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Vacation Rental SEO: HTML Tag Best Practices

Vacation Rental SEO: HTML TagsOne of the primary tools for marketing your vacation rental agency is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Being featured in the first page of Google for keywords such as “vacation rental apartments in Barcelona” can significantly increase visitors to your website.

SEO is a self-taught discipline with no definite rules that allow you to rank high in search engines (They need to keep their ranking algorithm a top-secret). However, there are basic rules that Search Engines allow you to know so that you can help it effectively crawl your website.  Many of these basic rules can be intimidating for those who are not comfortable working with HTML. To help you master HTML for SEO, we first need to look into the basic must-haves: Tags.

What are HTML Tags?

HTML tags allow you to categorize your webpage so that search engines can determine what is what (title, header, image description etc.).  Because search engines weigh content based on their category, placing keywords in HTML tags are important determinants of where you rank in search engines.

HTML Meta Tags:

An HTML Meta Tag is the description of the webpage that appears in search engines. Meta tags should summarize what is on your page and should include your main keywords.

Many website management tools, such as Kigo’s vacation rental website platform, offer built-in Meta Tag widgets that allow you to write meta tag descriptions without having to manually add HTML code to your content.

Vacation Rental SEO: Meta tag description example

HTML Tag Hierarchy:

Search engines index your webpages from top-to-bottom and weigh more importance to keywords that are higher up in the page as well as those tags that are titles (as opposed to keywords in the paragraph, which are weighed with less importance).

Important common HTML Tags are:

Title: The title tag tells the search engine what the main topic of your webpage is.

<xmp><h1> Place your title with your keyword here </h1></xmp>

or

<xmp><title> Place your title with your keyword here </title></xmp>

Subtitles: If you would like to elaborate your webpage’s title using a subtitle, you should include a subtitle tag that includes your secondary keywords.

<xmp><p class="subtitle">Place your subtitle with your keyword here </p></xmp>

Headers: If you want to include numerous titles on your webpage you should tag them as headers. Headers make browsers display title texts larger from the rest of your webpage text and they are placed on their own line. Header titles start at h1 and usually go down to h6. Remember that h1 is generally used for the main title of your webpage.

<xmp><h2> Place your secondary header with your keyword here </h2></xmp>

 Paragraphs: The main content on the webpage should be tagged as a paragraph or body.

<xmp><p> Place your content with your keywords here </p></xmp>

or

<xmp><body> Place your content with your keywords here </h1></body> </xmp>

 

HTML Alt Tags:

Search engines also index images and links on your webpage. In order to let search engines know what your images and links are, you should place alt tags on each image and link on your webpage. These alt tags should include keywords and should be relevant to the content on the webpage.

Placing an alt tag to your image or link is simple: you can either use the link button on your website management platform or you can manually enter the code as follows:

Sample Image Alt tag:

<xmp> <img src="vacation-rental-software.jpg" alt="Vacation Rental Software"> </xmp>

Sample Link Alt tag:

<xmp><a href="/channel-manager/” alt="Kigo Channel Manager"></xmp>

 

Categorizing your webpage with tags will allow search engines to correctly and effectively crawl your webpage, increasing your chance of ranking higher in search engines. To save time and HTML head-aches we suggest using website management platforms like Kigo, where you can simply add the tags without manually placing HTML code.

Have you seen a difference in your search rankings after implementing tags? Do you have any questions about the tags we described in this blog post? Join the conversation by commenting below.

 

If you are in the market for a new vacation rental website or better vacation rental software to manage your inquiries, bookings and marketing, consider using Kigo. You can reach us at [email protected] or on the phone (Spain) +34 512 702 105 ‧ (France) +33 1 84 17 04 18 ‧ (USA) +1 (786) 292-0030

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