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This article provides you with a way of cutting through the 'noise' to find the best holiday villa rental websites. Use this tried and tested method to select the best sites for your money.
1. The first step is to do some keyword research; What are your customers searching Google for?
Put together a list of 'keywords' that you think people are searching for:
* vacation rentals by owner
* holiday rentals
* vacation rentals
* self catering villas
* holiday accommodation
* vacation villa
Consider the plural and other language variations of these key terms.
2. Put your terms into the Google keyword tool (It's free) This will show you the volume of each search and give you more ideas on what people are searching on. Make sure you use terms that get the most traffic which you anticipate getting booking inquiries from.
3. Select the terms you like most and then search them on Google with your geographic region added to each term. 'Holiday villa Costa Del Sol', for example.
4. Note the top ten websites appearing each time and the position they appear on the first page. Put the results into a spreadsheet as shown. Score each position 10 for first and 1 for last.
Sites. Kw1 We Kw2 We Kw3 We Fa Sf Ar C Score
Site 1
Site 2
Site 3
Site 4
Site 5
Site 6
Site 7
Site 8
Site 9
Site 10
©zoomtrans.com (key: Kw= keyword. We=Keyword weight. Fa= featured areas. Sf=Search facility. Ar=Alexa rank. C=cost.)
5. Weight the phrases that you used by the number of times they are searched per month. Score these again 10 to 1 (10 being the highest number of searches per month). If you have 20 phrases you'll have to score them in 0.5 multiples.
6. How many feature areas can your villa holiday home be advertised in for free on each website? Is it an appealing site? Does it engender confidence? What services does it offer? Will it allow you to take credit card payments for example? Can you 'refine' the search to reduce the number of properties by:
* Price
* Bedrooms
* Area
* Amenities
Score the best 10 and the worst 1
7. Then assess the website for use-ability. How easy is it to find properties in your area? Again score 10 for the best and 1 for the worst
8. Score the website from 10 to 1 with the lowest website returning the highest score for your table from this calculation: Number of properties advertised divided by theAlexa.com score grade; as detailed below. Search Alexa here, put in the website name you are researching.
Grade the Alexa ranks in the following manner
* Alexa rank below 50,000 = 150
* Alexa rank below 75,000 = 125
* Alexa rank below 100,000 = 100
* Alexa rank below 125,000 = 75
* Alexa rank below 200,000 = 50
* Alexa rank below 300,000 = 25
* Alexa rank above 300,000 = 0
Divide the number of properties advertised on the website by the Alexa score grade and the website which has the lowest return will score 10 in the table above. The website with the highest score will score 1. Any websites with an Alexa rank greater than 300,000 should be scored at 0 because they are getting minimal web traffic or the visitors are not deep searching the site.
An example
A site that has an Alexa ranking of 250,000 would score 25. If it had 2000 villas advertised it would score 2000/25 = 80 A site that has an Alexa ranking of 190,000 would score 50. If it had 2000 villas advertised it would score 2000/50 = 40 A site that has an Alexa ranking of 250,000 would score 25. If it had 3000 villas advertised it would score 3000/25 =120 A site that has an Alexa ranking of 49,000 would score 150. If it had 10000 villas advertised it would score 10000/150 = 67 The second example would score the highest marks for the table calculations.
Rank the website with the lowest score as 10 and the highest score as 1. Alexa rank websites by the volume of traffic and the number of pages they view to create the Alexa rank. It is wise to use this score because between the two factors Alexa takes consideration of, the result details not only traffic to a site but how 'deep' they search the site when they arrive. The calculation used here to work out how effective the listing website is, takes account of the volume of villas compared to the volume of visitors and how deep they search the listing site. You obviously want visitors to a listing site to find your property on it; no use listing if you're buried in thousands of competing holiday villas!!
9. Finally, the cost to advertise on the website.
You can change the weight of any of these scores by increasing or decreasing the overall total of factor scores. Instead of scoring from 10 to 1, score from 20 to 10; this would double the weight of the factor you think is most relevant. This method will help you to find the best villa holiday rental website for your property. Remember, some sites offer more than just advertising. Like rental booking services, credit card payment facilities and more. Always consider the full range of services and not just Google position.