Get your website found on Google and AI assistants

Your Nowistay website is ready for Google, for AI assistants such as ChatGPT and for phones as soon as you publish it: there is nothing to install or configure. What brings guests over time is what you add on top: good page titles, descriptions that name your area, regular blog articles and links from the places your guests already know.

This article explains what Nowistay does for you, then what you can do yourself.

What Nowistay does for you

Pages that load fast

Guests leave a slow page, and Google takes speed into account. Every Nowistay website is built to stay fast, on a phone with a weak connection too:

• Each page is prepared in advance and kept light, so it opens without waiting for anything to be put together.
• Photos are resized for each screen. A phone downloads a small version, a large screen a sharper one. The first photo of the page loads first, the others as the guest scrolls.
• Fonts don’t make the page jump while it loads.
• The booking calendar and the contact form load only when the guest gets near them, so they never slow down the top of the page.
• Links open almost at once: the next page starts loading when the visitor points at a link.
• The site is served on a secure address (https), on your Nowistay address or your own domain.

Photos also lose their hidden information (such as the place where they were taken) before they go online.

Pages that Google understands

• A title and a description for each page, in each language. Nowistay writes them when it creates the site; you can change them in Site settings (see Website settings).
• One main title per page, then clear sections, the structure search engines expect.
• The list of all your pages is given to search engines and updated at each publish.
• Each language has its own pages, linked to their translations, so Google shows a French visitor the French page.
• Your properties are described in a language Google reads: name, photos, number of guests, bedrooms, beds, bathrooms, amenities, check-in and check-out times and town. The questions and answers of a property page are marked as such. Your street address is never published.
• Blog articles carry their date and their link to your properties.
• Pages that have nothing to do in Google stay out of it: legal pages, the booking confirmation page, the “page not found” page, and your whole private preview.
• When you change an address, or remove a page or a property, visitors and Google are sent to a page that still exists, for 12 months.
• Once your own domain is connected, your nowistay.page address leads to it, so everything counts for one address.

Ready for AI assistants

More and more travellers ask ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini where to stay. Your published site lets these assistants read it, and it includes a short summary of your properties written for them: what each property offers, its capacity, its check-in times, its starting price and how to book direct.

Ready to share

When a page is shared in WhatsApp, Messenger or on a social network, it shows its title, its description and, when the page has one, its main photo.

What you can do to rank better

Google decides when and where your pages appear, and a new website usually takes a few weeks to show up. These steps help.

1. Check the title and description of your main pages

Open Home, then each page you care about, and read its title and description in Site settings > Search engines (Google). Name the place and the type of rental, the words a guest would type.

Example: you rent two stone cottages with a pool in the Dordogne under the name Les Gîtes du Moulin.

• Title: “Stone cottages with pool in the Dordogne | Les Gîtes du Moulin”
• Description: “Two restored stone cottages for 4 and 6 guests, heated pool, 10 minutes from Sarlat. Book direct at the best price.”

For a property page or a blog article, ask the AI: “Write a search title and description for the page of the Moulin cottage, mentioning Sarlat and the pool.” See Edit your website with AI.

2. Name your area in your texts

Guests search for a place before they search for a property. Mention your town, the nearby sights, the beach, the station or the ski lifts in your descriptions and highlights, in your own words. The AI can do it for you: “Add a highlight about the Saturday market in Sarlat, 10 minutes away.”

3. Write blog articles regularly

Each article is a new page that can come up when someone searches for your area: “What to do in the Dordogne with children”, “Getting to the beach without a car”, “The best markets around Sarlat”. The AI suggests ideas and writes drafts (up to 8 a month per website). See Write a blog for your website with AI.

4. Connect your own domain name

An address like www.lesgitesdumoulin.com is easier to remember, to say on the phone and to print. Your former nowistay.page address then leads to it. See Your website address and your own domain name.

5. Link your site from the places people already see

Google trusts a site that other sites link to. Add your website’s address to:

• your Google Business Profile (the card that shows in Google Maps), in its website field, if your business can have one: Google accepts a rental business with an office or reception where you meet guests in person, not a holiday home on its own;
• your social media profiles (Instagram, Facebook);
• your e-mail signature and your printed material;
• your local tourist office or partners’ sites, when they list rentals.

Keep the platforms’ rules in mind: Airbnb doesn’t allow you to invite its guests to book outside Airbnb, whether by message, in your listing or with a discount for booking direct. Your direct channel grows with the people who find you on their own.

6. Add your own domain to Google Search Console

Google Search Console is Google’s free tool that shows which searches bring visitors to your site. Once your own domain is connected, add it to Search Console, prove it is yours with the record Google gives you (you add it where you manage your domain, as you did for Nowistay), then submit your list of pages: https://www.yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml.

7. Keep your site up to date

Publish again after you change prices, add photos or receive new reviews you want to show: a site that changes gives Google a reason to come back. See Publish your website and put changes online.

Good to know

• No guarantee of position. Nobody can promise a place in Google’s results: what Nowistay does is make sure nothing technical holds your site back.
• No star ratings in Google. Your guest reviews are shown on your pages word for word, but they are not marked for Google, so no stars appear next to your site in the results.
• Your preview stays private. Google never sees a site that is not published.
• Your own Google Analytics can’t be added for now. Your visits are counted in Statistics, without cookies. See Website statistics.