Deciding to create a vacation rental website is the first very important step in increasing direct bookings and taking control of your business.
With several options available, and an overwhelming amount of features that you need to consider, it’s not easy to choose which vacation rental software is right for you. Here are the top 12 reasons you should choose Lodgify for building your vacation rental website.
You can accept online bookings and credit card payments
With Lodgify, you’re able to take instant bookings with online payments on your website thanks to our fully integrated booking engine. When a guest tries to book your property, this tool checks rental availability, calculates the exact price for their stay and, when the booking is confirmed, all information will be communicated to both parties.
As your Lodgify website is SSL certified, both you and your guests can be confident that details such as credit card numbers will be transmitted securely.
You can display and synchronize your availability calendar
Having a visual calendar on your vacation rental website allows you to show your property’s availability clearly, letting interested guests check quickly and easily if your home is available or not.
What’s more, with Lodgify you can synchronize your central calendar with any external calendars you may have on listing sites, for example.
It’s fully optimized for owners and property managers
Lodgify’s vacation rental websites are completely optimized for single property owners. For example, our CMS allows you to create your own customized bookable website in just 5 minutes.
It is also optimized for property managers: our website showcases each property in form of a listing and makes it easy for guests to browse your properties via a search results page and an interactive map. Our property CMS makes it easy to manage the content of your properties by adding unlimited photos, description text, amenities, rates and availability. Property managers will also be provided with an owner extranet login area which allows owners to update their own properties whenever they like.
It’s mobile-friendly and adapts to all devices
When choosing your vacation rental website provider, something crucial to bear in mind is: is my website going to be mobile-friendly? More travelers than ever are booking vacations using their handheld devices over the traditional desktop PC, so you need to ensure your website has this functionality, too.
Whether a page is mobile-friendly or not doesn’t just affect website visitors. Google has also started to punish websites that aren’t adaptable to smaller screens by way of excluding them from its mobile search algorithm. That’s why all Lodgify website templates have Google’s design criteria in mind, and they boast a fully responsive web design.
It’s 100% customizable and allows you to add custom pages
With Lodgify, you can easily customize just about everything to suit your taste and brand, without any technical knowledge. Change the colors, choose different fonts, select a background image, upload your logo and add extra widgets to your site to change its layout.
Furthermore, you can also easily add new custom web pages to your site. Simply customize your pages using the drag-and-drop builder, then add content, images and video to your pages. Though our website builder has been specially developed for users with few technical skills, developers can also have access to our code to truly customize their website 100%.
Remember: no choices you make on your Lodgify site have to be permanent, either. If you want to change the template further down the line, or decide on a different color scheme, you’re not restricted. You have the freedom to edit your site whenever you feel like it.
Our website builder makes it extremely easy to show your pages in any language you require. We already have professionally translated content for features like amenities and navigation bars in 25 languages, which you can simply activate in your Lodgify back office.
You’ll increase web traffic with SEO and social media
When it comes to marketing your website, Lodgify also has you covered.
All Lodgify websites are search engine friendly and follow best practices for SEO (search engine optimization). When you create your vacation rental website with Lodgify, we automatically submit your sitemap to search engines and support on-page optimization (that includes a customizable title, meta information, H1 tags and customizable URLs).
It also couldn’t be easier to integrate your Lodgify website with your professional social media pages like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+. Simply enter your social URLs in your Lodgify account and the logos will instantly show on your website and link to your pages. As social media is a great tool for building your vacation rental brand, your website will also feature “Like” and “Share” buttons so your viewers can spread the word. What’s more, Lodgify is also integrated with Facebook Messenger so guests can communicate with you directly and the messages will arrive straight to your Lodgify account.
Bonus tip: learn more about SEO with our free eBook!
You can collect and showcase guest reviews
Our fully-fledged built-in review system allows owners and managers to automatically collect and publish their guest reviews onto their websites with a few simple clicks. Compiling guest reviews of your property helps to build credibility and a strong reputation for your vacation rental brand, they also make it more likely that other guests will book your property, too!
You can edit your website 24/7
Another key benefit of using a site builder like Lodgify, instead of hiring someone to create your vacation rental website for you, is that you can publish your site immediately and edit it 24/7. This means you are not dependent on anyone to make changes for you. Given that our back end is super easy and intuitive to navigate, there is no need to be afraid of editing and updating information on your website as and when you like – you have full control and that should be embraced!
In case you ever need it, however, the Lodgify support team is available to help with any questions or queries. Whether it’s something basic that you’re not sure how to do, or a more advanced issue that requires technical help, we are more than happy to provide expert assistance.
You’ll always be up to date with the latest technology
Our entire team of developers is constantly working to improve the Lodgify product, and our clients are the first to benefit from the changes. We listen to feedback carefully and develop Lodgify in line with our customers’ needs.
Technology is changing at a rapid pace, but you can relax. As we’re constantly updating our software, you won’t miss the technology train, so there’s no need to worry about falling behind. Plus, every update we do is for free!
There are no set-up fees and hosting is included
What you see is what you get with Lodgify. In other words, there are no hidden set-up fees or extra costs to worry about. Your monthly or yearly subscription is the only payment you need to worry about, and we won’t ask for that until your free trial is over.
As our plans also include unlimited hosting, we’ll also never charge you based on how many visitors or how much traffic goes to your site. Our daily backups ensure that your data will never be lost and 24/7 monitoring means your website will be safe and up to date.
It’s more than just a template
When you use Lodgify, you get much more than just a website.
Our reservation system allows you to manage all reservations from one place and automate repetitive tasks. Our centralized calendar and inbox help you keep on top of your bookings, approve incoming booking requests, create manual booking quotes and collect payments. Our built-in guest CRM system will show all guest details and all booking correspondence in one central place. You can also set up various autoresponders to help save admin time and send guest emails automatically.
With our channel manager, you can synchronize and integrate all of your external listings on websites such as Booking.com and Airbnb with your Lodgify account. The channel manager automatically ensures that your calendar and rates are up-to-date and consistent across all sites, saving you from having to do it manually.
Convinced Lodgify is for you yet? Sign up for a free trial and see just how easy it is to build your vacation rental website, take online bookings and manage your business from one place.
Ready to take more direct bookings?
No set up fees, no credit card details, no obligation. Try Lodgify free for 7 days.
