Vacation Rental Web Development-- A Checklist of Ideas

If you are a vacation rental company in the market for a new website design, you probably already know that this isn’t a task you’ll want to take on on your own. Unless you have a website developer on staff, creating a high-quality website design from scratch is a pretty daunting undertaking, even for those of us who claim to be technically savvy. When you’re ready to sit down and start brainstorming ideas for that shiny new website of your dreams, here is a checklist to refer to when considering your new vacation rental website design.

• Appeal to your target audience. Websites are not one size fits all. Are you trying to reach out to students on spring break or are your properties targeted more towards retirees wanting to relax? Do you want to appeal to families or couples on their honeymoon? You really need to hone in and clearly define your audience when deciding on a customized vacation rental web design.

• Consistency/Repetition. Your website is going to have many, many pages. This is a good thing. However, you need to make sure that your image or brand name is the same throughout each page. This means keeping your logo and placement, as well as your footers, headers and navigation area, consistent. For every new page of content, make sure the same general format is repeated.

• Make your title informative. If the name of your vacation rental company does not clearly define the business you’re in, consider adding a short descriptive tagline in your header. Insert your tagline below the company name on the header of every page to keep your viewer informed. Also, put key information on the footer as well, such as contact information, physical address, copyright and the date your site was last updated.

• Prominent display. When creating an effective vacation rental web design, it is crucial to have all your relevant information above the fold of your vacation rental web design. This means that viewers should have access to all of the pertinent content without having to scroll down. Also, avoid the use of horizontal scrolling.

• Balance. To make your vacation rental web design visually pleasing, you will need a decent balance of text, graphics and white space. Avoid large chunks of text by creating lists or bullet points and use only images that relate to your content and are of high quality.

• Contrast between text and background. Nothing is more annoying than viewing a website that is hard to read. If you have a dark background with dark text, you might as well just kick people off your website. They aren’t going to stay long if they have to squint to read your information. Having a professional and clear format is essential for vacation rental web design.

We highly suggest that you invest in an experienced website developer because when it comes to building a superior web design, you get what you pay for. However, it is a good idea to have a general idea of what you’re looking for before meeting with your new website designer. Come prepared and use the above tips to come up with a very basic vacation rental website design. That way, you can collaborate with your web designer on the best customized web design for your company. Your web designer will remind you of these best practices when finalizing on a new design, but contributing to the planning of your webpage will help you and your web designer produce a design that is right for you.