So how do you attract links?<\/strong><\/p>\n The first step in encouraging people to link to your website is to create interesting and unique content that they will want to link to. This will allow you to pick up a few links naturally over time, but in order to stay ahead of the competition you\u2019ll probably need to use a few of the techniques below to give your link prospects a nudge.<\/p>\n Link building techniques<\/strong><\/p>\n There are literally hundreds of different ways to build links back to your holiday rental website.\u00a0 Our advice is to pick 3 or 4 of the techniques below and use those for a few months, then as you become more adept and comfortable, mix things up and try some of the others.<\/p>\n There are some ground rules to bear in mind when using any of the techniques:<\/p>\n Ask owners of related websites<\/strong><\/p>\n Use Google to find websites related to your holiday properties destination, such as tourist information websites and websites for local attractions.\u00a0 Send them an email asking if they would be willing to link to your website. Often these types of websites are happy to list holiday rental accommodation in the local area.<\/p>\n Check out the competition<\/strong><\/p>\n Sites that rank highly for the same keywords you want to appear for will have been building links for a while. You can get a feel for the types and number of links they have using one of the online tools below:<\/p>\n Enter the URL of the site you want to analyse and have a look at the incoming links. You can use this to get an idea of who is linking to your competition so you can contact those sites and get them to link to you as well.<\/p>\n Directories\/Listing Sites<\/strong><\/p>\n Use Google to search for relevant directories and listing sites in the country or region that your holiday rental property is located. Use your chosen keywords, but add the word \u201cdirectory\u201d on the end and have a look at some of the sites that come up. \u00a0Any free sites within the first 3 pages that allow you to add a link to your website could be worth joining, providing it is relatively quick to add the details of your holiday rental.<\/p>\n Guest Blogging<\/strong><\/p>\n Content writing is a great way to get good quality, relevant links back to your website.\u00a0 Writing and submitting useful and informative articles to blogs that accept guest posts is one of the best ways to:<\/p>\n Write 300 – 500 words of content around a given topic, theme or keyword.\u00a0 These might be:<\/p>\n If you’re not much of a writer yourself you could just do the research, gather all the info together, and outsource the writing to a copywriter.<\/p>\n But first you will need to do a bit of searching on Google to find quality travel related sites that accept guest posts. It’s even better if they cover the specific area your property is in.<\/p>\n To find sites that accept guest writers use Google to search for relevant blogs using keyword + \u201cguest post\u201d, or keyword + \u201cwrite for us\u201d.<\/p>\n For example if your property is in Spain you could use the following keywords to find sites – spain” ,”spanish”, “spanish holidays”.<\/p>\n So your search terms would look something like this:<\/p>\n Spain “guest blog”<\/em><\/p>\n Spanish “guest blog”<\/em><\/p>\n spanish holidays “guest blog”<\/em><\/p>\n Spain “write for us”<\/em><\/p>\n Spanish “write for us”<\/em><\/p>\n spanish holidays “write for us”<\/em><\/p>\n Remember to include the quotation marks.<\/p>\n Make a list of the sites you find that are relevant and accept guest posts.<\/p>\n You can also join a guest blog community such as myblogguest.com and “advertise” that you are willing to write content around your topic for other sites. Here are some other guest blog networks<\/a>.<\/p>\n You can get\u00a0more ideas for finding guest blogging opportunities here<\/a><\/p>\n Once you have a list of sites that accept guest posts you need to create some excellent content that they will be willing to share.<\/p>\n Make sure all content you write is unique – it takes a bit of time and effort – but if you don\u2019t do this your efforts will be wasted.<\/p>\n You should be allowed to include a link back to your site in the article, either in an \u201cAbout the Author\u201d section or inline with the text.<\/p>\n Here is an example \u2018About the author\u2019 section:<\/p>\n “Joan Smith is the owner of Valderama – a spanish villa with pool that is available year round for rentals.\u00a0 Aimed specifically at golfing tours, we are only 2 minutes from the major PGA golf course.\u00a0 Visit the site to find out more http:\/\/www.mygolfvillawebsite.com<\/strong><\/p>\n The bits in bold should be links back to your website. You\u2019ll need to add in some HTML code to make the links work.<\/p>\n Blogging<\/strong><\/p>\n If you are prepared to commit the time to updating a blog on a regular basis, starting a blog about the area where your holiday rental is situated is a great way to attract links. It can also be very enjoyable! People are far more likely to link to a specific article on your blog than the home page of your website (assuming they find what you have written of interest). Google also loves fresh content and therefore loves blogs, since they are generally updated on a regular basis.<\/p>\n Forum Participation <\/strong><\/p>\n Participate in Holiday Rental Forums and any forums related to the country\/ region your holiday property is located. Most forums allow you to post a link on your profile and in your signature. Participation is the key here. Just signing up and creating profile links is not going to get you very far. Besides, you\u2019ll probably find a lot of useful information on other aspects of renting your holiday property, so you\u2019ll get a lot more out of it than a few links.<\/p>\n Some of the more popular Holiday Rental Forums include:<\/p>\n When including a link in your signature it’s best to include the full URL or the name of the website, rather than stuff the text with your keywords.<\/em><\/p>\n Blog commenting<\/strong><\/p>\n Use Google to find holiday rental blogs and blogs related to your holiday rental destination and get involved by commenting on the posts. Don\u2019t simply post comments saying \u201cthanks for the great content\u201d in the hope that the comment will be included with your link. Add value where possible and try to build a relationship with the blogger, so that they may eventually add a link to your website of their own accord.<\/p>\n When commenting on blogs it’s best to use your real name as the link back to your website.<\/em><\/p>\n Twitter\/Facebook<\/strong><\/p>\n Setup a Facebook page and Twitter profile for your holiday rental,including a link to your website in the profiles. Post \u2018status updates\u2019 and \u2018tweets\u2019 on a regular basis, with information related to your destination or the holiday rentals industry in general, whilst at the same time building your follower numbers. Gradually more and more people will be notified about your content and some of those people will share it with others. If you have a blog, make sure you share your blog posts on Twitter and Facebook too.<\/p>\n Online Videos<\/strong> Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n As you can see, there are many ways to continually attract links to your website.\u00a0 It takes a fair bit of time and effort to see results and you really need to make this part of your monthly activity.\u00a0 Over time you\u2019ll see that you are getting more traffic to your holiday rental website, which should result in more enquiries and bookings. Eventually you will become less reliant on listing sites for your bookings (although we would always recommend advertising on one or two of the better listing sites for your area, as part of a well balanced marketing strategy).<\/p>\n In the next article, we will show you how you can measure the success of your marketing efforts to see what\u2019s working and what\u2019s not.<\/p>\n Ok, so you\u2019ve built a great looking website to showcase your holiday rental, you\u2019ve chosen the best keywords to target and you\u2019ve included them in the relevant areas of your website, so that Google knows what your site is about. Now what? You need to get some links pointing to your website from other high [Continue reading …]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3355,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[28,27],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.promotemyplace.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.promotemyplace.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.promotemyplace.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.promotemyplace.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.promotemyplace.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.promotemyplace.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.promotemyplace.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.promotemyplace.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.promotemyplace.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.promotemyplace.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nUse a site like Animoto<\/a> to create a professional looking video showcasing your holiday rental. Add it to video sharing sites such as YouTube<\/a> and Vimeo<\/a>. This will get you a few links, especially if people find your video interesting enough to share. Don\u2019t forget to add it to your website too, to showcase your holiday rental to potential guests.<\/p>\n![\"Enhanced](\"http:\/\/img.zemanta.com\/zemified_e.png?x-id=efa1856e-18b4-4e06-b6ff-eff6e7bdd001\")
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