The Q4 2024 benchmarking report for UK holiday cottages rentals has just been published. Learn how the top 11 UK holiday cottages rentals perform across the digital space.

The latest Q4 2024 benchmarking report for UK holiday cottages rentals has just been published. It covers the largest 11 UK holiday cottages rentals, including Holidaycottages.co.uk, Cottages.com, Sykes Holiday Cottages, Original Cottages, Classic Cottages, Independent Cottages, Luxury Cottages, Last-Minute Cottages, Rural Retreats, Toad Hall Cottages Ltd, and Premier Cottages Ltd.

The research gives an inside track on who is winning the biggest share of voice online and quantifies the gaps, risks, and missed opportunities for other UK holiday cottages rentals to win brand exposure, drive traffic online and, for those with bricks and mortar locations, even increase in-store footfall. The report highlights quick wins that will improve enquiries from your online strategy and identifies the barriers that may be reducing your site’s ability to optimise digital performance.

To see a preview and contents page of the Q4 report, click here. To get a copy of the full report and the key takeaways, please complete the enquiry form or schedule a call.

Q4 2024 WINNERS LEADERBOARD

For a glance into just six of the metrics we evaluated these top 11 UK holiday cottage rentals on, check out our quick-look table below;

Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's best and poorest-performing UK train operators or request a copy of the report for the full review.

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What The Industry Research Report Covers

The 70+ pages of research benchmarks each retailer based on 50+ metrics and indicators of successful digital strategy, including organic visibility, domain authority, paid media ads, conversion performance, technical performance, site speed, universal search, content, social ads, accessibility, and mobile performance.  

Driving Optimal ROAS from Paid Media Channels

Some of the leading players in the space are high spenders on paid media channels such as Google, Bing and Facebook - but have a poor or sub-optimal conversion improvement strategy. Without an optimised, sophisticated conversion strategy that maximises the conversion rate, the return on investment is unsustainable or will underperform. Scaling spend on paid media is not achievable unless the conversion rate delivers optimal performance in the sector. Some in the space have paid media spend levels from £30k+ per month but dedicate minimal resources and budgets to conversion testing. Given the cost per clicks on ad networks will continue to rise, we recommend spending at least 10% of your paid media budget on ongoing conversion optimisation testing schedules to ensure your paid media ROI maintains long-term viability, competitive advantage, and sustainability.

Technical Website Compliance

Savvy  digital marketers know that having a technically sound website is an essential component of a successful fully integrated digital strategy - plus a site capable of maximising conversion performance. Holiday cottages rentals should ensure that their website is easy to follow, thanks to a simple design, and is easy to navigate. It’s also important that each website follows a coherent layout where it’s quick and easy for customers to make a booking.

Rural Retreats reported the highest 4xx errors (95), and this holiday cottages rentals should assess its linking structure and implement redirects when necessary. Misspellings on a URL may also be a reason for these errors, which is a quick fix.

Site Speed & Conversion Rate Performance

When  62% of consumers are less likely to convert if they have a negative mobile site experience, ensuring that your site is quick and easy to load makes a significant improvement on your overall conversion rates. For holiday cottages rentals, they’ll want to ensure that their website loads no longer than 3 seconds to prevent potential customers from becoming frustrated and not making a booking.

The mobile site speed ranged between 78 and 39, with Sykes Holiday Cottages reporting the lowest score. After analysing this website on a mobile, this company should reduce page weight and ensure all images are optimised to help with download speeds.

Building Competitive Advantage with Domain Authority

Domain  authority is an essential metric for measuring the effectiveness of SEO performance, and helps create a reliable overall gauge of how effective your site is at achieving organic traffic, i.e. ‘free’ traffic that is not gained through sponsored ads. All holiday cottages rentals should focus on offering valuable content on a blog page to encourage other websites with a similar target audience to link back to.

A ‘good’ DA really comes down to how your competitors are performing, however it is generally considered average between 40 and 50, good between 50 and 60, and excellent above 60. The DA rating for this quarter ranged between 77 and 40, with Luxury Cottages reporting the lowest DA score. This rental company also received the fewest backlinks, and it should focus on a PR strategy to build connections with other websites to receive more backlinks.

Organic Performance – Mobile & Desktop

A  strong organic performance is strategically important as it ensures your site ranks above competitors for key, transactional keywords. When 93% of your customers won’t go past the first page of Google, your absence or lack of targeting for essential keywords will cost you conversions. We’ve noted that the cost-of-living crisis has impacted traffic levels in many sectors, with consumers putting off purchases, such as holiday rentals. However, holiday cottages rentals can still take positive steps to increase their organic traffic, such as following a keyword strategy and regularly monitoring traffic to spot trends and find areas for improvement.

Two of the rentals saw a decline in organic traffic on desktop (Holidaycottages.co.uk reported the biggest decrease of -25%). Meanwhile, 3 rentals reported a decline on mobile (Cottages.com flagged the biggest loss of -26%). All companies should ensure their website has a minimalist design to help increase mobile traffic.

Universal Search Opportunity

Google  Universal Search Results is an evolving opportunity to make your pages visible on a SERP (Search Engine Results Page). Universal results often appear before traditional listings and are eye-catching for users. Universal search results refer to rankings on a SERP that are not the traditional ‘blue line’ Google link, and a site can appear for universal search results without being strong in standard rankings. For holiday cottages rentals, they’ll want to focus on results for ‘images’ and ‘reviews’.

Cottages.com reported the highest Universal Search appearances (534,365), with the majority of these coming from ‘reviews’. Five of the other companies reported zero appearances for this category, and they should encourage past customers to write an online review.

The Longtail Keyword Opportunity

Longtail  keywords are often considered high intent and potentially more likely to convert as a searcher is being more specific. Optimising for longtail keywords also puts your content strategy in a strong position to rank for brand-new search terms as they enter Google’s index. Holiday cottages rentals should regularly monitor and review the longtail keywords it uses to ensure they’re using phrases that their audience type into search engines.

Sykes Holiday Cottages secured the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (8,611) and positions 4–10 (21,178). On the other hand, Rural Retreats reported the fewest appearances for position 3 (186), though it didn’t received the fewest appearances for positions 4–10 (Luxury Cottages did with 847 impressions.

Facebook Adverts

With the number of Facebook users in the United Kingdom (UK) hitting over 44 million users in 2023, it is not surprising that companies have jumped at the opportunity to advertise on the social media platform. Facebook’s UK digital advertising revenue has been estimated to have breached 2.6b GB pounds in 2019. Facebook ads provide an opportunity for holiday cottages rentals to expand their audience and promote discounts and new announcements.

We’ve included an example of Sykes Holiday Cottages’ sponsored posts. This rental company included 2 gallery images across 2 posts to showcase multiple properties. However, we suggest that it personalises its written text to help expand its reach.

Top Social Shares & Content

When  it comes to social media and on-site content strategies, it is important to release content that has a longer shelf life. An article is considered 'Evergreen' if it has maintained its relevancy to an audience for longer. It's great for your brand engagement, but great for Google, too, who will recognise content which achieves traffic over a long period of time. Though Facebook advertising can be used to boost visibility for brands on the platform, having a strong portfolio of content to draw upon helps build a connection with your audience, as well as providing helpful content that guides them down the conversion funnel.

Sykes Holiday Cottages has the largest Facebook page (334,900 Likes) and the largest Instagram account (214,700 followers), while Toad Hall Cottages Ltd received the highest total engagement (9,309).

Website Readability & Accessibility

20 % of people in the UK have a disability – 2 million of which are people living with sight loss. In addition, 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women have some degree of colour vision deficiency. When websites are not designed to meet these needs, brands lose customer interest as they turn elsewhere. Holiday cottages rentals should be particularly mindful of having an accessible site, as being poorly prepared for visually impaired users could not only lose customer confidence but look very poor for their brand!

Luxury Cottages flagged the highest accessibility alerts (582), with the majority of these due to noscript element and redundant links. Addressing these alerts will help consumers to trust the brand and improve readability for those accessing the website from a screen reader.

GET THE FULL 70-PAGE Q4 2024 REPORT

To get a copy of the full report, please complete the enquiry form. If you want to talk to us about accelerating your digital performance, please call us on 01543 410014 or schedule a call with Mike Movassaghi.

Photo by Yaopey Yong on Unsplash