Do you want to increase your occupancy rate? You have listings on the different platforms for Short Term Rentals, but you want to go a step further and create your own Website.
I might have heard Richard Fertig, one of the Guru of the Short Term Rental business, saying that the best is to have your own website to promote your vacation rentals.
Do you have several listings and you would showcase the different rental opportunities people have when choosing one of your property?
I have created a dozen of websites already, I know that it might seem to be overwhelming at first. That’s why I decided to write this guide for you to be able to create a website and be live in a few days!
I have never been a tech person, and I guess since you are reading this post, you are not either, so don’t worry, I will guide you with easy steps to follow. Nothing too geeky here!
Let’s see how to create your Website to showcase your Short Term Rental Offers
1- Choose your Website Platform adapted to Short Term Rentals
There are several platforms for creating a website like Wix.com, WordPress.org, SquareSpace.
In this tutorial, I will focus on WordPress.org as it’s the one I have been using for all my websites, it’s the best one in my opinion and even the biggest websites use it!
With WordPress, you will have a lot of options to customize your website and you will find great themes especially designed for vacation rentals!
As it’s so widely used, you won’t have problems to find support and tutorials on Youtube for your website!
Should I use WordPress.com or WordPress.org for my Short Term Rental Website?
Don’t make this beginner mistake like me when I started creating website!
WordPress.com is for free only if you choose the basic features and won’t allow you to have your own url for free.
What you have to do is using wordpress.org, which is free and has all the plugins and features you will need!
2- Choose a Domain Name
For short term rentals, the best is to have the name of the area in your Website name.
This is the information, that people will write in the address bar.
It’s great to add some words linked to your offer before your area name, it could be :
- visit
- stay
- accommodation
- guesthouse
- vacation
- holidays
- rentals
For instance, accomodationsinflorida.com.
You can make a list with different options and add some prepositions, otherwise you might discover that all of your domain names ideas are already taken!
Make sure the domain name you are choosing is easy to remember, not too long and easy to write.
My advice is to take the .com extension, as it’s the easiest one to remember. Often, when a website is not a .com, I always struggle to find it again…
Keep this list close, as we will need it quickly.
4- How to start your Short Term Rental Website with GreenGeeks
There are several well-known hosting like SiteGround, Bluehost, Hostgator. They are all good options, but they are not eco-friendly like Greengeeks is!
Why choose Greengeeks?
I used SiteGround in the past, and it worked fine, it was just not following my values regarding the environment.
Greengeeks is as good as the best hosting platforms and is reducing the carbon footprint.
The prices are quite similar as well, so I was more than happy to have found this unique option!
As I am not a tech person, I need to contact their support team often, and it has always worked well for me. They have a great chat support.
Step 1: Check your Domain Name Availability
If you use this link, you will get a 70% discount !
Step 2: Fill out your Account info on Greengeeks
Once you find a domain name, which is available, you can register and choose your Hosting plan.
You might have to try a few domains before finding an available one, don’t worry you will find a good one coming back to the list we did previously.
When choosing the plan, I am always going for 3 year to get the best discount.
Servier Location: If your audience is mostly in the US, set it up in the United States.
I don’t usually pay for the WHOIS Privacy and save up the $10 a year, that I would need to pay for it.
That’s it! You did it! You have your website!
I can hear you already tell me, yes ok, I have it but what do I do now to work on it?
You are right! We need now to do a couple of tech things to work on it very easily afterwards!
5 – How to install WordPress for your Short Term Rental Website?
a.Login into your Greengeeks account
You might need to wait some time before receiving all the information for login and for your domain registration.
Once, you have it, you can log in the Greengeeks platform.
b. Go to the Control Panel
c. Go to the Softaculous Apps Installer
d. Install WordPress
d. Fill out the information required to Install
Choose Protocol – I leave it as it is usually
Choose Domain – be sure it’s your domain name
In Directory – leave it as it is
Site name: Which name do you want for your website? It’s usually the same as your domain name
Site description: What’s your tagline? What is your website about? You could write “Your Home in [name of your area] during your next Vacation”
Admin Username: the username you will use to log in to your Website to write pages or blog posts
Admin Password: password to log in.
Be sure to remember those log in details to be able to log in.
Should I choose a Theme while installing WordPress?
No, you don’t need to change anything in the advanced theme or select a theme.
I have a full post, on how to choose the best theme for your Short Term Rentals. I would advise you to choose from those themes and not the usual ones offered here.
The only thing, I would recommend you to do in this last section of your WordPress Installation is to enter your email to be sent the installation details.
Click on Install and here you go!
You have now set up your Website for your Short Term Rentals!
You are ready to take your business to the next level! From hobby hosting to passive income generation!
You can now log in with the username and password you have just chosen.
Now what?
The next step is to choose your theme.
5 Easy Ways to find a WordPress Theme for your Vacation Rentals
No time to do it yourself?
We create for you a professional website for your short term rentals.
Over to you, where are your short term rentals? What’s your biggest struggle as a host?
Please remember to pin me!
I’m Natacha, a French vegan Airbnb host who has been working online for the past 4 years. I help hosts stand out and make more money online so they can have a good work-life balance!
Loved this post! It’s so well done and detailed. Thanks for all the graphics in there. It’s definitely an eye-catcher. I love reading your content because it’s obvious you put time and effort into writing your posts.