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How to Make Your Vacation Rental Listing Stand Out (Today)

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If you’re seeking information on how to make your vacation rental listing stand out, you’ve come to the right place. Not only will we cover how to stand out, but also why it is important to stand out. Today, the majority of customers book vacation rentals online. This means that your listings are your highest revenue generators and must be prioritized and optimized.

Simple ways to quickly make your vacation rental listing stand out, you’ll love this guide.

The principle is simple: the higher your listing ranks in Google and other search engines, the higher your chance of getting bookings. Additionally, your listing must stand out in a sea of fierce competition. Your listing should answer the question, “Why should I, the customer, choose your property over all the others?” With this in mind, let’s get into the nitty-gritty of making your vacation rental listing stand out.

The Need for Your Vacation Rental Listing to Stand Out

This is where we answer the “why’s” of standing out. Making your listings stand out will take time, effort, and money. So is it even worth it? Here are the reasons why it is absolutely essential for you to post stand-out listings:

1. Building Trust with Your Target Audience

In the world of vacation rentals, trust is exceedingly important. If you walk into a hotel room and find it unsatisfactory, you can check out immediately. However, vacation rentals are often booked for extended periods of time and may not provide immediate cancellation. Therefore, choosing a trusted property is of top priority.

If your vacation rental listing stands out, the search engine will showcase it and in turn, people might choose your property over others. Trust can also be built by obtaining high property ratings and customer reviews.

2. Gives Your Property The Space It Deserves

If you have the best property in your region, then doesn’t it deserve the top position? Unfortunately, it may be falling short of this deserved position if your property listing ranks lower than other listings. As mentioned earlier: the higher the ranking, the greater the bookings, and the greater the profits.

Gives Your Property The Space It Deserves

You may have the most fabulous property in town, but you must showcase it to receive due reward for your efforts and money spent in maintaining your property. By making your vacation rental listing stand out, you can proudly say, “That’s my spot!”

Methods of Making Your Vacation Rental Listing Stand Out

Now that you’re ready to make a stand-out listing for your stand-out property, let’s talk about how to do it. Below, you’ll find the key ways to build Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Strap these tools in your proverbial toolbelt, and your property will be skyrocketing in no time:

1. Catchy & Relevant Titles – Make the Best Use of the Space Given to You

Remember that your primary aim in making a stand-out vacation rental listing stand is to achieve a higher ranking in the search results. Most search engines, including Google, have a complex algorithm that matches the searched words to relevant results. Having a relevant title (meta title) for your page is the first step to pass your page through the matching algorithm.

For example, if people search for vacation rental properties in Wyoming, then your page with the title ‘Wyoming’s Best Vacation Rental’ would be a good search result. However, if you title your listing broadly as “Vacation Home for Rent,” then your listing will not be relevant to the search and your property will not be showcased.

Additionally, your meta title must be catchy. There might be hundreds of vacation rental properties in Wyoming, but if your title is “Wyoming’s Best Vacation Rental Near Yellowstone National Park,” then your listing will stand out. Yellowstone is the crown jewel and best destination spot of Wyoming, and people will definitely visit it on their road trip. That means there is a much greater chance that they will click on your listing. Use colorful adjectives and descriptors that highlight the best qualities of your property to entice and attract potential customers.

Write Catchy & Relevant Titles

Therefore, make use of the space given to you, and try to make your meta title as catchy as possible. This might not result in immediate bookings, but it will definitely widen your net and help you gain more views. However, this doesn’t mean that you should overuse the space. Anything between 50-65 characters is appropriate, but very long titles are completely ignored by search engines.

2. Use Meta Description to Your Benefit

You will use a meta description to describe your property in a paragraph. Here, it is important to keep in mind your target audience. Is your property suitable for families and the elderly? Include this information by writing something like, “This property has a child-proofed nursery for kids to play in & a peaceful, gated backyard for elderly to relax.” Not all properties in your region might have such features, and including these in your meta description will help your listing stand out.

Additionally, you can use this space to mention nearby attractions, property events (especially for ski resorts), local package deals (such as a discounted meal), or limited-time offers. Always keep your target audience in mind and try to highlight and include the unique, practical, and convenient features of your property.

3. Use Your Reviews as Your Marketing Tool

Every successful business today aims to obtain glowing reviews online. Why not use the same principle to your benefit for your vacation rental listing? There might be ten properties in your area, however, how many of them might have over two hundred 5-star ratings? Not many. Good reviews will lead to high-ranking search results.

This also builds that essential trust your target audience needs to feel comfortable in booking your property. There can be a few bad reviews, however, if the maximum are good, then any rational customer will ignore the bad ones. This is a major tool that can swing your audience to your property from your competitor’s.

However, don’t abuse this tool by creating fake reviews. Rather, you can incentivize your guest to review, such as giving them a discount on their next stay. Being honest will pay off in the long run, whereas being dishonest can backfire tremendously.

4. Photos, Videos, Drone Videos, & Virtual Tours!

Keep up with the times. A virtual tour is one of the latest trends in the vacation rental industry. Not all properties have such a feature. It takes time and effort to develop these tours. So if you have such resources, highlight them.

Photos, Videos, Drone Videos, & Virtual Tours

Hire a professional photographer to shoot photos of your property during special events and different seasons. Additionally, drones can capture aerial photos and videos showcasing your breathtaking views and well-kept landscaping. Read our blog to capture the perfect vacation rental drone shot.

Employing these latest technologies will up your marketing game. Try researching the many drone service providers and softwares for virtual tours online. Periodically update your marketing tools and keep up with the times.

Permalink is another factor that makes your page stand out: it is the URL to your page. Make sure it has the required keywords which describe your page. It shouldn’t be something generic such as “page1122” it needs to be something like “best-wyoming-vacation-rental.”

Although this is not necessarily useful for the people conducting the search, but it is essential for optimizing the search engine algorithm. Search engines really like customized permalinks because they ensure that a page is relevant. When dealing with a machine or algorithm, you should feed it the exact requirements to get your desired results.

Further, all your images and videos should have relevant alt-text. This is the text that is displayed when your images don’t load, due to a slow internet connection. However, search engines use it for matching the relevant results also. So for example, if a person is searching for the Great Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park, your property will stand out if any of your alt-texts have these words.

6. Google Maps & Google Local

Google Maps location is a must for every local business. Not only is it helpful for customers to locate your property, but it also helps Google prioritize it. There is a connected group of Google apps such as Google Places and Google SERP. When you list your vacation rental on all these platforms, your property shows in the local business section of the search result. Eventually, you can create a vacation rental local guide with google maps for easy navigation.

Google Maps & Google Local

Naturally, most customers will click on the first listings before scrolling down. So make sure your property is listed on all these platforms. Further, wherever required, fill your website and listing URLs so that Google can understand the coherence between the business and listings.

Remember again our basic principle: the greater number of parameters you satisfy, the higher your listing is ranked, and the better it stands out.

Wrapping It Up

Every day, there are innovations related to improving the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) of your vacation rental listing. It is always a good idea to hire a professional who has expertise in this area. You can do a lot of these things on your own, but you may find that your time and effort can be better utilized elsewhere.

Additionally, you might not be aware of recent updates to SEO. You might not be able to successfully implement all the aspects of this kind of SEO. Professional help is always a good idea if it falls within your budget constraints.

We hope that this guide for “How to Make your Vacation Rental Listing Stand Out” will help you highlight your property and obtain higher bookings and profits. Don’t forget to list your property on our platform Rental Trader to get more bookings at your property. All you have to do is simply log in and follow the instructions. If you need any further information, fill out the webform below and we will get back with you promptly!

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