How LiveRez Gets You More Bookings
LiveRez is designed to help professional vacation rental managers increase their bookings.
One of the key selling points of LiveRez’s vacation rental software platform is its ability to get professional vacation rental managers more bookings. Here are some of the ways LiveRez helps managers increase their bookings:
Rank Higher – LiveRez-powered websites are specifically designed to help you rank higher in search engine results. Simply put, ranking higher in your desired searches means more travelers visit your website.
- Read “Why SEO Should Matter to You”
Convert More Often – LiveRez-powered websites are designed to offer travelers the fastest and easiest way to book a property online. Through our 3-click booking process, travelers can search, shop and book a property – all in just three clicks. This proven process helps create extremely high conversion rates on all LiveRez-powered websites.
Book Online – Travelers want the convenience and security of booking their vacation online, anytime day or night. With a LiveRez-powered website, you can ensure that visitors to your website have the ability to close the deal online. It’s a common fact: once someone books, they stop shopping. LiveRez ensures that you never lose a customer because they couldn’t book online.
Top 10 Ways to Grow Your Twitter Following
Hatching a winning strategy for growing your Twitter following isn't rocket science. Follow a few simple guidelines, and you'll be on the path to success.
Want to get more Twitter followers? Here’s 10 quick ways to spur the growth of your Twitter following.
1. Follow Strategically – Many people will tell you to follow as many people as you can on Twitter because they’re more likely to follow you back. This is partially true, but Twitter has limited how many people you can follow, so you don’t want to waste your time following people you’re not interested in. Besides, if you’re using Twitter correctly, you’ll be using it as much for listening to conversations as spreading the word about your business. I suggest following people key to your industry: journalists, brands, thought-leaders, etc. You’re going to want to listen to them anyways. And, although they’re less likely to follow you back, they have a larger network of followers, and you’re more likely to be put in Twitter’s “Who to Follow” suggestions for the people following them. It’s just like networking in real life; you want to connect yourself with people who share your interests and who are prominent.
2. Share Killer Content – Twitter is all about sharing content. The better content you create and share, the more people will take notice. But, don’t just share your own content. Share content from others, whether it’s through a retweet or just something cool you came across on the Web.
Twitter Explained for Vacation Rental Managers
Learning how to use Twitter isn't complicated. A simple overview can put you on the fast track to social media success.
Twitter is a strange bird (pun intended). Many people, especially those used to Facebook, can have a hard time picking up Twitter and utilizing it to their fullest. But, it doesn’t have to be confusing. In fact, once you learn a few basic concepts, Twitter is actually really easy to use.
It’s a great place for sharing content, getting advice and giving advice, and following the news. If used correctly, it can be a great tool in your marketing arsenal, both for disseminating your messages and for listening. In the following blog, I will attempt to briefly describe Twitter and how to use it.
The main distinguishing feature of Twitter is brevity. On Twitter, you can only post in 140 characters or less. Because of this people mostly use their Twitter posts (called tweets) for short one-line updates, or use their posts as a headline and then insert a link that people can click to learn more. This makes Twitter a great place to get a breakdown of the “news” you care about. Now while many journalists are now breaking stories online, I use news in a more general sense. If you want to see what’s going on in the world as it relates to some topic, Twitter is one of the best places you can go…if you set it up correctly.
How to Attract More Owners and Grow Properties Under Management
LiveRez helps professional vacation rental managers grow the number of properties they manage by offering them solutions they can use to meet home owners' needs.
One way for professional vacation rental managers to grow their business is to attract new properties. And, the best way to do this is to show vacation home owners that you have all the tools needed to meet their needs. First, let’s consider what vacation home owners are looking for:
- They want travelers to book their property
- They, too, want to be able to stay at their property
- They want reports on how their property is performing
- They want to know their property is safe and secure
- They want good communication from the person or company managing their property
Professional vacation rental managers using LiveRez can easily make a strong argument to these vacation home owners because their partnership with LiveRez allows them to meet many of these owners’ key needs. Here’s how:
- LiveRez websites help professional vacation rental managers get more bookings for their owners, through a combination of high search engine placement, elevated conversion rates, the ability to take online bookings and additional exposure through affiliated marketing programs
- Because of their beautiful design, LiveRez websites look extremely professional, which increases a management company’s credibility with the owner
- LiveRez’s Owner Logons allow owners the ability to make their own reservations online and see reports about how their property is performing
- LiveRez offers the ability to automate e-mails to owners upon a number of events
- LiveRez’s robust back office also helps reduce a management company’s labor hours, which means managers and their staff have more time to focus on owner relations
Many LiveRez partners have already experienced a dynamic growth in the amount of properties they manage. You can read some of their stories at LiveRez.com/success.
Why Facebook? Check out these Numbers
Facebook has become an important tool for vacation rental managers in reaching potential guests.
Social media is as important as ever today. And right now, Facebook is the emperor of the social media universe. Running your marketing and communication through Facebook is no longer just a hip thing to do; it’s essentially a must.
Consider some of these statistics from the Digital Buzz Blog:
- Facebook has more than 500 million users
- More than 700 billion minutes a month are spent on Facebook
- One in every 13 people on Earth has a Facebook account
- More than 50 percent of Facebook users log on every day
- The average user has 130 friends
- Almost 72 percent of all Internet users in the United States are on Facebook
- More than 200 million people access Facebook on their mobile phones
- And, in just 20 minutes on Facebook, 1 million links are shared, 2 million friends are requested and accepted, and 3 million messages are sent.
At LiveRez.com, we understand this and offer a simple way to connect your LiveRez-powered website with Facebook through either a link to your Facebook Fan Page or a “like” button, which automatically makes the user a fan of your company’s page. As a fan, they’ll receive updates about your company directly in their news feed.
To learn more about how LiveRez does social media, visit our social media pages:
Public Relations as an SEO Strategy
Public relations can yield great results for your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts through cultivating back links.
Public relations is an important component of business development. Getting your company publicity is a great way to connect with new customers and increase brand awareness. But, many businesses fail to realize its importance for search engine optimization (SEO).
Distributing press releases that includes links back to your website can help create back links, one of the most crucial components of how Google and other search engines rank your website in search results. The quality, quantity and relevance of sites linking to your website (called back links) help determine your own site’s authority in the eyes of Google and other major search engines.
News websites tend to have a lot of authority in the eyes of Google. A link to your website from an article on a major news website could give your SEO efforts a big boost. For example, if you’re a vacation rental business and you manage to score a mention in an article in USA Today’s Travel section, the back link you receive from the article would be rated highly by Google in terms of both authority and relevance.
But, getting into major newspapers is not easy. It requires great news judgment, solid news monitoring and the formation of working relationships with journalists. The good news is that you can start doing all of this for free, and get back links in the process.
Could Adding a Google +1 Button Help Your SEO Efforts?
Rumor has it, adding a Google +1 button to your website could help your SEO efforts.
Earlier this year, Google introduced its own social network, Google+ – believed by many to be the company’s answer to Facebook. While Google+ is not yet available for businesses (it’s coming soon, they say), businesses can still take advantage of Google+ right now by utilizing Google’s answer to the Facebook “Like” button.
You may have noticed that little “+1” button next to the results in your Google searches. Clicking that button is roughly the equivalent of liking that page (or result) and recommending it to the people you’re connected with through your Google account. As you +1 pages, your recommendations will be shared with the people you’re connected with via your Google account. The video below explains the concept more fully.
According to rumors in the SEO community, increasing the amount of +1s your website has will help improve your search engine rankings on Google. Therefore, as you seek to grow your vacation rental business, you’ll want to put a +1 button in all the places you would normally put a Facebook like button: on your website, on your blog, etc.
Miss Our Webinar on Guerrilla Marketing?
Information presented in LiveRez.com's Guerrilla Marketing webinar is now available for download as a white paper.
On Wednesday, Aug. 31, LiveRez.com hosted a webinar entitled “Guerrilla Marketing: 5 Tactics to Grow Your Vacation Rental Business Now.” Nearly 180 vacation rental managers from across the nation signed up for the free educational presentation.
If for some reason you missed the webinar or want to brush up on some of the things the LiveRez marketing team went over, you can download the webinar as a white paper.
Download the white paper here >>>
During the webinar we received numerous questions, and many people were sharing their ideas for how to implement these Guerrilla Marketing tactics to help their individual businesses. If you have questions or want to share your ideas and brainstorm with other vacation rental managers, check out the discussion on our Facebook Page.
SEO Case Study: Cocoa Beach Best Condominium Rentals
Cocoa Beach Best Condominium Rentals experienced dramatic increases in search engine placement, website traffic and web bookings in just its first few months with LiveRez.com
When Sheila Hobart of Cocoa Beach Best Condominium Rentals signed up for LiveRez.com’s SEO/SEM service, she had a clear plan in front of her for the customer demographic she wanted to reach – she just wanted a little helping getting her company in front of them.
After working with LiveRez.com SEO/SEM Manager Sam Martin to nail down her target audience, Hobart let LiveRez.com’s SEO/SEM service design and execute a custom plan.
And, in just a matter of weeks, Cocoa Beach Best is starting to see results.
“Our website is hitting its targets, and our numbers look good,” Hobart said.
In just over one month with LiveRez.com’s SEO/SEM service, Cocoa Beach Best’s search engine placement for seven strategic keyword phrases increased by 316 percent. On May 19, Cocoa Beach Best had an average search engine ranking of 75 among those seven keyword phrases. But, as of July 1, its average ranking has increased to 18.
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How Commenting on Blogs and News Articles Can Help with SEO
Most blogs and news articles have a place at bottom where you can comment. This USA Today article uses a social plugin from Facebook that actually lets you comment on the article from your Facebook account. Make sure to include a link back to your website when you comment on blogs and news articles. It can help your SEO efforts.
Adding comments to news articles (and blogs) related to your industry is a quick and easy way to give a boost to your SEO strategy and create awareness about your company. Commenting on these articles will help you create back links (links back to your website) for both SEO and marketing purposes.
You can find these articles through searches or just keep tabs on them through a comprehensive Web monitoring strategy. Once you find the article, scroll down to the bottom. Many news articles will have a place where readers can leave comments. They might request that you sign in and create an account. Once you’re approved, draft a comment that is related to the story and make sure to include a link back to your website.
But make sure your comment is adding value to the conversation or else your post might come across as comment spam (and the moderator might not approve your comment).
This strategy works equally well for commenting in a forum. Just make sure you include a link back to your website in your signature.