33rd Annual Holiday on the Harbor Destin Boat Parade December 15

Visit with Santa on the Main Stage from 1:00-4:00pm before the boat parade! The Destin Harbor will be dancing with holiday lights and cheer during the 33rd Annual Holiday on the Harbor Destin Boat Parade, starting at 6:00pm. Margaritaville, Jackacudas Seafood & Sushi and Harry T’s offer the perfect spot for parade viewing. The evening ends with a bang as fireworks light up the sky and fire spinning from Just Add Fire on the Main Stage immediately after!

You can check our Destin Events Calendar for more events.

Optimize (SEO) your vacation rental for search engines

I have been working on SEO for our Destin Condo Rental at Pelican Beach Resort website for a few years, and I did well. You will find a lot of articles on web about optimizing your web page, let me summarize the main bullets before giving some additional advice:

The obvious

  • Build SEO and user friendly pages, and customize your URL to include keywords in the permalink inline with your goal
  • Create a blog and keep it rich with new articles , and also update the older articles. Give outbound links to credible sites
  • Your pages should have decent amount of text, and more pages you have, better it is. Images are important for human, but image caption matters for search engines. Therefore, make sure you add captions to your images
  • You should use your keywords in Meta Title of the page, and also in the content of the page with <h1> fonts. Use a Meta Description up to 160 chars to explain what your page is about. Use only 1 <h1> title on your page, but do not under estimate usage of h2, h3 and h4 titles
  • You must have backlinks from reputable pages. It is told that only ‘follow’ type links count, however I think even ‘nofollow’ links show how frequent your web site is talked about. Do not go to gray or black hat SEO to buy junks of spammy links. Choose a few quality sites intended for your business and write unique articles with rich content.
  • You must also link your pages to each other preferably 1-2 times from each page. This is called on site SEO and tells more to engines about navigating in your site.
  • Use social media like Facebook, Yelp and Google+ to create posts linking to your blog or page. Subscribe to Facebook groups or add posts to Google+ communities about your business.
  • Add your business to Google Business and ask your guests to review it
  • Use Rich Snippets on you website. Especially the ones for Local Business, FAQ and Events.
  • Pagespeed is very important, especially for mobile sites. It is a criteria for Google to rank you higher. And if your pages are fast enough, you will have lower bounce rates. Test your website at Pagespeed and GTMetrix, they are both free. Try to implement their suggestions and minimize the load on your site. Do not use too many plugins, or do not use a Wix site.
SEO for Vacation Rentals

And here are the bonus items from me

  • Use http://moz.com trial to see what issues you have on your site (trial is for 30 days). Also use https://moz.com/link-explorer/ to find backlinks. Identify a competitor and analyze who gives links to their site
  • Use https://monitorbacklinks.com trial for 30 days again to see backlink quality, and your competitor’s links. Check the ratings of those domains as well as their spam score. The better rating, lower score, the better the web page is
  • Study competitor links, go to those sites and find out how you can put your links like they did
  • http://Activerain.com is a good venue to subscribe and write blogs like this and link to your page (real estate). You need to pay annual subscription, but for me it was worth
  • https://www.helpareporter.com/ is a journalism site, you can subscribe free and follow-up the daily emails you get from journalists looking for information on different topics. If something is good fit for your business, write them to have an article on the web
  • There are a lot of blog registries where you can sign-up your blog, and get a link back. Most of them are now charging $4-5 to put your blog in but I may be worth doing that. Ex. https://www.blogarama.com . Here is an article.
  • Prepare a site at https://sites.google.com/ , put your business information, power points, documents, excels with links in it. Stuff it up with a lot of material like you use it often.
  • http://fiverr.com is a place where people do quick projects for you. Search it and try to find good professionals who would put your articles in good rated pages and blogs (like 5-10, not in hundreds). Write 10 unique articles with keywords in it, try not to use an article multiple times in different sites
  • Again in Fiverr, find people who do 100-150 citations in business directories, they can create your business quickly in many business portal
  • Houfy is a free vacation rental listing. Not much exposure but it is a good backlink option (although they give nofollow links). Tripz.com is another listing site where you can link your listing to your domain.

Tapas & Tequila presented by Garden & Gun Magazine – March 8th

A weekend of culinary experiences and craft beverages begins on Friday, March 8th at 7:00pm with a Tapas & Tequila Kick-Off Party presented by Garden & Gun—- featuring Nashville band Humming House.

Hosted on the Captain’s Deck, overlooking the Destin Harbor, enjoy an evening of delightful small plates and signature tequila beverages, mixologist demonstrations and more. This is one party under the stars you do not want to miss!

Purchase tickets HERE for Friday night. **Tickets are (claimed to be ) expected to sell out for this event.

Holiday on the Harbor & the Destin Boat Parade – December 9th

The Destin Harbor will be dancing with holiday lights and cheer during the 32nd Annual Holiday on the Harbor Destin Boat Parade!

Bring the kids to visit with Santa Claus starting at 1:00pm then at 4:45pm enjoy a special performance of the Nutcracker from the Ballet Conservatory of the Destin School of Music & Dance.

At 6:00pm, the Destin Boat Parade will light up the harbor followed by Fireworks and a firespinning show on the HarborWalk Village main stage.

12 Days of HarborWalk Holidays – December

Sunday, December 2, 2018 | 1:00 pm – 8:00 pm

Visits with Santa & Movie Night

Bring your list and check it twice! Visit with Santa on the main stage from 1:00-4:00pm and tell him all of your Christmas wishes.

After your visit, drop your wish list in our special mailbox to the North Pole! For every letter received, $1 will be donated to a local children’s charity.

Then at 5:00pm, join us for a holiday movie under the stars! Bring a blanket and enjoy as ELF plays on the big screen!

Bring a toy to donate to HarborWalk Village’s Adopt a Family for the Holidays program and receive a free cup of cocoa to enjoy during the movie!

Thursday, December 6, 2018 | 5:30 pm – 8:00 pm

Chanukah Celebration

Celebrate Chanukah with festive food, music and a grand Menorah lighting!

Saturday, December 8, 2018 | 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm

Saturday, December 15, 2018 | 1:00 pm – 4:00 pmVisits with Santa

Bring your list and check it twice! Visit with Santa on the main stage and tell him all of your Christmas wishes.

After your visit, drop your wish list in our special mailbox to the North Pole! For every letter received, $1 will be donated to a local children’s charity.

Sunday, December 16, 2018 | 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm

Visits with Santa & Santa Paws Pet Pictures

Bring your list and check it twice! Visit with Santa on the main stage and tell him all of your Christmas wishes.

After your visit, drop your wish list in our special mailbox to the North Pole! For every letter received, $1 will be donated to a local children’s charity.

Santa loves four-pawed visitors too! Bring your pets for a free photo with Santa!

Saturday, December 22, 2018 | 1:00 pm – 8:00 pm

Visits with Santa & Movie Night

Bring your list and check it twice! Visit with Santa on the main stage from 1:00-4:00pm and tell him all of your Christmas wishes.

After your visit, drop your wish list in our special mailbox to the North Pole! For every letter received, $1 will be donated to a local children’s charity.

Then at 5:00pm, join us for holiday classics under the starts. Bring a blanket and enjoy Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer & Frosty the Snowman on the big screen.

Sunday, December 23, 2018 | 1:00 pm – 4:00 pmVisits with Santa & Cookie Decorating

Bring your list and check it twice! Visit with Santa on the main stage and tell him all of your Christmas wishes.

After your visit, drop your wish list in our special mailbox to the North Pole! For every letter received, $1 will be donated to a local children’s charity.

Don’t miss this sweet treat– decorate a Christmas Cookie with holiday icing and sprinkles! HarborWalk Village is adopting families impacted by Hurricane Michael for the holidays. To participate in ornament making, we encourage everyone to bring a toy or present for this cause.

Santa’s Magical Arrival to HarborWalk Village, Nov 25-26

Bring the family to see Santa arrive at HarborWalk Village Nov 24th at 12:00pm!

Celebrate with us as Santa & Mrs Claus make their grande entrance Saturday at noon to HarborWalk Village kicking-off the Holiday Season! Visit with Santa all weekend long to receive a special treat and a free 4×6 photo with Santa! Bring your letter to Santa and drop it in our special North Pole mailbox located near the main stage. For every letter received, we will donate $1 to a local children’s charity. Enjoy kids crafts, face painting and visiting jolly old Saint Nick.