Guest blog post by Daniel Weisman

The question on everyone’s mind these days is, “how can I use SEO to get more rental bookings?”

The idea of Search Engine Optimization is that ranking highly in search results will lead to increased traffic and sales. While reaching the top of the Google search results seems to require black magic, keep in mind that it’s magic you already know: promotion. Doing SEO for vacation rentals and real estate mainly requires applying the promotional skills you already have to the tools available on the web.

The original references for all things SEO can be found here and here. For an approach tailored to vacation rental marketing, here are 5 steps to creating an SEO strategy:

1. Define Your Goals

As with any marketing campaign, SEO requires clear goals in order for you to work at it effectively, assess your results, and develop your strategy. Remember: Your ultimate goal is to book more rentals and increase your bottom line; NOT to be number one on Google.

The value of the #1 is intangible, but ROI is a reliable metric of success. Keep track of the time and money you spend on your SEO efforts, and you will be able to calculate the return on the campaign based on increased bookings.

Good SEO Goals:

• More bookings from search results
• Increased site traffic
• Lower bounce rate

2. Build a Website

You can’t have SEO if you don’t have a website! If you’re starting online marketing from scratch, then the first thing that you’re going to want to do is build a website. For vacation rental owners and property managers, Web Chalet, a new company, provides hosting and industry-specific site templates. Their product provides a quick and easy way to get all of your important information on a website with your own domain name and branding. For those who want more customization, wordpress.org offers a free solution for building robust websites.

Think of a website like a shop. You want a great location (domain name), an attractive façade (design), and a great product. Choose an address that’s easy for people and search engines to find. For example, if Paul owns a vacation property in Lake George, then he will be better off with a domain name like LakeGeorgeVacationRental.com rather than PaulsPlace.com. Be obvious and descriptive, and make it clear exactly what your site has to offer.

In addition to making your shop easy to find, you also want to make it inviting and pleasant. Make your site easy for people to navigate and you will be rewarded with love from the search engines and bookings. In their webmaster guidelines, Google esplains, “Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content.” Keep things simple with clear content and easy navigation.

While we’re on the subject of building sites, we should talk about keywords. Keywords are the phrases that people search to find your site. Before you create any content for your site, think about the keywords that potential customers would use to find you. If I were searching for a rental in Lake George, than I would probably enter “Lake George vacation rentals,” or “Lake George cabins.” These keyword phrases are much narrower than a term like, “vacation rentals,” and they target more relevant traffic. You can do keyword research on Google by using the wonder wheel and related searches tools.

3. Provide Valuable Content

Search engines try to provide users with the best inforamtion, so make sure your site contains highly relevant, up-to-date content. Be sure to include a well-written description of your rental, high-quality photos, an availability calendar, guest testimonials, area information, pricing, and contact information. It’s also a good idea to keep a blog on your site with regular updates about the property, changes and improvements, area news, and special offers. The search engines like to see that a site is actively maintained.

If you already list your vacation rental on sites like FlipKey, then you may not need to create and update entirely new content for your site. FlipKey provides owners with widgets that display the booking calendar and guest reviews, among other tools. You can easily install these widgets on your site and keep all of your information up to date just by managing your FlipKey account.

4. Promote Yourself and Your Site

Even the best shop can fail if no one knows about it. You need to go out and do the legwork to get other websites talking about your site. Most of all, you want to get other websites to link to you. The search engines see these links back to your site and have an easier time finding your content. How do you get people talking?

Listing Sites

Most listing sites, like FlipKey, will provide you with a link to your personal website. You want to list on some of these sites anyway, so make sure that you take advantage of their authority and provide them with a link to your site.

Chambers of Commerce

Chamber of Commerce sites are good places to get noticed on the web. Join your local Chamber and make sure that they include a link to your website in their accommodations section.

Destination Marketing Organizations

Find the local destination marketing or visitor and convention bureau website and see what the options are for getting your site listed. Sometimes all you have to do is ask. You may also find local travel guide sites and directories – if they are ranked highly in search results, then it’s worth talking to them about getting a link to your site.

Local Bloggers

Bloggers are a tougher community to crack, but also a valuable community to be a part of. Think of blogs as your shop’s neighbors. Many of your customers are going to have lunch at the restaurant next door and then ask for a recommendation for a place to shop in the afternoon. If you’re friends with the maître d’, then he’ll recommend your store and not your competitor’s. Get to know the bloggers who write about your area and they will be happy to recommend you to their readers.

Social Media

As I wrote in my article on Social Media for Vacation Rental marketing, Facebook and Twitter are great platforms for promoting your property. As with bloggers, these sites are all about being social and not about hard-selling. Claim a Twitter handle and a Facebook page and get involved in conversations that interest you. You’ll meet some interesting people and find some great supporters to spread the word about your awesome rental.

5. Track Your Progress and Adapt

Finally, make sure you’re tracking your progress. There are plenty of tools available for keeping track of website traffic, but the industry gold standard is Google Analytics. You can create a free account and install Analytics on your website just by following Google’s instructions.

Once you have Analytics up and running, it’s easy to get carried away with the numbers. If you want to see how your SEO efforts are doing, then you will want to pay attention to the Search Engine traffic, which you can find under “traffic sources.” There’s a lot of information to take in here, but if you see the traffic generally trending upwards, you’re on the right track!

About the author: Daniel Weisman is a Social Media Specialist at FlipKey.com, which features more than 100,000 vacation rental properties around the world.  You can read more of his writing on The FlipKey Blog and connect with him on Twitter @flipkey.

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There are a ton of Twitter 3rd party applications that will track your tweets, your followers, your retweets, and more. As a social media director, I use a number of different tools to monitor our social presence and to track our analytics. One thing I have found is that some social media tracking products are too complicated for the average user diving into social media. Especially if you are a real estate professional who is trying to get a handle on your ROI and learn about what does and doesn’t work in social media

If it’s too complicated you won’t use it. I am a big fan of KISS – “Keep it Simple Stupid!”

One of my favorite products I use is Twitter Counter.

Ther best part of Twitter Counter is the quick and simple email I receive once a week:

The chart very simply show how many followers you have and how many you are predicted to have based on past performance. Once you log onto Twitter Counter there are other free charts to view and then if you’d like you can upgrade to a paid account. For me, this snapshot delivered right to my inbox gives me a quick view of where we are at on Twitter, and where we are predicted to be next week (in terms of followers). For me, this service is like a quick “check-in” to make sure I am on track to hit my goals.

Have you used this service? Do you use another Twitter analytics platform that you love? Please share and leave me a comment below!

Written by: Katie Lance, Social Media Director, Inman News, @katielance

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Twitter is a fantastic resource for listening to conversations, learning, networking and meeting new people, sharing information, broadcasting your message, and so much more. But, as many of us know, Twitter can be a time-suck. I’ve come across three outstanding web tools that can really save you time, and help make Twitter more productive for you.

Tweriod – “Tweriod will analyse your followers’ streams, work out when they are online the most and let you know the best time to post your tweets!”  This is probably my latest favorite Twitter tool. A lot of people have misconceptions about when is the best time to post tweets, and this takes the guesswork out of it. It can take over a day to get your initial report, but it is definitely worth it

Only the Links - “A simple Twitter client focused on only showing you Tweets with links. When appropriate, we’ll even show you a preview of that link. This app makes it easy to filter and consume the good stuff people are sharing on Twitter.” If you are like me, Twitter has become your main source of links and information (replacing your RSS reader). With OTL you can look at links from your Twitter lists and avoiding all the conversation posts. It cuts out the chatter – love it!

Formulists -  “Organize groups of people on Twitter into smart, auto-updating Twitter lists! Filter and network with people based on location/bio keywords, Twitter activity, number of followers and more.” I love Twitter lists, but if you haven’t been using lists or keeping up with them, then this is a nice solution. You can categorize your Twitter friends quickly and easily, so you can better follow the right groups of people for you at the right times in your schedule.

Have you found other Twitter time-saving web sites or apps that you love? Leave me a comment below! Also, if you use any of these three sites, I’d love your feedback too – leave me a comment!

Written by: Katie Lance, Social Media Director, Inman News, @katielance

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I went into Google today and searched “Social Media Tools.”

21,100,000 results!!

As a busy real estate professional, how do you differentiate what social tools are good to use and what are not? For me, first impressions say a lot. If I go to a site, and it’s confusing, or I just “don’t get it” for whatever reason, I usually move on. Let that be a lesson: simplicity is key.

For this “Tip Tuesday” post, I’ve selected three social tools, that I’ve come across recently, that are ideal for real estate agents or brokers to utilize.

1. Argyle Social - Argyle Social is a dashboard for social publishing, customer engagement, and social analytics. According to their blog, “Argyle is like Gmail for social media”.

Their belief is that there is a better way to help social media marketers do their job. For example, they have an “engage tab” that is built like an email inbox, focused on simplicity and usability, and optimized so that nothing falls through the cracks.

They also have a “rules” function which allows you to prioritize your social inbox. Instead of a pile of undifferentiated mentions, comments, and tweets in your inbox, Rules will automatically delineate, prioritize, and organize posts according to the filters that you set up.  I am eager to try this and see how it compares to Hootsuite and Tweetdeck. If you have used this, please leave me your feedback below!

I could see this tool particularly useful for brokers or real estate agents distributing social content over multiple streams like Twitter and Facebook – but one of the biggest benefit I could see is the filtering ability and the tools to foster engagement.

2. Nurph - One of the best parts of Twitter is the chatter that happens one-on-one. Nurph calls itself the “missing group feature in Twitter.” Nurph is real-time chat based on your social profile. Only the people who follow you can chat in your channel. Tweet the Nurph link and then bring the community together on your terms.

How cool would this be if you struck up a conversation with a potential real estate client on Twitter? You could turn a 140 character conversation into a more in-depth online conversation to get to know that client better and their real estate needs.

(Can’t view the video – click here)

3. Kurrently - This is one of the best ways to monitor when people are talking about you, a topic, or a brand on social media. Simply type in a phrase like “your name” or “Seattle real estate,” choose the Twitter or Facebook button, and then you will receive a list of people who have mentioned you or the phrase you typed in.

There are so many other hot social media tools emerging every day. Have a favorite? Leave me a comment below! Also, if you have used any of these three tools I’d love your opinion about them.

Written by: Katie Lance, Senior Marketing Manager, Inman News, @katielance

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Are you working smart with social media?

As a real estate agent or broker – you have to ask yourself: “Am I spending my time wisely or is social media a ‘time suck’?”

Can you track views, clicks, likes, and conversations? Can you track when your name or company name is mentioned across all platforms? If not, keep reading!

It’s one thing to have a Facebook page or Twitter account, but it quite the other to be able to make intelligent choices about content, time of day of posting, what works and what doesn’t and so much more…. AND not consume all of your time!

Recently, there are two companies that have caught my eye:

1. TwentyFeet

TwentyFeet provides detailed analytics AND aggregates all your stats into one place. It gives you an overview of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, bit.ly, Google Analytics and more. The key here is “all in one place! The other thing I really like is that they “nudge you” via email when your metrics change significantly – brilliant!

They offer a free 30-day trial and them you can order their services which start at $2.49/year. It is a simple, straightforward program that could help a lot of real estate agents and brokers track their social media success.

Here is a quick video that highlights some of the features:

2. Postling

I started using Postling about a month or so ago and I think it is an extremely useful tool.

One of the nice things about Postling is you can use it to publish to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Wordpress, Tumblr and Flickr. You can also schedule your posts out which is nice for real estate agents – you can “drip” their posts out over the course of a few days – just like drip marketing. Also, Postling brings all of the comments your readers leave on your blog, Facebook, Twitter, or Flickr into one place. Every morning Postling will send you a daily digest email recapping the recent activity for all of your social media accounts.

With Postling Tracking, they dig through Twitter, blogs, mainstream media, RSS feeds and more to find every time your name comes up.  Are there certain phrases that you know lead to potential new customers?  Save those phrases within Postling Tracking and they’ll notify you when you’ve got a match – very cool!

What do you think? Have you used either one of these tools? Are their other tools that you are using that you love? Leave me a comment below!

Written by: Katie Lance, Senior Marketing Manager, Inman News @katielance

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Bill Risser is an Assistant Vice President and Branch Manager for Chicago Title in Phoenix Arizona.  When he is not conducting workshops or closing escrows, he can be found at the movies with his wife or golfing with his son.  Follow Bill on Twitter @billrisser or friend him on Facebook.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could manage multiple social media networks from one place? How about a site that lets you track statistics?  While we’re at it, how about a site that lets you easily create custom tabs and streams?  Finally, what if this site had an application that allowed you to share across multiple networks any website you happen to be viewing?  All of this and more is available at HootSuite.com.

Just two years old, HootSuite has come a long way.  When I am asked by agents in my workshops to name my favorite social site, the answer is always HootSuite.  Recently, HootSuite instituted a free and paid version of the base product.  The free version is more than adequate for most agent needs.  If the premium version is required (if you have a team and need multiple users on your account, the paid version is the way to go), it is an affordable $5.99/month.

Here are my top five reasons why HootSuite is important to agents:

1. Manage up to 5 networks on one dashboard – Most agents I work with have Twitter, Facebook (Profile), Facebook (Page) and LinkedIn connected via HootSuite.  This allows the user to post updates to one, two, or all networks if desired.  The free version allows five network connections. This is a great time saver as users do not need to jump from site to site.  For more than five networks, the paid version is required.

2. Create multiple tabs and streams – Lists on Twitter can only be viewed one at a time.  With HootSuite, you can create up to 100 tabs and each tab can have 10 columns or “streams”.  These streams can be based on social network feeds, search terms, keyword searches or Twitter lists.  With this flexibility, an agent can create search streams to watch for conversations about a particular topic.  For example, an agent specializing in a certain subdivision can create a series of keyword streams to filter for any tweets mentioning that subdivision.  Aren’t these potential relationships?

3. Best status update functionality available – The status update box has its own URL shortener, file attachment tool, draft saving capability and a scheduler.  You can also select which networks to post to by clicking on the appropriate avatar.  If you select a Facebook profile or page, the scheduler automatically adjusts to the Facebook character limit.  The ability to schedule tweets or updates allows effective time management strategies for agents.

4. The Hootlet is the best innovation since sliced bread – Ok, I’m dating myself with that cliché, but it is true.  While surfing the web, if I come across a relevant article or website that I need to share with my followers/friends, I can click on the “Hootlet” applet on my tool bar.  I am given the same HootSuite update scheduler, without opening HootSuite!  It also automatically inserts the article title and the shortened URL into the update.  Users simply add commentary, select the appropriate network(s) and share.

5. Built-in analytics for ow.ly shortened links – HootSuite’s proprietary URL shortener is ow.ly.  By using this feature, users are able to get analytic data on these links.  The stats feature allows the user to see when and how many times the link was clicked.  This feedback allows the user to determine which links are important to their follower/friends.

I have introduced many agents to HootSuite and even converted some from other, similar products.  Being web-based, HootSuite can be accessed from any internet connected computer or your smart phone.  For the busy agent, it is a must have application.

I have prepared a few tutorials on basic HootSuite functions.  Also, Hootsuite.com has great documentation at the site, as well as a blog and other help features.  Give HootSuite a shot.  You will not be disappointed.

Are you using Hootsuite or a similar product? Please share your experiences here.

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Guest blogger Jay Thompson is the designated broker and co-owner of Thompson’s Realty in Phoenix, AZ. You can find his award-winning blog at PhoenixRealEstateGuy.com. His latest blogging adventure is RealEstateBlogPro.com.

Do you ever wonder what and where people are clicking on your website or blog?

You should be wondering.

Most people have some sort of traffic analytics installed (Google Analytics, SiteMeter and Get Clicky are popular) – as you should. These programs will help you understand how people find your site, where they come from, and where they go to. But they do not always tell you what people do when they get to your site.

And what people do once they land on your site is critical. After all, you can have all the traffic in the world, but if they don’t do something that ultimately allows you to “capture” them as a potential prospect and “convert” them to a client, then what is the point in having a real estate web site?

Enter the heat map.

A heat map is a visual representation of where people click on a web page. Darker/more intense colors indicate a greater amount of clicks.

Here is a heat map for my blog’s home page for the first two weeks of September:

Note the areas that I outlined in red. They show a high density of visitor clicks. Given that clicks in all these areas will lead a visitor to a home search – which is exactly where I want them to go – this is a good thing.

Yes, my Google Analytics will tell me that a lot of people go to the home search. But what Google Analytics won’t tell me is where on the page people click to in order to get to the home search. A prime example is in the “Quick Home Search” area, which is outlined in red on the right sidebar in the image above. That quick search used to be located further down the sidebar. I noticed, via my heat map, that not many people were clicking on it. So I relocated that widget to the top of the sidebar and the clicks increased dramatically.

Heat maps are a fabulous tool for testing placement of design elements.

Another use for heat maps is finding where people are clicking but with no result. The last thing you want is for a site visitor to click something and have nothing happen. This frustrates visitors, and a frustrated website visitor will swiftly leave your site.

Here’s a perfect example. The theme and skin I use for my blog places an image for the most recent post alongside a snippet of text. By looking at my heat maps, I noticed a lot of people were clicking on that image:

The problem is, when people clicked that image nothing happened. They were expecting to be taken to the article, but they got nothing. So I added some code that would send the visitor to the full article when the image was clicked. A few minutes of work and we now have fewer frustrated site visitors.
Without a heat map, I never would have known how many people were clicking on that image.

So, how do I get a heat map for my site?

There are a few options for adding heat map capability to your site analysis arsenal.

ClickHeat: The images above are generated from ClickHeat, an Open Source (free) software program from LabsMedia. Installation can be a little tricky for the novice, as you have to upload files to your server in addition to placing some code on your pages. ClickHeat doesn’t have the depth of features available on the more commercial products listed below. On the plus side, there are no limits on the number of clicks and pages you can monitor with ClickHeat.

Crazy Egg: Crazy Egg is a very polished, very powerful heat map generator. Installation is straightforward: Crazy Egg will generate a small piece of code that you need to place on every page you want monitored (if you’re installing on a WordPress site, placing the generated code in your footer.php file will put the code on every page). They have various account levels based on visitors and number of pages monitored. Prices range from free to $99/month. The free level will track up to 5000 visitors/month on one page

ClickDensity: ClickDensity is very similar to Crazy Egg. Similar installation, features and pricing. Their pricing tiers range from free to $400/month, but their $5/month plan will store 10,000 clicks on unlimited pages – probably the best deal of the pay versions.

Which of these versions you should use depends on your needs. Personally, I want to track a large number of clicks on a large number of pages. So I opt for ClickHeat. It’s not as flexible as Crazy Egg or ClickDensity but I’ll live with that and save $100/month. If you don’t need to track as many visits, why not check them all out and pick the one you like? The free versions of Crazy Egg and Click Density may fit your needs perfectly.

Be careful, heat maps can be addicting…

Are you currently using a heat map on your website? Let us know how you like (or don’t like) that product. Any other tips?

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In a past life, I used to do a ton of analysis on website visitors and usage. Well, I still do actually, but for my own purposes. You see, if you run any website, this is something you need to pay attention to.

It doesn’t matter if you’re running a local real estate blog, a large multi-broker website or a massive real estate information portal – knowing what people are doing, where they come from and why they visit is extremely important. Using an analytics tool for your website is vital for growth and for increasing your business.

So, you know you need to do something, but the tool you use might vary depending up on the need. After all, there’s no reason to nail that picture to the wall with a sledgehammer. If you’re running a large site, and need to ensure that you get the best ROI, a tool that can do the heavy lifting for you is important. However, if you’re running a blog or small site, some basic information is all you need.

Many of us used to use server-side stat tools to parse our log files, however in this case I’m going to cover just the tools that use a piece of embedded Javascript.

Tools for Serious Analysis
Google Analytics
I use this for a number of websites due to it being a comprehensive tool that allows me to run multiple sites through the same control panel. It’s a free tool that gives you a great amount of detailed information about what users are doing and where they came from. You have the ability to create funnels and track usage down specific tracks. If you run Google AdWords, there is tight integration with your campaigns. One thing that I don’t like is that it’s not real time, it is updated once every 24 hours.

GetClicky (pMetrics is a white label)
A tool that was designed for people who make money through their websites. I added it here because I wanted to show a tool that had real time statistics and that also gives an incredible amount of detail on each user that visits the site. For small sites it’s free, but large sites can cost up to $5.99 month.

Specialized Tools
CrazyEgg
If you want to see a heatmap of where your visitors are hovering on your site and what they do, this is a good tool.

103Bees
Offers a much more detailed analysis of the SEO value on your site. What keywords are driving them and where you rank in the search engines for those keywords.

Mint
Only if you use a Mac. Personally, I like using Mint a lot for my blog. It gives me a quick overview of what’s happening.

FeedBurner
This is a good tool for monitoring your RSS feeds if you have a blog. They also provide some very useful tools that help syndicate your content. Their web statistics package is very strange though – the numbers just don’t add up. Stick with their feed tools.

WordPress Stats Plugins
If you run a WordPress blog, and you want to install a simple plugin to do this for you, try WordPress.com Stats, WP-Stats, or Open Web Analytics . If you would like tighter integration between FeedBurner and Google Analytics that generates WordPress reports, try the Google Analytics and Feedburner Reports Plugin.

[Updated: pMetrics is just a white label of GetClicky, a much more reliable alternative.]

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