hour chemist.
What to do when it's raining.
Where to take the kids.
Where to hire bikes, rowing boats.
Necessities to bring - tea-bags, marmite
Best beaches, walks, places of interest.
Where's the cinema, theatre, nightclub.
Tours & guides.
Events
Annual events for every month.
Agricultural shows.
Sporting events.
Vintage car meetings.
Golf tournaments.
Horse trials - racing.
Fairs, air displays, motor sports.
Festivals - arts & crafts.
Adventure & Theme parks.
Agricultural shows.
Sporting events.
Vintage car meetings.
Golf tournaments.
Horse trials - racing.
Fairs, air displays, motor sports.
Festivals - arts & crafts.
Adventure & Theme parks.
Hobbies
Locations for artists and photographers.
Historical monuments.
Museums.
Stately homes.
Gardens open to the public.
Golf, tennis & other clubs.
Art, pottery, language, flying lessons.
Fishing, water sports, sailing.
Historical monuments.
Museums.
Stately homes.
Gardens open to the public.
Golf, tennis & other clubs.
Art, pottery, language, flying lessons.
Fishing, water sports, sailing.
The Results
The bad news is this is not a quick fix to your visitor numbers. It takes time for the search engines to index all your new content and position it in it's right place in the search results - somewhere near the top of page 1. If it was quick & easy, add content today, page 1 tomorrow then any search would result in the first few result pages being full of scammers ripping people off.
You can monitor how visitors are coming to your website and what keywords they used by adding the Google Analytics code - it is a 2 minute job to set up analytics and every website should be using it - it is free.
Over time you will an increase in visitor numbers, where in the world they came from, how they arrived at your website, what search words they used and which page they first landed on. You can use this information to make your most popular pages better.
The example of the left shows 74% of visitors came from searching, 6% from referrals - probably paid-for holiday listing sites and 19% typed in the website name or had it bookmarked.
You can monitor how visitors are coming to your website and what keywords they used by adding the Google Analytics code - it is a 2 minute job to set up analytics and every website should be using it - it is free.
Over time you will an increase in visitor numbers, where in the world they came from, how they arrived at your website, what search words they used and which page they first landed on. You can use this information to make your most popular pages better.
The example of the left shows 74% of visitors came from searching, 6% from referrals - probably paid-for holiday listing sites and 19% typed in the website name or had it bookmarked.