RealtyTech's Blog

Digital Marketing For Your Vacation Properties + Rentals

Are you a new or established real estate professional with an emphasis on vacation properties and rentals in your local market? With the growing prevalence of convenient smart phone apps such as AirBnB, the competition is hot when it comes to getting your vacation rentals noticed online by consumer demand.

At RealtyTech, we’ve specialized in offering real estate broker and agent websites with IDX for over 15 years. Aside from integrating all of your available listings on your own website, experts suggest setting up landing pages for your most viable vacation properties where potential guests can book and reserve your rental property from their desktop, laptop, smartphone, or tablet.

Looking to extend the digital reach of your vacation properties? Keep reading to learn more about how to increase your overall visibility and bookings by means of mobile optimization.

Why Mobile Optimization Matters

As a vacation property owner or real estate professional, you might think that listings for your vacation rentals are more than enough. Think again. With more and more potential guests and tenants planning their trips and booking accommodations online, it will be important for you to meet consumer demands by investing in digital assets that are search-friendly and mobile optimized. Here are some helpful statistics about why mobile optimization for vacation properties matters significantly!

Fast Facts:

  • Around 80% of all last minute vacation rental bookings are made from mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.
  • At the end of 2017, travel agencies saw a 37% increase in online bookings from smartphones.

Google + Your Vacation Rental Website

Since 2015, Google has updated its search algorithm to give precedence and priority to websites that are optimized for mobile devices. Not only is this important for small businesses, but also real estate professionals who display their listings online and create landing pages for their villas and vacation properties. Now more than ever it’s crucial that vacation rental websites adhere to the following standards for search prominence:

  • Quick loading times
  • Correct formatting
  • Unblocked Javascript + CSS files
  • Up-to-date Flash animations

Making Your Vacation Property Listings Mobile-Friendly

Creating and maintaining quality websites or landing pages for your vacation properties and rentals is a feat in itself. Part of having effective digital assets and strategies as a real estate professional is making sure your properties can be seen and booked from a mobile device. Here we’ve included some of the main factors that contribute to a vacation property website that is easy to access anytime and anywhere!
 

Responsive Web Design:

The best way to make sure that a landing page for your vacation rental is mobile-friendly is to choose a responsive web platform that will automatically resize and adapt your content and booking engine according to device.

Web Page Speed:

For your vacation property and rental website to be favorable to Google, your web page(s) will need to load quickly for devices that utilize 3G and 4G networks.

Local SEO:

According to Google, there has been a 3400% growth in searches that include “near me” — with 80% of this increase credited to searches made from mobile devices! To make your vacation property more visible to online users, local SEO will play a huge part in increasing overall web traffic and bookings. Even after your vacation rental website is launched, you should claim and create listings via Google My Business, Bing, and Facebook to boost its prominence in local searches.

Up-To-Date Web Content:

Additionally, you will want to make sure that all content related to your vacation properties and rentals is up-to-date. Users are more apt to trust mobile-friendly websites that look modern rather than clunky versions that look like they were designed in the 90’s. This means that easy-navigation and easy-to-read fonts are key for your mobile-friendly interface.

Google Travel:

An app designed to simplify trip planning and logistics for travelers, it will only help if your vacation property is available and/or visible via Google Travel in addition to its other listings.

Videos:

Owned by Google, YouTube is now the 2nd largest search platform on the internet and can be a helpful tool for any real estate professionals who are looking to increase the online visibility of their vacation properties. Posting just 30-45 second videos of your vacation rental and embedding them on your web page(s) or landing page(s) will be beneficial–since most content users want to find or see is video that can be viewed from their mobile devices.

Customer Reviews + Stories:

Building and being able to show your reputation online is vital to your vacation properties and brand at large. Potential guests looking for the perfect vacation rental online do their research before booking, so it’s important for you as a real estate professional to have as much information and social proof available. Create a customer review and/or story stream on your vacation rental website and make sure it is readable from a smartphone or tablet.

Virtual Tours:

Nowadays, photos and videos are not enough. Real estate professionals will need to provide the vacation experience online before landing potential guests and clients. This is best done through 3D virtual tours that allow a user to see the entire vacation property as if they were in-person from their desktop, laptop, or mobile device.

Mistakes To Avoid With Your Vacation Rental Website

When creating or redesigning websites or landing pages for your vacation rentals, keep the following in mind to prevent hurting your web traffic and online visibility:

  • Focusing too much on the features of the home rather than the benefits to the guest(s)
  • Forgetting to share or emphasize regional expertise
  • Lack of concept and/or strategy
  • Small and/or low-quality photos
  • Interfaces that are too busy on a design level
  • Leaving out an ‘About Us’ page
  • No chat or direct message feature
  • Not making online booking easy and/or secure

Digital Real Estate Solutions When You Need Them The Most

Do you have any additional questions about how to create the best digital strategies for your vacation properties? Feel free to contact our real estate marketing professionals with any inquiries and learn more about our digital assets and IDX solutions for real estate professionals just like you! Call us at 805.413.7888.