Something I hear from vacation rental owners frequently is, ‘How can I bring in more traffic to my listing?’. The answer can be simpler (and cheaper) than you might think. What we hear from visitors to FindVacationRentals.com is that they are looking for properties that are priced right, have the availability that they need, and have positive recent reviews from other renters.
When reviewing your vacation rental advertisement, there are some basic items that need to be evaluated:
- Are my rates competitive with comparable listings in my city?
- Are my rates up to date?
- Are the details for my property current?
Making sure your rates are ‘in-line’ with the other vacation rentals in your city is an important step in web advertising that shouldn’t be overlooked. Be sure to select several other comparable properties in your area when you are reviewing your rates. In addition, running discounts for weeks that you don’t have renters is another effective way to bring in more traffic. At FindVacationRentals.com, owners can select to run an Owner’s Special in any amount, and once it has been added, the listing is then placed into an additional theme category named “Vacation Deals”. This basically gives the owner two listings for the price of one – one in their listing city, and one in the “Vacation Deals” section. In addition, recently FindVacationRentals.com began taking advantage of what is becoming one of the most powerful marketing tools around – social networking. So now, as an added bonus for creating an Owners Special, FindVacationRentals.com posts a link to the special on Facebook, Google + and Twitter pages.
Another facet of vacation rental advertising is the Availability Calendar. There are arguments both for and against the use of the calendar, but from the potential renters’ perspective, it is ranked as one of the most important factors weighing into their inquiry decision. Your potential guest would rather not go through the process of inquiring, just to find out that your weeks are booked. Understandably, I’ve heard from some Vacation Rental Owners over the years that they prefer not to display a calendar, because they’d rather speak with the guest to see if they can offer them a discount on another week. Whatever your position on Availability Calendars might be, if you do choose to use one, keeping it updated can help filter out inquiries for rented weeks that waste your valuable time, as well as that of your potential guest.
Recent positive guest comments cannot be underestimated in the power of advertising. In the age of Amazon.com, as well as the ‘Like’s of Facebook and 1+ of Google+, posting an opinion about a link, product or service is almost second nature to most people. When someone is looking for their ‘home away from home’ while on vacation, they want to know that others had a great experience. Renter reviews that convey that the owner ‘anticipated our every need’, or that the ‘photos don’t do this beach house justice, this place is heaven!’ are powerful to your potential guest. If you have reviews posted for your property on your personal website, or even entries in a guest book, FindVacationRentals.com works with owners to add them to their listing, just email support@findvacationrentals.com to find out more information.
Getting more traffic to your listing is important – traffic equals inquiries, and inquiries turn into bookings. The more traffic, the better – and using these easy, no-cost steps to optimize your web advertisement will help you achieve it!
