Vacation rental SEO: how a holiday home or cabin gets found on Airbnb, Vrbo and Google

Why does SEO matter for a vacation rental?

Guests look in more than one place, and each ranks you by its own rules. Airbnb and Vrbo order their results from your listing, prices, reviews and how you host. Google shows rental listings beside its ordinary results, with rates and booking links, but takes them only from managers and partners it has connected. Your own website ranks like any other site, and it is the one channel where a booking carries no platform fee; what the platforms charge is in our post on direct bookings vs OTA commission. If you run a holiday home, cabin or a few flats, each of those places is worth getting right.

How do you do SEO for a vacation rental?

1. 1. Fill in every Airbnb field guests filter on

   Airbnb lets guests filter by type of place, price range, amenities, booking options and accessibility features. Its help page says adding sought-after amenities, such as a crib, a hot tub, a step-free entrance or allowing pets, can make a listing show up in more searches for them. Tick every amenity you really have.¹

2. 2. Open more dates and allow flexible stays

   Airbnb says the more dates a listing is available, and the more flexible it is about how long guests can stay, the more searches it fits. A cabin that only takes week-long stays in August is missing from every weekend search.¹

3. 3. Price against the listings near you

   Airbnb compares your total price for the dates with similar listings in the area, and listings priced below comparable ones tend to rank higher. The levers it names are adjusting the nightly price and offering discounts, for example on a new listing or in a quiet season.¹

4. 4. Lead with photos and a full description

   Airbnb counts photos, videos and a complete description toward a listing's quality. Show every room, the view and the way in, and say in the description who the place suits and what is within walking distance.¹

5. 5. Keep Vrbo's signals healthy

   Expedia Group, which runs Vrbo, lists four things that move search position: the quality of the listing content, how competitive the rates are, your record of accepting and honouring bookings, and the quality and number of reviews. Accept requests quickly and avoid cancelling confirmed stays.²

6. 6. Check that Google sees you as a rental

   Google sorts lodging into hotels, vacation rentals and outdoor lodging. A vacation rental is a furnished space private to the guest, taking short overnight stays and cleaned between them; a place with a front desk or on-site manager is a hotel type, which our guide to local SEO for hotels covers.³

7. 7. Reach Google through a manager or connectivity provider

   Individual homeowners, peer-to-peer rentals, single rooms and partial homes aren't eligible for Google's vacation rental results today, and a homeowner can't get a Business Profile for their own home. A professional manager with fewer than 500 properties is pointed to one of Google's approved connectivity providers, and needs a direct booking website to join.⁴

8. 8. Turn on free booking links once you're connected

   Connected rentals can show in Google Search, Maps and Google's lodging search with an approximate location, rates and availability. Their free booking links send the guest to your own site, and Google charges no fees for those referrals or bookings.⁵

9. 9. Give each property its own page on your site

   Name the page for the kind of stay and the place, the way guests search: "Cabin with a hot tub near Lake Bled". On that page put the beds, the view, how far the beach or the lifts are, parking and check-in, with your own photos. Write the property's name and address the same way on the page and on every listing, which our glossary explains as NAP consistency.

10. 10. Ask every guest for a review

    Airbnb's quality signal includes ratings and reviews, and it says higher-rated listings tend to rank higher. Ask on the last morning, and answer every review so the next guest sees how you host.¹

Checklist

• Every real amenity ticked on Airbnb
• Calendar open and stay lengths flexible
• Price checked against nearby listings
• Photos of every room and a full description
• Vrbo requests accepted fast, no cancellations
• Lodging type checked against Google's definitions
• Connectivity provider and booking site in place if you manage professionally
• One page per property on your own site
• Review asked for after every stay

Written by Joseph Jang, Co-founder, PlacePilot