In the not so distant past, Google announced their new algorithm  “RankBrain”, making it more apparent that user-focused websites are now more important than ever when it comes to SEO for vacation rental websites.

The algorithm studies the satisfaction of users who land on your website, and promotes sites with higher favorable outcomes for an end user. The actual design and functionality of your website has always mattered, but this information proves that it also boosts your search engine rankings.

So, all in all, an easy-to-use website that is rewarding to the user carry’s ranking weight more than ever!

How Can Your Website Satisfy Users?

First thing’s first, organic click-through-rates are crucial. The first step to analyzing whether traffic is pleased with a website can be based on whether or not the website is clicked often for key search terms. Simply put – high volume of clicks = strong website. A low volume of organic clicks signifies that your website didn’t satisfy the search term entered.

The second portion of RankBrain is the more revelatory piece – the RankBrain algorithm places a high focus on overall user experience. A user leaves your site in less than 3 seconds? Google RankBrain signifies this as an unsatisfactory experience. The content on your website didn’t keep users engaged. Not a good sign. Bounce rate, dwell time and pogo-sticking are key factors that RankBrain analyzes. Bounce rate & dwell time are commonly used terms. However, pogo-sticking is used to describe the process where a user clicks the #1 ranked site and backs out, clicks the #2 ranked site and backs out, finally lands on site #3 and spends time browsing. RankBrain would detect that site #3 provided the visitor with information they liked or needed (and subsequently, may move it up in the rankings.)

On the flip side – if bounce rate, dwell time and pogo-sticking is low (or less prevalent) on your website, Google recognizes that the user had a pleasant experience and ranks your website higher. These measurements are known as user experience (UX) factors.

What Does This Mean for My Website?

Every portion of your website’s development matters. Ranking doesn’t begin and end with blogging, linking and keywords. Your website needs to include the following (to name a few!):

• Aesthetically pleasing and functional design
• Seamless programming for user-friendly experience
• Innovative website tools and fresh features
• Pertinent and engaging content

At ICND, we think this is pretty cool stuff! It means to us that every member of our team, whether they’re a digital marketing guru, graphic designer or project manager, plays a key role in our client’s marketing success.  It’s not just an “SEO team” thing anymore to rank! Everyone plays a role.

Want to learn more from the experts? Contact us directly!

What To Know About Blogging

Blogging is an extremely helpful tactic in many ways when it comes to marketing. It can add to various aspects of your overall marketing including SEO, Social Media and even Sales. But what makes blogging so powerful and furthermore, how do you write a good blog post? Let’s face it, everyone has a blog. Some are successful and some are not but those that are successful can really add value to your marketing channels.

Writing Is Half The Battle

Many people begin blogging and just expect some sort of magic to happen. It’s like the saying, “If you build it, they will come.” Well, that isn’t necessarily true in the case of blogging. Writing is half the battle, the other half is promoting. You really have to spend some time thinking about where your audience consumes the most content and come up with a strategy to promote it through those channels.

For example, a popular blog promotion channel is social media. Social Media is a great way to distribute your content to an audience that has some sort of interest in you or what you are talking about. You can also recycle content through your social channels to stretch your content a little further. It is not uncommon to promote the same blog post twice in a month, most likely it’s going to be seen by different people anyways.

You can also look at other avenues of promoting your blog such as forums, message boards, email, etc…Reddit and Quora are two popular avenues worth looking at. Anywhere you can post it that is related to your audience group is an avenue of promotion.

Links Are Your Friend

If you are looking to improve the SEO value of your blog, then “Interlinking” is huge. You can do this by linking to other blog posts you have done, linking to search pages, or even important pages on your website. By making these links you are passing what is called “Link weight” and importance to these pages and basically telling the search engines, “Hey, these pages are important and matter.” Remember not to go overboard, you don’t need a link in every sentence. Three to five links in a blog post is all you need to be effective.

The same value goes for external linking or linking to other websites. The idea behind a blog is to benefit the reader, so providing them with links to extra information that is relevant and helpful is a great thing to do. By doing this, you are providing great content to your reader and becoming an authority.

Optimizing For SEO

It is very important that you start writing for Humans and not for Google. Forget about keyword density and using your keyword three times. Some of the best performing blog posts are the ones that are personable and easy to read. Remember, you have people reading your blog and the more they like it, the more search engines will like it. If you are looking to make your blog “SEO Friendly,” here are some things you can do:

• If you are using WordPress which is a great blogging platform, try installing the Yoast Plugin. You can then check all the configuration settings to make sure all the information that needs to be on there for search engines is.
• During the writing process, Yoast will give you suggestions on keyword density and “SEO Value.” It’s important to take note of these and use them when you can, just don’t force it.
• Think outside of the box with your content. Photos, charts, videos, and infographics are all forms of content. Visual aids add a great value to the reader, diversifies the type of content you are producing, and breaks up blocks of text.

Looking For Writing Ideas

Sometimes it’s tough to start writing and finding a topic worth writing about. Luckily, there’s a tool for that and it’s fairly new! AnswerThePublic.com gives you blog post ideas based on popular searches people do in your area. For example, if you are in the Outer Banks you can type in “Outer Banks” and it will give you a list of keyword variations that can spark some great writing ideas. Who knows, you might even strike on some content gold!

Don’t Wait Any Longer

If you aren’t blogging then you’re missing out. When done right, it’s not only great content for your audience but can bring a lot of value to your overall marketing plan. Consumers are always looking for information on their purchases and a vacation is no exception to the rule. They want to know as much as they can about the area, food, culture, things to do, etc… So providing that content for them can give you happier consumers and help create bookings in the process. And if you get lost, we have been blogging and helping others blog for years. Now go start blogging!

Myth #1: Analytics is always correct!

As a digital marketing agency we hear a lot of wives tales when it comes to vacation rental marketing. Many of these myths exist in the Vacation Rental Industry when it comes to marketing and can really cause confusion when it comes to measuring results. We are all about the truth, and nothing but the truth, which is why we are going to bust a very common myth for you today: Your Google Analytics Data Is Accurate. Yes, that is a bold statement, but we didn’t say it’s not accurate, just that it isn’t always accurate.

Wait a second, you’re telling me that Google Analytics data isn’t correct? Well, let’s just say sometimes the numbers can be misleading and sometimes requires some digging the find the real data. One great example of this is how revenue is attributed to a user. But first let’s talk about how that process works.

How Google Analytics Works for a Potential Rental Guest

When a user visits your website Google Analytics sets a cookie for 2 years and this is called the first touch source path. Let’s say they visit your website a second and third time, but on different devices each time, those are different touch source paths with the same user. Finally, they book on the fourth session to your website and the revenue is then attributed to that last source.

Now, this is IF that person uses the same device, such as their home computer, through this entire process.  In the vacation rental industry, we KNOW that’s not the case. They will visit your site 3-7 times before booking!

The following graphic is a bit more accurate for the life cycle of a rental guest.

In this instance above, analytics will attribute the BOOKING to the Home Computer, as a direct visit.

So Where Are My Guests Really Coming From?

So what about the four previous sessions? Especially if the first session originated from a social channel or a PPC campaign, it would be really great to know that those things are actually pulling their weight! But instead you see that the booking came from a direct search because by the time they booked, they knew exactly who you were and what they wanted. Sometimes the data can be misleading if you don’t do some digging.

In this picture you can see the differences in Last Interaction compared to First Interaction for Organic Search and Paid Search. Those numbers are completely different and it is important to note that the First Interaction will not be attributed to the revenue generated by a user. Ok, so this is all good information… well, we think so. But how do you start tracking these users to show that what your doing is making a difference when it comes to what matters most, Revenue?

Start using different attribution models and multi-channel funnels to monitor PPC, email and social media. This will allow you to see where the correct attribution lies in regards to specific channels.

 

Customers Using Different Devices Mess Up Your Data Too

Another aspect of this data is the fact that people tend to search on one device and book on another. For example, most people tend to begin exploring on their phone because of the convenience and ease of use and then later on will book on a desktop computer. Maybe people still don’t feel secure purchasing their family vacation on the phone or maybe mom wanted to get everyone’s opinion before she put money down on the rental, we really don’t know but we do know that there is a split in the data.

Why is this important you may ask? Well, Google Analytics is not basic and therefore the data it provides should not be interpreted as basic. What we are trying to do is paint a picture of what our audience is doing and what is really working so we can do more of that.

Everything in the sales process matters but finding what sparked the interest of your buyer can mean the difference between you just doing marketing and you truly knowing what really works and what doesn’t.

Chances are, your PPC campaign you didn’t think “was working”, probably is. Start looking at your 

different attribution models. They can be found in Analytics here on the left:

 

What is #BookDirect day? We know it, you know it, but most consumers don’t know that there are some major benefits when you book direct with a vacation rental company. Well, February 7th is our day to educate the public about all the advantages of booking direct with your company. We think it is so important that people understand that they can still reach out to vacation rental companies and still have a unique, personal and positive interaction.

#BookDirect day isn’t a day to bash Online Travel Agencies and that isn’t the goal for February 7th, but it is a day to show people that there are some amazing, unique brands out there that can offer some great prices and amenities when they book directly with the company. Let’s all use this day for a positive impact on our industry.

 

You may be wondering, how can I make a difference? That is a great question and #BookDirect day is only impactful if we all do our part. Here are some things you can do to help spread the word and be heard:

• Use the hashtag #BookDirect. We have the power to make this viral and if we are all talking about the same thing, it will be! Use the hashtag wherever you post, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, etc… And remember, keep it positive.
• Send out an eblast. Email is a great way to tell your audience about something specific and this is definitely a perfect time. You can highlight the fact that it is #BookDirect day and that there are advantages to booking directly with your company or any vacation rental company. Most importantly, tell people that you care about them as an individual and not as a number, no one wants to be treated like a number.
• Blog about it. Use this opportunity to create some great content for your blog. It is a great way to tell everyone exactly what you think about #BookDirect day and it will also add to your site’s SEO.

The most important part about #BookDirect day to us is showing that the people booking are still people and not numbers and we need to show consumers that we still think that way. With the online changes in the vacation rental industry and such a huge push to fast, convenient booking, consumers get put into boxes and categorized like cattle. We think that every consumer is unique and should be treated that way.

As a Digital Marketing and Website Design company we do our very best to build products that treat consumers like people and not numbers. We also want your company to share it’s story and one of the ways to do that in today’s age is by great website design and digital marketing.

If you want to know more about #BookDirect day check out this article by VRMintel and find out how you can get involved. Let’s all do our part in making #BookDirect day a day of education and show our consumers that we care about them, their family, their friends and most importantly their vacation. Join the movement and spread the word on February 7th!