Getting found for very specific searches

Everything to do with using your own website to advertise your rental property. Design, usability, hosting, getting listed on the search engines, optimising your site, pay-per-click, etc, etc.
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Alan Knighting
Posts: 4120
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 7:26 am
Location: Monflanquin, Lot-et-Garonne, France

Post by Alan Knighting »

I am guessing that the discussion about Web Site Ratings could go on forever. Even in the relatively small market of self-catering properties in France there must be many thousands of holiday companies and owners, all competing for the top spots in the ratings but few ever achieving it. After all, if the first page of results contains ten entries then everyone else is on a subsequent page and most will be buried so deep they are very unlikely to be spotted. It seems one must wage a constant battle to achieve a top placing in the ratings.

I recognise that the vast majority of potential holidaymakers will do their Web Searches based on fairly general criteria and not on specific things like owners name or property description. However, I do have the opposite tale to tell.

My wife and I get a lot of enquiries from people we used to know in the UK and I wondered how they were finding us. Obviously some know our telephone number and e-mail address but most of them do not. I was quite well known as a lawyer and as a golfer; my wife worked in TV and was also well known. The thought occurred that they might be doing a very specific search on the Web, so I tried it.

Using a Google search I used my name “Alan Knighting� and I was rated 1, 2, 3 & 6 out of 10. I then did a Google search on “Laures Cottages� and I was rated 1 out of 1; and using “Le Laussou� I was rated 6 and 13 out of 462.

I have spoken to a number of friends/acquaintances who have holidayed with us and some of them did use specific searches and found us immediately.

Clearly there are two sides to this coin of Web Searches. General criteria will return huge numbers of general nature; specific criteria will return far fewer but pertinent. I know that is inevitable but I was amazed at the results and at the speed they were returned. I suppose the answer is that if you know what you are looking for you will find it right away.

Alan
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paolo
Posts: 3885
Joined: Thu Jun 17, 2004 1:18 pm
Location: Provence, France
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Post by paolo »

Clearly there are two sides to this coin of Web Searches. General criteria will return huge numbers of general nature; specific criteria will return far fewer but pertinent.
This is an essential point to grasp about what your personal website can and can't do. You can't hope to be found for a search like 'brittany holiday rentals'. But you can be found for more specific searches.

Your example of being found for your name is the extreme end of narrow searches. It will be used by very few people to find your property - only those who know you have a gite but don't know you well enough to have your number.

But as you say those that do look that way will be extremely likely to make an enquiry.

A less narrow example would be something like 'holiday house with pool in [name of village]'. Not many people will ever search with this phrase, but those that do will be highly likely to make an enquiry (if your website and property are doing a reasonable job of tempting people).

The more general a search phrase for which your site is found, the less likely your house is to match their needs, and therefore the less likely that an enquiry will spring from it.

So that's the equation we rental owners face. Either we optimise our sites for general search phrases that give lots of visitors but a low percentage of enquiries, or for narrow search phrases that bring few visitors but pre-select more likely prospects. As the former is usually impossible (too many rental listing sites rank higher), we should concentrate on the latter.

The tricky part is choosing which are the phrases to optimise for. There is some useful information on this in the resources post here:
viewtopic.php?t=187
Paolo
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Christine Kenyon
Posts: 623
Joined: Sun Sep 19, 2004 10:58 am
Location: Glenridding, Ullswater Valley, Lake District, UK
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Post by Christine Kenyon »

We've had a number of internet enquiries because people have been looking specifically for our village in the Lake District and we score quite highly if people search for "Glenridding". These searches seem to be prompted for two reasons:

1. They are attending a wedding at our local hotel and are looking for "cheaper" accommodation (ie, not hotel prices).

2. Friends have already booked another property in the village (hey, we're not proud - we just make sure our service is extra special if this is the case :D )

And don't under-estimate the wedding market. We have another cottage which really benefits from weddings. The local church is really picturesque and the local vicar insists that the would-be man and wife are resident in the parish before they wed. And interestingly he doesn't seem to mind whether or not they are living together at the time!!! Anyway, we had four bookings on this basis last year.

Christine
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