Google Base - Great Opportunity for the Vacation Rental Industry
Carrie Hill | 31 October 2006 |
As part of its goal to increase the quality of search for its users, Google has been improving and fine-tuning its Google Base application.
Google Base is defined as a place where you can easily submit any type of online and offline content into a searchable database which will place Base listings into various Google results platforms. If a new property does not have a place on a website yet, Base is a great way to have online content while your webmaster builds information on your own site. This can happen quickly and relatively simply. Any item you post should be described with attributes, which will help people find that particular property when they do related searches.
For example, when I search for “Puerto Penasco Vacation Rental”, our client’s Google Base listing with that title shows up first in the search results:
Google may push listings out to their other applications, depending upon relevance to Froogle, Google Maps and even the main Google web search. There is a whole sub-set of “UberShoppers” on the net who are continually looking for deals. Certain websites give them the shopping thrill they seek; the rush of ferreting out bargains and the smugness of being smarter shoppers than the rest of us is one of the things Google Base provides.
Google Base is a marketplace, like Ebay, where people believe that by cutting out the “middle-man”, they are saving money. You don’t need to offer an extreme bargain, just the presence of your property listed there has clout with them. Google is committed to increasing the interconnectivity between all of its applications, by putting all of its various platforms into one box, including Google Base.
The implications for Vacation Rental owners and managers are immense and exciting. Base affords a variety of ways to input information. Individual listings can be set up for each property or put together in a “bulk upload”. By utilizing the “Bulk Upload” feature, you can streamline the process and put hundreds of properties into Base with the click of a mouse.
Let’s look at a few great features a Base Listing can provide:
Attributes
By setting specific attributes for your property, you can make your information available to a vast amount of users. Attributes define the characteristics or qualities of Google Base items and are one of the main tools Google uses to determine the relevancy of a listing to a specific query. There are other aspects of your listing that will help your rankings, such as the title and actual content. Base currently recognizes over 80 attributes, and allows submitters to develop their own custom attributes. The trick to being indexed and included in results is to optimize your listing while still making it extremely user friendly.
Geo-targeting through Google Maps
By entering your property’s address into Base, each listing is given a map that shows the exact location of the property.
You can also zoom-in to a city street view on addresses within the United States - this is great for showing a potential visitor exactly where they will be staying and it’s proximity to the beach, ski lifts, or other local attractions.
Sell your property with photos
Your Base listing will also host up to 15 uploaded files which can be photos of your property or even a PDF of a brochure or map of the area. Within the listing, a visitor can choose to view the photos as a slideshow or click on the individual photo for a closer look.
As you all know, the old adage “A picture is worth a thousand words” rings true in the vacation rental industry. By showing a guest spectacular, professionally-done photos of where he or she will be staying, you are increasing your chances of getting a booking ten-fold.
Another great feature is the ability to download the photos from the Base listing; the potential guest can easily share them with friends and family, possibly increasing the reach of your marketing.
Filtered Contact Information
By providing an anonymous e-mail address to the visitor which redirects to your e-mail, you protect your e-mail address from spam scrapers and other undesirable invasions. You are also able to add your phone number to the listing. For better visibility, we suggest adding your contact information as an attribute at the top of the listing, also.
Upload Coupons and Specials
There is a whole category on Base dedicated to coupons. Every special you offer can be a coupon that can increase the visibility and market reach of your property. Not only can you have a basic listing for the condo, you can have a coupon listing for the winter special you’re running. This makes it that much easier for a visitor to find and book your condo.
Create an AdWords Account to send traffic to your listing
By creating an AdWords campaign through Google Base, you can send potential guests from Google Web Search results right to your Base listing or coupon special. Google allows you to tie this specialized AdWords group right into your existing AdWords account - easy to set up and easy to maintain right along with your regular AdWords account.
Recently, Trent Blizzard, CEO of Blizzard Internet Marketing, Inc., was a presenter at the VRMA Annual Conference in San Diego, CA. Also attending the show were representatives from Google and Google Base, who spoke at length about Google and it’s Base component. Because Google Base offers the Vacation Rental market such solid marketing opportunities, it’s important to take advantage of this great free resource. Blizzard is working to implement a program whereby our Vacation Rental clients’ individual property information is pushed into Base through a bulk upload.
By giving Google concise and categorized information, you can control what it sees, where it sees it, and when. Having this level of control is key to driving quality traffic online. Blizzard is committed to researching and implementing a program for all of our Vacation Rental clients that takes advantage of this great opportunity from Google Base.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
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November 16th, 2006 at 10:55 pm
Interesting stuff. We’ve found that being seen (and looking good) in as many different channels as possible is a highly effective marketing strategy, and Base looks like another great opportunity.