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Let’s be honest: search engine optimization (SEO) is time consuming and often pits you against companies employing teams of experts trying to beat the competition. The good news is that there are ways to level the playing field.
If you’re willing to put in the time and effort, there are long-term rewards because search optimization has a more lasting effect than paid advertising. When you stop paying for ads, your listing is deleted and all the traffic and bookings that came with it are gone as well. With organic search, while it’s not as easy to get a first page ranking (as opposed to buying it), once you do, it’s harder for your competition to knock you out of position.
But first, you need to have your own vacation rental website. And while you may not become an SEO expert overnight, there are plenty of things you can do to improve your organic search rankings. First, I suggest you check out some resources to get up to speed on the basics of SEO. My favorites are the “Beginner’s Guide to SEO” on SEOmoz and “What is SEO” from Search Engine Land.
Broad Against Keywords
Let’s review two different types of keywords: broad keywords and long-tail keywords. Broad keywords are usually general keyword phrases for your website that have a high monthly search volume and a lot of competition. They’re hard to rank for and the traffic isn’t that relevant, which means you’ll get less qualified queries as a result.
Long-tail keywords, on the other hand, are very specific keyword phrases for your website. They have lower search volume, but also less competition. They are easier to rank for and produce higher quality traffic to your website, resulting in more qualified inquiries for your vacation rental.
Here are some examples:
broad keywords
- vacation rentals
- vacation rentals
- Lake Tahoe Vacation Rentals
- Tahoe Vacation Homes
long tail keywords
- Tahoe Donner Ski Home Rental
- agate bay vacation home
- North Lake Tahoe ski house rental
- Kings Beach summer vacation home
Create a universe of keywords
Open an Excel spreadsheet or Google Doc and start typing in all the keywords that might be relevant to your vacation rental. What phrases would potential renters search for if they were looking for your house? Include terms that relate to your surrounding area, local attractions, and are descriptive of your rental. Try to generate 50 – 100 keywords.
Visit competitor vacation rental websites and pay close attention to the topics they cover and the headlines throughout their site. Many of these keywords will also relate to your audience.
Google also has a couple of tools to help you build your keyword universe: the contextual targeting tool and the keyword tool. Just enter a couple of keywords and Google will help you identify other related terms. While both tools are part of the Google AdWords paid advertising product, they are free to use and can provide as much value for your organic keyword research as they would for paid search.
Select 10 keywords to target
Now that your universe of keywords is complete, copy the list into the Google Keyword Tool to see the competition and monthly search volume for each term. Your goal is to narrow down the list and select 10 keywords to target your website. While many of the terms may be relevant, we just want to start with a reasonable number to work with first.
Strike a balance between broad and long-tail keywords. If all of your targeted keywords have very little competition, there may not be enough people searching for those phrases to have an impact on your traffic or bookings. At the same time, if you choose only highly competitive phrases, it can be so difficult to rank for those terms that your website never gets any traffic from them. Getting to the first page of search engine results is key because a whopping 75% of users never click past page one, according to Sitepoint.com.
I found “heavenly town” and “lake tahoe ski season” with low to medium difficulty and monthly search volume from a couple hundred to a couple thousand. These are great options for Lake Tahoe vacation rentals.
Next steps
Search engine optimization is a marathon, not a sprint. By choosing 10 keywords to focus on first, you can prioritize your efforts and measure your results. You’ll want to apply these keywords to your website making sure you have content that addresses those terms. For example, adding information on your website about “Lake Tahoe ski season” or where “heavenly town” is located is a good start.