Matt Landau
  • Founder, VRMB
Staff member
Ambassadors
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Top "X"

Big Ideas
Matt Landau
Matt Landau Founder, VRMB
Staff member
Ambassadors
Keystone Retreat
Content idea time!

IDEA: We're all familiar with the press pieces featuring THE TOP {insert adjective} VACATION RENTALS IN {insert destination}.

There are plenty of variations but for the sake of this post I'm referring to these pieces as "Top X." And typically, the author has little to no subject matter expertise. Sometimes companies being mentioned in the article are paying to be featured!

But these sometimes silly PR plays often act as "cornerstone content" for whoever created them!

Top "X" pieces command attention, exude authority, and even send inquiries/bookings to fortunate properties included. Here are some examples of Top "X" for inspiration:
ACTION: Make your own Top X!

Choose a keyword that fits your niche (professional, luxury, cabins, lakefront, limited edition, group, views).
Then curate a group of homes (including your own home(s) and ideally your favorite competitors' homes) and make the list LEGIT (be objective, detailed, complimentary, and include direct links and contact information to all properties in a free show of goodwill).

You can send each recipient a note that you included their property(s) in your Top X list but they will also come across it on their own (which also has a nice way of resonating).

Pro Tip: Top X is a great chance to use and abuse the keyword Airbnb to your advantage and grab visitors attention!
 
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One clear and obvious motivation here is, of course, affilate revenue :)

But beyond that, this idea of round-ups can be quite compelling and are very clickable. Doing this on your site/platform can work or also getting into round-ups or features that these sites often do. We've had success with HARO (https://www.helpareporter.com/) when they are looking for "awesome places to stay in AREA" and throwing our hat into the ring.
 
I apologize for being thick here...

I get the idea of making 'Your own Top X' but then what do we DO with it? Publishing it only on our own website seems self-serving 'and phoney'. It's one thing if the content appears elsewhere where there is a good chance of the public seeing it, and they can be directed back to our own website. But to create such an article without a separate venue to publish it seems the equivalent of making up an award to give to myself. It smells as honest as a $3 bill.

Or what am I missing?
 
ToonTownRob ToonTownRob A lot of our members have websites and content strategies to create original material that helps prospective visitors to the area. Most content strategies begin by identifying what prospective visitors to the destinations are searching and reverse engineering a piece of content from there. For guests in the discovery phase this kind of content is useful. The outreach process (like Conrad suggests) can take a number of forms.

If it smells dishonest for your taste, I suggest you skip this exercise because that will likely come through in your work.
 
Matt Landau said:
ToonTownRob ToonTownRob A lot of our members have websites and content strategies to create original material that helps prospective visitors to the area. Most content strategies begin by identifying what prospective visitors to the destinations are searching and reverse engineering a piece of content from there. For guests in the discovery phase this kind of content is useful. The outreach process (like Conrad suggests) can take a number of forms.

If it smells dishonest for your taste, I suggest you skip this exercise because that will likely come through in your work.
Click to expand...
I understand the source of your idea, but I think that toontownrob has a good question, and I don’t see an answer. If I were to write a great piece such as this, it would have far more impact on a website other than my own. So I understood his question to be one of HOW to put this to good use WITHOUT coming off as self-serving?
 
If it was me, I’d self-serve the hell out of it. Content creation as a strategy has a goal: to drive quality traffic short and long-term. If the purpose of this post, as I originally envisioned, was to inspire visitors to your destination with interesting places to stay, the potential outlets are endless. There’s a fantastic SEO technique called the skyscraper technique. It starts with one great piece of sharable content offered to any constellation of sites that might benenfit: https://www.semrush.com/blog/skyscraper-technique/

I tend to look at most content investments in terms of creation THEN distribution.
 
Matt Landau said:
Content idea time!

IDEA: We're all familiar with the press pieces featuring THE TOP {insert adjective} VACATION RENTALS IN {insert destination}.

There are plenty of variations but for the sake of this post I'm referring to these pieces as "Top X." And typically, the author has little to no subject matter expertise. Sometimes companies being mentioned in the article are paying to be featured!

But these sometimes silly PR plays often act as "cornerstone content" for whoever created them!

Top "X" pieces command attention, exude authority, and even send inquiries/bookings to fortunate properties included. Here are some examples of Top "X" for inspiration:
ACTION: Make your own Top X!

Choose a keyword that fits your niche (professional, luxury, cabins, lakefront, limited edition, group, views).
Then curate a group of homes (including your own home(s) and ideally your favorite competitors' homes) and make the list LEGIT (be objective, detailed, complimentary, and include direct links and contact information to all properties in a free show of goodwill).

You can send each recipient a note that you included their property(s) in your Top X list but they will also come across it on their own (which also has a nice way of resonating).

Pro Tip: Top X is a great chance to use and abuse the keyword Airbnb to your advantage and grab visitors attention!
Click to expand...


I like this exercise, and while I get there is some push back here on "why," but I think there's a couple reasons why:

1. If unique and thoughtful in approach, its unique and interesting content for someone who may be interested in visiting the area. I think you should be objective as possible here though, I mean, if you create these types of lists and include only your properties or pick choose your properties because its really just and Ad for you, then thats obviously misleading, but the idea to me is that we should b experts in this topic. We know the markets, we are attuned to guest experiences, ect....so we are best positioned to be helpful to potential guests.

2. I think its a good internal exercise for who the top properties doing x,y,z in the area are vs. just bubbling off from competitors. What are they doing well and what are they not doing well is a great way to stay innovative in how to create great guest experiences.


My ideas on interesting lists would be:

Top properties for large families in the downtown area
  • Criteria would be they are permitted, are owned and/or managed locally, have 20+ reviews that are very positive, have large kitchens, large backyard spaces, and at least 4 bedrooms in the downtown area
Top (insert "professionally managed" "locally managed ""homegrown", ect) STRs in San Antonio that are best at delivering a great local experience and place to stay.


Probably more if I had time to think about it....but seems like there is very little focus on guest experience in these types of ads and more focus on how cool the house looks, so I would go that direction.

Top p
 
ToonTownRob said:
I apologize for being thick here...

I get the idea of making 'Your own Top X' but then what do we DO with it? Publishing it only on our own website seems self-serving 'and phoney'. It's one thing if the content appears elsewhere where there is a good chance of the public seeing it, and they can be directed back to our own website. But to create such an article without a separate venue to publish it seems the equivalent of making up an award to give to myself. It smells as honest as a $3 bill.

Or what am I missing?
Click to expand...
You'd then use the article or blog post as a media press release and send it to every relevant media organisation/business you can get the details of (might be 5 or 50. You may or may not hit the mark with them, but you might catch someones eye that either likes what you have to say and/or has space to fill. Even if you got 1 out of 100 say, you're a winner. Independant promotion ie through it being included on a news site, someone elses blog, or a magazine, newspaper or industry newsletter of your article gives you instant expert status in the eyes of whoever reads it. You can also put it on your media page on your website. Writing and sending out press releases only costs your time and brain power. :)
 
Hey Guys and Gals, chiming in here.

"The glass is half full."

As marketers, our lens in very different from a potential guests. We can become overly sensitive to Help, Don't Sell content. We understand the mechanics and overlook the usefulness of content.

If you focus on Helping your guests, an article such as this demonstrates honesty and integrity.

Steps
  1. Take off your marketers hat
  2. Put on your Googling googles
  3. Get to Ogling
"I am not a marketer" | "I am not my guest" | "I am inquisitive"

"Collapse timesframes and help me learn more."
 
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Greg, who does all of our marketing as well as my hubby, created a hiking guide for our area. It is a big hit so much so that, our local Visitor's Guide hands them out at their office as well as our local airport. We probably need to add some tracking to it for ROI, but we are happy sharing the knowledge and it is a great way to advertise without advertising. I like this idea above as well as I read those kinds of articles all the time. We will put our thinking caps on and see what we can come up with.
 
Matt Landau Matt Landau 's advise for this content idea is golden. I support it 150%. If you can do just 1 content piece this year, this is the piece you should sit down, focus on and create.

The key to making a great "Top X" article is to include a bunch of helpful facts, statistics, and rich information to support it in addition to juicy gorgeous professional photos.
That's where the paid content writers fall flat. They don't have the passion, knowledge or the time to research what's really needed to make a "Top X" article fabulous and full of good "Googliness" to rank highly.

For example: if you are writing about the Top 10 Canadian Fishing Cabin Rentals - really get into it and put on your cap as if you were that fishing guest that is craving details about and dreaming about his/her ideal fishing cabin vacation.
Ask yourself all of the questions that this guest wants to know.
  • Where in Canada is the best fishing?
  • What amenities make the fishing cabin unique?
  • What kind of fish can this guest catch?
  • When is the best time of year to visit for each fish species to be caught?
  • What are the fishing license requirements?
  • Can anyone fish? What skills does someone need?
  • Do these cabins offer tackle? Where is the closest bait shop?
  • What cooking amenities are there to cook the fish?
  • Fill in some more statistics for Canadian fishing details
  • How can the guest relax after a long day fishing?
  • Etc... Etc...
Include local affiliates and outbound links as ConradO ConradO mentioned as well as a reference your business (I usually put that in the base of my content with a great graphic and link)

Approaching your articles in this manner turns the "Top X" content into really useful resource articles as opposed to a sales-y article.
In addition, articles like these positions yourself as an expert which is trustworthy while attracting that ideal guest.
It works.
 
I love this example of content development strategy in certain applications. We create a lot of content on our website but the over-riding intention is not to just try and sell you a place to stay. We have found that salesy "book this home now" messaging is mostly a total turn-off, and doesn't get the conversion you want.

But a well researched top X list, such as our best five breakfast places in Steamboat blog, both informs our guests (and anyone consulting the Google in our local destination), delivering local authentic value because we are sharing what we know, but it also leads many thousands of guests to our website (4880 unique visitors last 12 months). The SEO value and authority that this gives you in your destination is very compelling. Many visitors go onto browse our site...and some probably consider staying with us as a result.

Our other successful Top X lists include blogs that are likely to inspire a guest to visit your destination. If they visit your destination, they will probably need lodging....and there is a chance that they will pick you if they like your content.

If we create other lists related to lodging it's because we are trying to hit long-tail keyword searches such as Breckenridge Ski-in Ski-out Luxury Vacation Homes. You can fast-track your website to get traffic that comes right to your blog article rather than landing on your site and beginning a search.
 
You were asking "where to publish" a Top "XYZ" article... We are in the middle of writing one right now.... We are including some of our favorite competitors and also an AirBnB,, which I didn't think of, until Matt suggested it. It's all about grabbing those eyes, SEO optimization... We will showcase it by:

*Posting it on Facebook
*Posting it on Instagram,
*Including it in our bi-weekly email blast to previous guest
*Including it in our monthly email to those on our guest leads list
*Sending a copy to the competitors that we list; feeling almost certain they will post it on their platforms
*Posting it on our website blog page

This is all free advertisement except for the cost of writing it. All it takes is a little traction and the organic search results normally pay off. I can already tell this is not going to be a "one and done". We will continue to make these lists and store them to push out when needed. We try to keep a backlog of blogs ready to roll.

Fabulous idea Matthew!!!
 
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Matt Landau
Matt Landau
Founder, VRMB
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Keystone Retreat
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