Which Website?

[kiwitk<P>Kiwi in Cognac<P><P>[email protected]<P>]

Hi All,

we want to advertise our gite for the 2005 season, would love to hear from you all which sites you have found useful for getting bookings, there seems to be quite a few to choose from.  We are in the Charente area.

Also - if anyone has any recommendations for decent plumbers, electricians etc in dept 16 that'd be lovely too.

Many thanks for your help!

Tris

[Paolo]

Hi Tris,

The question of which is the best website to advertise on is something of a holy grail. The answer will be different for each property. Even in one area, the effectiveness of a site will vary for different kinds of property. A site can only optimise itself for so many phrases. So one site may be found more easily for 'holiday apartments in Charente', another for 'Charente villas'. This makes personal recommendations of sites less valuable than you might think.

But you can find out for yourself which are the best sites. They will be the sites that come up most often on the first page of search engine results for the phrases most likely to be used to find a property like yours. That's a bit of a mouthful!

The great thing about the internet (or one of them) is that you can put yourself in the shoes of your potential clients. You can see exactly the same results as they will, and then place yourself in their line of sight by advertising on the right sites.

I have written an article on how to do this, which explains a methodical approach to finding the best rental sites for your property. The short one is here:

http://www.laymyhat.com/newsletters/newsletter3.htm

The eye-glazing long version is here:

http://www.laymyhat.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=257

Incidentally, if it's your first year, I would recommend advertising on about 5 paid-for listing sites. In your second year you can assess how each performed and 'trim the fat', if any. There are some free ones, but generally you get what you pay for, and I would not rely on free sites for bookings.

By the way I am not affiliated to any sites, I run Lay My Hat which is an advice site for rental owners, by rental owners. The best listing sites is a popular topic of discussion, as you can imagine.

Good luck with your new venture!

 

Paolo

[Judyc]

Hi Kiwi

I agree that some of the free websites may not yield much success, but if it doesn't cost to be on there it only needs one booking to make it an excellent way of advertising!

I too trawled through search engines with the 'customer' hat on and looked at them for cost etc.  I would aim for the ones that offer a period of free advertising first so that you get a chance to make an assessment before committing yourself.  Some of our most successful sites have been found this way - I think I am correct that visitfrance.co.uk and holidaylets.net both had free trial offers and I have stayed with these sites as they have produced results.

Another site that I would recommend is villa-vacation.com from which we have also had results at a very low cost (something like 36 euros per year).

We are constantly approached by websites asking us to advertise with them, but I am loathe to part with money before I have done my own investigation as to how easily they are found on search engines, and how user friendly they are.  If they look good, I always ask for a free trial period.  Doesn't often work, but if you don't try, you don't get and I have gone on to a couple of sites from this approach!

Good luck for this season. 

Judy 47 Lot-et-Garonne

www.faysselle.com

[kiwitk<P>Kiwi in Cognac<P><P>[email protected]<P>]

Thanks guys excellent advice!  Fingers crossed we pick the right ones! 

Hope you have a good 2005 

Tris

[Jmp]

Hi Kiwi in Cognac

 

Although not all websites can optimise for all search phrases do bear in mind that the home pages of listing sites optimise for general keyphrases i.e. holiday accommodation, holiday cottages etc (and US equivalents) and that specific search phrases containing Charente or Cognac will be optimised within the page containing your advertisement, on good sites at least.  Therefore if you search for very specific phrases relating to your location you a likely to find listing sites that already have properties advertised in your area (competition). Try free trials on quality websites that don’t already rank for your particular area but do for more general (or neighbouring) terms and see in a couple of months if that site then ranks for your specific area using your advertisement.

 

In your first season you may have to invest a lot of time on listing sites with trial periods but it will be something that stands you in good stead for future years. Finally, do keep a record of where your enquiries came from and (very importantly) how many of the enquiries replied to your response and how many converted to bookings. One site in particular shocked me with the amount of enquiries I received within a month of placing my advertisement. On analysis I could see every one of them was from Hotmail accounts and not one responded to my reply. The next best performing (in terms of enquiries) advertisement returned serious enquirers, all of which responded, with at least questions and 70% converted to bookings.

 

Best of luck for 2005 and don’t leave it too long. Most of my enquiries for summer come in January.

Sorry I can't help with plumber or electricians.

[kiwitk<P>Kiwi in Cognac<P><P>[email protected]<P>]

Thanks Jmp!

Would be interested to know which company it was with the 70% conversion - perhaps you could pm me if you think it'll be conflicting with forum policy to mention them on here 

Tris

[Lizzie15]

[quote]Thanks Jmp! Would be interested to know which company it was with the 70% conversion - perhaps you could pm me if you think it'll be conflicting with forum policy to mention them on here Tris[/quote]

Oh,er,'scuse me, think a few of us would be interested in this info ?   Thankyou

[Jmp]

Hi Lizzie15

I replied to Tris via PM as it was quite lengthy and probably not of interest to experienced Gite Owners who already know what works for them. My original posting was more of a view that if you're new to advertising try some of the sites that don't already have properties in your immediate area (on a free trial of course). I can go on and on about the subject and bore everyone but .......

Anyway, the site that has worked very well for me for the past two years is www.holiday-rentals.com. Having said that, their database is now very large and my apartments are now lost in so many for my area so I'll see what 2005 brings. My properties are modern apartments on Cote d'Azur and a wonderful gite in a rural location might produce a totally different result. You don't know until you try but don't restrict yourself to sites that are only ranking for your area because that would mean they already have properties in those area. Why am I thinking about 'kissing frogs'?