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We often hear: “Create the website for your apartment or holiday home yourself.” With the many tutorials available online today, it would not be fair to say that you cannot do it. The real question is whether you are ready for all the technical challenges a website will require from you.
Namely, a website is not just what you see when you click on a domain. It is like the front side of a clock — you see the numbers and the hands, but for them to move and show the correct time, the complex mechanism on the back side is crucial, or in our case, the mechanism behind the website.
We have already written about whether it is better to build a website yourself or hire a professional. The decision will most likely depend on how much knowledge, time, and money you have available.
There is also a long list of very important criteria, such as a calendar, mobile-friendly and SEO-friendly elements, which you need to meet today not only to attract guests to your website, but also to encourage them to book your accommodation.
Below, we deal with several very important technical details you need to take into account when building your website.
1. The theme or template is not adapted to a website for holiday homes and apartments
Many websites look beautiful and impress us with their design, colours, and animations, but on them we cannot find basic information such as the price, available dates, or contact details. Despite the design, such a website is not functional and will not achieve many results in direct bookings.
In design in general, and in web design as well, the rule “less is more” applies. When building a website, you need to make sure that all important elements such as the booking form, calendar, price list, and similar features are placed in the usual spots, and that the entire website is intuitive, simple, clear, and functional.
2. There is no booking form (widget)
For a holiday home or apartment website to be functional, it must be adapted to the behaviour of its visitors. They are already used to accommodation websites having a booking form where they can enter their desired arrival and departure dates, get an immediate price calculation, and send a booking inquiry to the host.
As soon as this is missing from the website, the likelihood that a guest will get in touch and ask about the accommodation is significantly lower.
3. Error 404
How often do you come across a website showing a 404 error, or the message “page not found”? When that happens, what do you do? Most likely, you close the website and click on the next result on Google.
Now imagine that this happened to your guest, who clicked on a link that was supposed to lead to your website, but instead received a message saying the page does not exist. Very likely, they returned to Google results and clicked on the website of another holiday home or apartment, while you lost a booking.
To avoid a 404 error, make sure that in your social media posts you write the full link starting with https:// and ending with .com, .hr, or another extension. Also, when you decide to delete any subpage that has already been indexed, it is better to redirect users to the homepage to avoid a 404 error.
4. Slow page loading
Websites for holiday homes and apartments are expected to have a lot of photos. If those photos are not adapted or optimized, the website may take time to load.
However, if the page does not fully load for the guest within just a few seconds, there is a high chance they will leave it, and you will lose a booking. That is why photo optimization, along with other elements, is extremely important.
5. The website is not SEO optimized
Let us return to the clock from the beginning of this article. For it to show the correct time, the mechanism in the background must work perfectly. In the same way, a guest can only find your website on Google if the “mechanism” in the background contains the keywords they are searching for.
SEO optimization of a website is very often missing, yet it is extremely important. Its importance is also visible in the fact that guests usually click on the first result, and perhaps one or two more on the first page of Google search results. If your website is among the last results, it is very likely that the guest will never find it.
6. You do not track or fix content that performs poorly on Google
It is easy to fix something when you know what needs fixing, but if you do not know that, it is hard to guess. Google may “dislike” your website because of just one small issue, and you cannot know what it is by guessing.
To know what needs to be fixed so your website becomes more functional, it is advisable to connect it to a tool such as Google Analytics.
Tracking the performance and analytics of your website will help you promote successful content and identify the content that should be changed, adapted, or removed if it harms the performance of the website.
A website is not a finished product once you publish it — it requires regular monitoring, optimization, and technical maintenance.
Website optimization is a process that never ends
Although many people think that it is enough to build a website once and never deal with it again, that way of thinking is completely wrong. In addition to regularly changing content yourself, updating prices, publishing newer photos, and changing descriptions, technical maintenance of all the “wheels” that keep your website running is equally important.
It is precisely this kind of technical maintenance and website optimization that should be carried out regularly in order to avoid numerous problems, both with Google performance and with viruses, to which outdated websites are more vulnerable.
There are also trends that need to be followed so that the experience of guests who came to your website is positive and the visit is turned into a booking.
If you decide to build the website yourself, in addition to the already mentioned questions of time, knowledge, and experience, also consider whether you have time for monthly maintenance, updates, and checking all technical aspects of the website so that it works flawlessly.
And remember:
Building a website is not a one-time task. You need to continue working on it even after it becomes visible on Google, because only then will it remain functional and continue bringing bookings.
Have you concluded that, alongside your regular work and all the obligations around preparing the property, you simply do not have time to handle the creation and maintenance of the website on your own?
Entrust this job to us with confidence. You are in safe hands!
