5 Common Vacation Rental Website Mistakes That Are Costing You Bookings
By Jacob Hall
If your website is the “front door” of your business, what kind of first impression is it making?
We’ve looked at a lot of vacation rental websites, and we keep seeing the same issues pop up. These mistakes are easy to overlook, but they could be costing you bookings every single day. We’ve come up with a list of some of the most common mistakes and how to fix them below.
1. Sending Visitors Off Your Site Too Soon
We often see vacation rental sites with buttons like “Things to Do” or “Local Attractions,” which is great! But too often, those buttons send visitors straight to someone else’s website (like a local tourism board or blog).
The problem? You’re sending your potential guests away before they’ve had a chance to explore your rentals or get excited about booking with you. In general, 88% of users don’t return to a website after a bad experience, which includes confusing exit behaviors or poor navigation.
Ankerpoint tip: When linking to other websites, ensure they open in a separate tab.
2. No Clear Call-to-Action (CTA)
Visitors should never wonder what to do next. Whether it’s “Book Now,” “Check Availability,” or “Explore Our Rentals,” you need one obvious button or link that invites them to take action without scrolling or searching.
You need to communicate value in under 3 seconds and guide visitors toward an action with obvious, visible call-to-action buttons.
Ankerpoint tip: Make your main CTA buttons unique colors. Use an actual button, not just clickable text.
3. Wasting the Most Valuable Part of Your Website
The top part of your homepage (the first thing people see when they land on your site) is the most important. Studies show that about 70% of visitors never scroll past it. Communicate your value immediately—think headlines, trust, and clear call-to-action buttons.
Ankerpoint tip: Reduce “noise.” Removing unnecessary information or design clutter is just as important as highlighting key content.
4. Slow Load Time = High Drop-Off Rate
If your site takes too long to load (especially on mobile), most people won’t wait. Research shows 53% of people will leave if a site takes more than 2–3 seconds to load.
When someone is researching where to stay, they’ve likely got multiple tabs open. If your site loads slowly, they’ll just click to the next one—and you’ve lost them before they saw what makes your properties special.
Ankerpoint tip: Use free tools like GTmetrix to test your site speed. Then, compress images, reduce unused scripts, and enable caching for faster load times.
5. Not Mobile-Friendly
Recent data from mid-2025 shows that nearly 64% of global web traffic comes from mobile devices. In the U.S., it’s about 57%.
If your site looks clunky, loads slowly, or is hard to navigate on mobile, visitors will leave fast. It needs to work as well on a phone as it does on a computer.
Ankerpoint tip: Always check your site on a real phone. If you’re pinching to zoom or hunting for buttons, your guests are too. Prioritize mobile-first design.
Good News: We’ll Check It for Free
We’d love to give your website a free checkup. We’ll go through it with fresh eyes, share what’s working, and offer tips to help you get more bookings.