You’ve got a fantastic vacation rental, complete with all the conveniences needed for a pleasant and friendly stay. Nonetheless, you’re not getting the reservations you’d hoped for. In such a crowded vacation rental market, it may be difficult to make your home stand out. With hundreds, if not millions, of vacation rental listings available, it’s more crucial than ever to create a good first impression.
Instead of becoming comfortable and sitting about waiting for reservations to come in, think long and hard about what you’re doing wrong. Though you may not want to recognize it, everything that is your responsibility is most certainly fixable.
This post will look at the top nine reasons why you will never increase your vacation rental reservations (unless you change something soon). Follow the guidelines below to prevent errors, and you’ll quickly enjoy the benefits as your property gains greater exposure.
1. No one can locate you
What good is an eye-catching website design if no one ever views it?
Many vacation rental owners neglect the value of SEO and other internet marketing strategies for driving visitors to their websites, but we can’t emphasize enough how powerful they can be.
New visitors who are unaware of your vacation rental have just one means of discovering you and arriving at your website: organic Google search. Keywords are important because they bridge the gap between what users (i.e. prospective visitors) are looking for and the information you can supply to fill that gap. Once you’ve implemented your keywords, you’ll quickly see how simple it is to increase website traffic and grab more bookings.
2. Your prices are incorrect
We realize that setting pricing is difficult. When your pricing is incorrect, a huge black cross appears next to your holiday rental. If you haven’t established separate prices for your peak and low seasons, or even thought about your pricing presentation, you might be in for a rude awakening when your lovely vacation property fails to fill up.
Pricing may be a source of frustration for many hosts. Make sure your prices and policies are comparable with those of other properties in your neighborhood. Examine the competition by looking at other listings that have comparable facilities, rooms, beds, and so on.
Whether your rivals are much less expensive or your establishment stands out as a steal, in contrast, it might put you (and your reservations) in a bind. If you desire maximum occupancy and that long-awaited rise in bookings, you should research and apply a good pricing plan. Don’t be a loose cannon who makes up your own rules; otherwise, visitors may suspect your home is a vacation rental fraud!
3. You have a bad web design
You’re making a major error if you don’t consider your website as the front entrance of your vacation rental. While the appearance of your site is still vital, you should be concerned with more than simply aesthetics.
Users will soon abandon a website that does not adjust to their cell phone or tablet, given that a rising amount of trip reservations are being done on mobile devices. Not only that, but a poor loading time, a jumbled navigation structure, and a lack of a consistent design or brand across the website will turn people away.
You never get a second opportunity to create a first impression, so don’t turn people away from making a reservation due to web design flaws. Poor site design will just discourage people from booking, but a positive user experience may make or break a business.
4. Your listings aren’t really good.
So you have a beautiful website and have optimized it for SEO, but you have yet to pay attention to your listings themselves – this will not help you acquire reservations! For the visitor who values originality over goods and personality above pricing, writing a basic statement about your offering is no longer adequate.
Because of the nature of the fast booking and the decreasing amount of guest/host contact before the transaction is signed, a solid listing description is still necessary. There are several tools available to assist you in writing your listing descriptions, but don’t worry if you’re not up to the task. There are many persons and firms you may engage to write for you.
Keep in mind that you should never use these ten terms in your listing description.
5. There is insufficient detail
You can always change your description afterward, but investing some time on it before you go live can save you a lot of back-and-forth with possible visitors.
Take the time to supply all of the facts that will shout to any prospective visitors, “we’ve got you covered!” Put yourself in the shoes of your visitors: who are they? From whence are they coming? What will be most essential to them? You may be catering to a large number of foreign visitors, families, or groups of tourists; prepare your listing to speak directly to them.
When it comes to listing descriptions, more is more. Aim to write as clearly and in as much detail as possible. This will make it easy for visitors to determine whether or not you have what they are searching for. Don’t forget to list all of your rental’s features and conveniences.
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Your Photos Are Horrible
What precisely are you trying to market here? Is this your property? Then flaunt it! Photos are one of the most potent tools for increasing your reservations. Most visitors will not see your property before booking, so the photographs you post on your website must speak volumes – and be true!
Good quality images are just as crucial (if not more so) than the listing description. Given that so many people book their accommodations online, the photographs you post represent the service you provide. That is why having high-quality, correct vacation rental images is critical.
These images will not only draw visitors to your house, but they will also assist you in managing expectations of the experience guests will have at your home. Make sure to include thorough picture descriptions and alt tags, since they will aid in SEO optimization.
This is the cornerstone around which your whole company is built. Doubling, tripling, or even quadrupling the number of reservations you get is only feasible with a successful listing that includes excellent vacation rental photographs.
- You respond too slowly.
Every host dreads returning to their computer after a few days away to discover they’ve missed an inquiry and prospective booking since they weren’t alerted of the request. However, this is still occurring to certain hosts, and your reservations will never expand in this manner.
If you prefer booking requests over quick reservations for any reason, you’ll need certain protocols in place to prevent losing inquiries. Because if you don’t respond immediately, your visitors will most likely search elsewhere.
Set up email autoresponders, turn on mobile email push alerts, leverage a channel manager, and synchronize all your booking channels to avoid multiple bookings – whatever it takes to not miss that booking!
What to Remember
Guests want to enjoy the best holiday possible therefore you must convince them to choose your property. Whether you’re new to the vacation rental industry or have been hosting for a while, all of these concerns are simple to resolve! It is never too late to adjust your strategy and increase your reservations. If you don’t already have a website, check out Lodgable! They will build you a website and sync your calendar with sites like Airbnb and Vrbo!
As a consequence, having a complete listing with correct, up-to-date, and, most importantly, accurate information saves time and effort for everyone, resulting in more stress-free reservations for your home!
In addition to these nine considerations, you may undertake a SWOT analysis to assess additional aspects of your vacation rental company. Download our free template by clicking the button below.