Then the moment finally arrives when you hit the publish button, it appears online and you get ready for an influx of enquiries.<\/p>\n
But they don\u2019t come\u2026<\/p>\n
You turn to Google and discover that when you type seabreeze holiday cottage<\/strong><\/em> into the search field, your website is nowhere to be seen.<\/p>\n Have you done something wrong?<\/p>\n No.<\/p>\n In fact, many holiday let owners make the assumption that the minute they publish their new website it will appear online instantly<\/em>.<\/p>\n And it does, but only<\/em> when typing the domain name into the browser address bar.<\/p>\n You have to remember that the internet exists without Google. The problem is the majority of people now use Google to access websites even if they know the website address.<\/p>\n Typing seabreeze holiday cottage<\/strong><\/em> or 2 bedroom cottage Newquay<\/em><\/strong> into Google at this early stage will not<\/em> display your website.<\/p>\n Not yet anyway.<\/p>\n So how long does it take for your website to appear in search results?<\/strong><\/p>\n It can take several weeks for new websites to be indexed by Google and Bing.<\/p>\n Which shouldn\u2019t come as a great surprise given the sheer volume of websites being published to the World Wide Web every single day<\/em>.<\/p>\n It takes a bit of time for the search engine bots to find your website, trawl through it to discover what it\u2019s all about, and then position it appropriately in the search results.<\/p>\n And even once the website has been indexed by the search engines, there are no guarantees that it will appear within the first few pages.<\/p>\n So what\u2019s the point in having a website if it won\u2019t appear high up the search results?<\/strong><\/p>\n We didn\u2019t say it won\u2019t<\/em> appear on Page One of Google, just that there are no guarantees, particularly without putting in a little effort first.<\/p>\n For example, the search term 2 bedroom cottage Newquay<\/strong><\/em> brought back 150,000 results.<\/strong><\/p>\n That\u2019s is a lot<\/em> of pages competing for prime position.<\/p>\n But if you\u2019re prepared to put the effort in, you could see great rewards over time.<\/p>\n What do you need to do to maximise the effectiveness of your website?<\/strong><\/p>\n 1. How to speed up the process of search engines indexing your website<\/strong><\/p>\n Submit your sitemap to Google and Bing<\/a>.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t wait for the search engine \u2018bots\u2019 to find your site. Tell them it\u2019s live and ready to be ranked.<\/p>\n 2. Optimise your website<\/strong><\/p>\n Find the best keywords and place them naturally throughout the content of your website, and the site\u2019s SEO section \u2013 page titles, meta and alt tags.<\/p>\n A mistake many people make when it comes to choosing the best keywords is not<\/em> carrying out proper keyword research.<\/p>\n Instead, they simply pluck keywords out of thin air.<\/p>\n Going back to our earlier example of a 2 bedroom cottage in Newquay. You may assume your best keywords must be newquay, 2 bedrooms, cottage<\/strong><\/em> and cornwall<\/strong><\/em> right?<\/p>\n Not necessarily.<\/p>\n As we discovered earlier, those keywords bring up 150,000 results<\/strong> and not all of them will even be particularly relevant.<\/p>\n A lesser known fact is that unless you put the search into quotation marks, search engines will bring back results for each of those words individually i.e. results for newquay<\/strong><\/em> that could have nothing to do with accommodation will also display.<\/p>\n Putting the same search into inverted commas brought back just 2 results. But, unfortunately your potential guests are unlikely to carry out their search in this way.<\/p>\n So instead, it\u2019s important to do thorough keyword research to come up with longer phrases that include your accommodation\u2019s unique selling points. These are called \u201clong tail keywords\u201d.<\/p>\n Choosing the best keywords<\/a> for your holiday rental website can be carried out using Google\u2019s keyword planner<\/a>. Unless of course you decide to get an SEO specialist involved.<\/p>\n Once you\u2019ve found them, make sure your entire website has been well optimised<\/a>.<\/p>\n Just remember to place your keywords naturally<\/em> within the website content. Mix it up a little too \u2013 don\u2019t use the exact same phrase in the exact same way.<\/p>\n Stay natural, readable and provide value, and Google will like you.<\/p>\n Once your site is fully optimised you should see your website gradually increasing through the rankings for relevant search terms.<\/p>\n Do the research, get the results.<\/em><\/p>\n 3. Get links pointing to your site<\/strong><\/p>\n If you\u2019re trying to market a holiday let in a very touristy area where competition is rife, you may find that optimising your site alone won\u2019t<\/em> cut it.<\/p>\n In which case you\u2019ll also need to concentrate on getting some links pointing to your website from other relevant websites<\/a>.<\/p>\n In fact, everyone<\/em> should do this, regardless of where their property is located.<\/p>\n Why?<\/p>\n Two reasons:<\/p>\n So build up your links by speaking with local businesses, adding your website to the signature of any relevant forums you\u2019re a member of, or finding free (or paid) directories to add your business to.<\/p>\n 4. Promote. Promote. Promote.<\/strong><\/p>\n Want people to find your website and help spread the word?<\/p>\n Send it to them!<\/p>\n No<\/em> business can afford to sit back and hope that people will stumble across their website by chance.<\/p>\n All<\/em> businesses know that they have to do their own marketing to make that happen.<\/p>\n Your holiday rental business is no different.<\/p>\n Share your new website address with friends, family and colleagues.<\/p>\n Share it on social media channels. If you\u2019re not active on any, get active now!<\/a><\/p>\n If you hang out on any relevant forums, add the website link to your signature \u2013 not only will that drive more traffic to your site, but it gives you that all-important vote from Google.<\/p>\n Talk about your holiday let to local businesses<\/a>. Reciprocal promotions can only benefit the entire business community.<\/p>\n Everywhere and anywhere there\u2019s a marketing opportunity use it to your advantage.<\/p>\n So why might your website not be appearing in search engine results?<\/strong><\/p>\n What not<\/em> to expect from your holiday let website?<\/strong><\/p>\n Instant visibility on Page 1 of Google without doing a single thing other than clicking the publish button.<\/p>\n What can<\/em> you expect from your holiday let website, if done well?<\/strong><\/p>\n A marketing asset that will increase in value and bring huge rewards over time, with a bit of effort.<\/p>\n The more you put in, the more you\u2019ll get out.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Let\u2019s say, you\u2019ve just finished creating a professional website for your holiday rental. You\u2019ve purchased a unique domain name \u2013 seabreezeholidaycottage.com – and completed all the necessary setup so it\u2019s linked to your new website. Then the moment finally arrives when you hit the publish button, it appears online and you get ready for an [Continue reading …]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3501,"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":[26],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.promotemyplace.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3493"}],"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=3493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.promotemyplace.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.promotemyplace.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.promotemyplace.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.promotemyplace.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.promotemyplace.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"2\"](\"https:\/\/wrpmpwebdata002.blob.core.windows.net\/wrpmpassetsblog\/2015\/11\/2.png\")
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