Property type
SEO for holiday lets and cottages: the agency takes a fifth, and the family would have come back anyway
The letting agencies typically take around a fifth of each booking, plus VAT on their commission, and Airbnb and Vrbo take their share in one form or another. A cottage sells in weeks rather than nights, so a lost week in August is seven nights gone at once, and the family that came this year is the cheapest booking you will ever make next year if they can find you. The work here is the Google listing in the right category with a price on it, a site with a live calendar, the searches that describe the house, and the guest list. From £399 a month for one property; the listing build alone is £250.
Before anything else
The contract decides whether direct bookings are allowed
Exclusive agency
Every booking goes through the agency, at their commission, on their terms. Direct-booking work is pointless until the clause goes or the term ends. We say so in the audit and quote nothing.
Agency plus own bookings
The agency lists the property and you may take your own bookings, usually with a parity condition or a fee. This is where most owners are, and where the work pays: the name search, the calendar on your site, the repeat families.
Platforms only
Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, no agency. You already control the rate and the calendar, and a site of your own with the Google listing behind it is the whole of the job.
The Google listing for a let
Holiday home, Cottage or Self-catering, one listing per address
A cottage gets a Business Profile like any lodging: the category, the pin on the house, photos of every room and the garden, the reviews, the description that says what it sleeps and whether the dog can come. Three cottages in one yard are one listing with the units described; three in three villages are three. Where the booking system is one of Google's connected partners, the property also appears in Google's vacation rental results with a price and a link to your calendar rather than an agency's; UK systems such as SuperControl, Bookster and Lodgify connect, and the audit checks whether yours does.
Most cottages we look at have the listing unclaimed, a pin in a field, and no price anywhere on Google, which means the name search goes to whichever platform has the best photos.
The searches a cottage wins
Sleeps, dogs, hot tubs, beaches, half term
A family choosing a cottage searches for the house they need, not the town. The agencies have filters for some of these and pages for none, and a page on your site that answers one, with the floor plan, the garden fence and the walk to the beach, ranks for it.
- “cottage sleeps 8 near Anglesey beaches”
- “dog friendly holiday cottage with enclosed garden Snowdonia”
- “holiday let with hot tub Shropshire October half term”
- “large house for a wedding party near Ruthin”
- “cottage with EV charging Pembrokeshire”
- “accessible ground-floor holiday let Llyn Peninsula”
Weeks, not nights
Why the calendar and the repeat family are the whole game
A let sells forty or so weeks a year at most, changeover on a Friday or Saturday, and the school holidays sell themselves. The weeks that decide the year are the shoulder ones: March, early June, late September, the half terms, the Christmas week. Those are booked by people searching for something specific, months ahead, and by families who came before. So the site needs a live calendar with the price for each week shown, the seasonal pages live before the booking window, and every departing guest asked for the email address and the review.
In Wales the numbers matter twice: a self-catering property has to be available 252 days and actually let for 182 to be rated as a business rather than a second home. Scotland licenses short-term lets and England is bringing in a register, so the occupancy a direct-booking plan adds is not only revenue.
The routine for a let
- 01Listing claimed, category right, pin on the house, price connected where the system allows
- 02A site with a page per property, a live calendar and the week's price, the total shown first
- 03A page for each thing the house is: the sleeps-eight, the dog, the tub, the beach walk
- 04Seasonal pages live before each window, at the same address every year
- 05The welcome folder and the departure message carrying the review link and the email tick box
- 06One email a season to past guests, with the shoulder weeks in it
Tiers and the calculator on the pricing page.
Questions hotel owners ask us
Can I take direct bookings while I am with an agency?
It depends on the contract. Some agency agreements are exclusive and take every booking; others allow direct bookings with a fee or a parity condition. Read the clause before spending anything on direct-booking work, because if the agency takes all bookings the work sends guests to the agency. We check it in the audit and say so.
Do I need my own website if the cottage is on Airbnb and Sykes?
If you want any booking without a cut, yes. The guest who searches the cottage by name, the family coming back for the third year, the group recommended by last year's group: those go to the platform unless a site of your own with a live calendar exists and is in the Google price list.
What does Google show for a holiday cottage?
A listing in the Holiday home, Cottage or Self-catering category with photos, reviews and a map pin, and, where the property's booking system is connected, a vacation rental entry with a price and a direct link. Most cottages we audit have the listing unclaimed and no price at all.
How do I get reviews for a let when guests never see me?
The welcome folder, the departure message and the follow-up email all carry the same one link, to Google, alongside the platform's own review which you cannot control. A cottage with fifteen Google reviews and replies stands out in an area where most have none.
Find out what your cottage's name search is sending to the agency
Send us the property name and, if you have it, the agency clause. We search the name with real dates, check the listing and the calendar, and tell you what direct bookings would take.