Now, if I knew the answer to coming top of search results at all times I would have retired to my own private island some time ago.

Having said that, there are some simple steps that can help ensure search engines at least know your vacation rental website exists.

Your vacation rental can have the best views, but you need to get the word out to get bookings.

This is not a detailed look at how to promote your holiday property website, simply a run down of the basics.

Firstly, it is important to understand that this is your responsibility to be proactive and if you do nothing... nobody will visit your website so you can expect no bookings.

1. What is in a domain name?

   If you have yet to pick a domain name for your holiday rental business... you can increase your chances of being found by selecting one that might reflect what people are searching for. For example "holidayapartmentsflorence.com" might work better than "staywithussometimesoon.com".

   Bear in mind people rarely type in a domain to their browser and more commonly type in a phrase to a search engine, so the domain being relevant is what will help you appear in search.

2. Links shminks

   Search engines pay attention to who is linking to your website - so get it out there.

   From your government tourism organisation, Facebook, forums to property listing websites it is important that you get your link out on to the internet.

   It is not really about people clicking on those links and making bookings with you (although that can be nice), it is more about being pushed higher up the search engine listings because your website is deemed important enough.

3. Words

   I always think it is a little odd that the term "keywords" has caught on when really it is just about words.

   Basically, people use words to search and if they show up on your website, search engines are more likely to give them your website as an option for them to click on.

   Point is - think about the words you are using. Example "nice town in our area" vs "Perugia is in our region of Umbria".

   OK, it is a bit more complicated than that, but the gist is make sure you are writing about things on your website are related to your holiday home(s).

4. Update often

   Search engines love new stuff… make sure you regularly review your property descriptions and photo description etc. Make updates and ensuring that all you have to offer is included.

5. Get technical

   If you are feeling brave, there are a number of slightly more technical things that you can do to...

   Webmaster Tools

   Google, Bing and many other search engines have an area for viewing how your website is performing - get access and add your website.

   Add a Sitemap

   If you your website supports it, or you can be bothered to figure out how to create one a sitemap file can be used to let Google know when you have updated pages.

   Every Bookster website come with one: e.g. demo.booksterhq.com/sitemap.xml.

   Example sitemap.xml file

   <urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9 http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9/sitemap.xsd">
     <url>
       <loc>http://demo.booksterhq.com/</loc>
     </url>
     <url>
       <loc>http://demo.booksterhq.com/contact</loc>
     </url>
     <url>
       <loc>http://demo.booksterhq.com/guest-area</loc>
     </url>
     <url>
       <loc>http://demo.booksterhq.com/properties</loc>
     </url>
     <url>
       <loc>http://demo.booksterhq.com/view/115680-house-by-the-river</loc>
       <lastmod>2016-10-12</lastmod>
     </url>
     <url>
       <loc>http://demo.booksterhq.com/view/115653-house-in-the-valley</loc>
       <lastmod>2016-10-10</lastmod>
     </url>
     <url>
       <loc>http://demo.booksterhq.com/view/115616-house-on-the-hill</loc>
       <lastmod>2016-10-06</lastmod>
     </url>
   </urlset>

   TIP: you can use Google Analytics to authenticate your website ownership in Webmaster Tools so sometimes it is better to set that up first.