Online photo albums will provide additional visibility for your vacation rental in two ways:
1) They will provide "free storage" for additional photos / photo albums of your vacation rental and surrounding area for those visitors that would like additional photos
2) They are a gold mine for generating traffic to your site for specific keywords (ie if someone searches for "Sarasota, FL Beach Front Rental" and you have your photo tagged correctly, you photo could show up in the search results for this key word. It's part of an overall strategy for you to generate traffic to your rental from many different sources...as your renters will look for you in different ways.
OK, Where Do I Start?
The top services are Flickr, SmugMug and PhotoBucket. Flickr is the largest photo sharing site, and is easy to integrate into other web services and applications, so that is a consideration as well.
While the free albums these sites offer are a great resource, my recommendation is to pay for the upgraded version, and go with a small annual fee. The reason for that is that your photos will display without the accompanying advertising so there will be less "noise" on the page.
Once you sign up for your free or paid albums, think about the following:
What photos do you have
How to best organize the photos
What are the keywords that would apply to these photos
The easiest way to start out is to create a photo album that features just your property (Please resist the temptation to use this account for personal photos as well!). If you go with just one service you'll be way ahead of your competition in renting your house. Don't feel like you need to be on all of the services. Choose one and do it well.
Here, I would encourage you to use many more photos than you would on your site....remember this is an album, rather than the overview photos on your web site or ad listing. Here you can have 2-3 pictures showing different angles of a bathroom or bedroom. You don't want to overdo it, but it's a great opportunity to show more of your property.
Once you sign up, and have uploaded the pictures for your first album, you want to name the album something that is both descriptive and search engine friendly. So for example, you don't want to name your album "Gull Cottage Photos" but you would name it " Ft. Meyers Beach Front Vacation Rental - Gull Cottage".
Then you can upload all the pictures that would make sense for this album. The beauty of these albums is you can include multiple views of rooms, interior and exterior views....much more than you might include on your own web site....as people expect more photos in a photo album.
Once your photos are uploaded, you will see two fields that you can add content to. Many people bypass this step, and this is yet another way for you to rank for search terms and link back to your site....so take advantage of this great opportunity.
The two fields are: Tags and Description.
"Tags" are just descriptive search terms that are used to categorize these photos and allow access when people type in these search terms. These are where you want to put relevant key words and search terms that are relevant to this photo, separated by a comma. You are limited by number of characters, and your tags should not be more than a few words a piece. These will vary by photo service.
Next comes the "description". This gives you space to expand on what's in the photo and to really create an experience for your visitor.
Most people's tendency is to just write a description that says something like "View from deck". I would ask you to get focused, get creative, and be search engine friendly....AND appeal to your renters. You'll be rewarded with increased inquiries and bookings. It's worth the effort! An example of a friendlier more inviting description would be: "View from your private deck at "The Bay's Edge" on the pristine Sonoma Coast in Bodega Bay. Enjoy a glass of wine as you watch the sunset, or watch the fishing boats coming in to unload the day's catch."
Some ideas for additional albums include:
Local Wildlife
Local Activities
Guest Photos
I would encourage you not to use these albums as a replacement for the maximum number of photos in a paid listing, but as an enhancement to your listings, your site, and just as importantly, your overall search engine strategy.
Depending on what your strategy is, you can link back to these online albums from your email, your blog, or your ad listings with a simple invitation to your renters to view more photos. Remember, the primary goal of these photos is to boost your visibility and your search engine rankings. They are in addition to your other rental advertising efforts, they don't replace them.
Jayne_Brodie
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