Things that work...

We are going to be roling out our idea exchange some time in the next couple of weeks.

We'll keep you posted.

VROmarketing

Email campaigns and your Vacation Rental

Don't forget to stay in touch with your guests. In general, people appreciate being appreciated especially if they are spending hard earned money on your vacation rental.

The existing guest can become a repeat guest but you need to remind them of the great times they had when they last stayed at your vacation home. Stay in touch with them by email because it is the most cost effective way to maintain your relationship with your guest. In the vacation rental business it is more about quality than quantity which makes maintaining contact with past guests and high probability prospects even more important.

Peak Seaon Reminder

Many Vacation Home Owners and Property Managers are enjoying the spring break and are also very BUSY. Don't forget to spend a few minutes thinking about your marketing strategies for the off peak and shoulder seasons.

Good Luck Everyone,

Homespun Websites LLC

The Inexpensive and the free...

Vacation Home Owners and Vacation Rental Owners who have been looking for extra income have relied on the usual suspects for generating revenue to their vacation properties: HomeAway, VRBO, and CyberRentals. Others have been successful by using services such as those offered by Homespun Websites.

Many of the property owners I have had the pleasure to speak with are starting to gravitate toward the free services geared toward building content on their free listing services. In addition, many home owners have experienced success using Google Adwords, Craigs List, Vamoose, and even Ebay.

In a word, don't be afraid to use the free or inexpensive stuff because sometimes it works!

Good Luck,

Homespun Websites

Vacation Rentals and Extra Work

How many times has a potential guest inquired about additional information on your vacation rental?

Think about the emails you have sent to your potential guests answering questions about their vacation rental. The fact of the matter is that these potential guests make their booking decision using a common path. First they do their Google search, then they land on a website such as http://www.homeaway.com/, then they fill out the owner inquiry form, then they wait to hear back from the owner via email or phone. Usually, the end game is the potential guest gets confused and the booking you receive is more a function of luck then marketing skill or the quality of your property.

The point, make it easy for them to make their buying decision because it will increase the number of bookings you receive from your existing base of inquires.

Turn around on Vacation Rentals Inquires

How quickly do you get back to your inquires for your Vacation Rentals?

Let’s start from the top. The two types of inquires that the vast majority of home owners received via phone or email. In some cases, people with send an inquiry using phone and email. In my opinion, the best inquiry is the one that comes in over the phone because now you have an opportunity to quickly “feel out” the prospect and if appropriate close attempt to close the deal.

In the case of a phone call make sure that you have your phone “hunt” for you if you’re not available on your primary or secondary line. In other words, forward your calls to the appropriate lines. In the case of an email, make sure you auto respond with a link to a place where the guest will only see information on you’re vacation rental. Obviously, a link to a listing service is not sufficient.

Let us know if we can help,

Homespun Websites LLC

Testimonial Tips

Have you ever been considering a purchase, and made your decision partly because of reviews submitted by other people? Testimonials, or "Guest Comments" on your website can help potential renters determine if your property will be a good fit for them. Here are a few Testimonial Tips:

1. If renters mention what a great time they had at your property, ask them for permission to publish their comments on your website.

2. Make sure that every comment listed includes the person's name and other identifying information (city/state, website, etc.) If they have a website, they may appreciate the incoming link. Identifying information makes the comments more trustworthy to future viewers.

3. Ask happy renters if they would be willing to put a link to your website on their website. Incoming links are valuable - and it never hurts to ask!

4. Make it easy for people to see testimonials - instead of putting them only on one page, consider adding a short guest comment at the bottom of each page of your website. If a potential renter is wondering about the numbers on your "Rates" page, they may be inspired by a complimentary note at the bottom of that page!

Laurel@HomeSpunWebsites.com

Marketing Your Vacation Home

The most difficult issue in helping a "stake holder" market their home is management of their expectations. Note: a "Stake Holder" is anyone who has an interest in seeing that a home is rented. A person owning a second home, a property manager and an investment syndicate are all examples of a "stake holder".In my website development business we view HomeAway and VRBO as two requirements any serious stake holder because the performance and value provided by these two services is irrefutable. However, the approach of HomeAway is a one size fits all. My view is that a vacation home is unique. This uniqueness requires a unique and non-generic way to organize the information about your vacation home. In addition, I believe that changes are taking place in the industry that will affect the way "guests" search for properties. I am not sure HomeAway's business model is ready for these changes. Back to management of the stake holder's expectations, HomeAway and VRBO have produced an unrealistic measuring stick by which to compare the performance of other listing services and vacation home marketing concerns. In a word, HomeAway and VRBO have made it very easy to make money in the Vacation Rental Industry IN THE PAST.Going forward, stake holders will need to learn how to use all the tools available to build a viable and profitable Vacation Rental Business. Don't expect a listing service or a website to bring people to bring this constant stream of people to your Vacation Home. Rather, stake holders should focus on retention of guests who have come to your home and have already enjoyed the benefits of the destination and the vacation rental. Maintaining a relationship with your guests is the key to building a repeat and referral business that will reduce your dependence on the listing services. A personal website is the key to branding a vacation rental business because you are in complete control of the advertising and content on your website. Control means you are building your business and not that of the listing service. That said, use HomeAway and VRBO as long as they work for you but, be prepared to stand on your own two feet when it comes to building your vacation rental business.Thanks,Homespun Websites LLC

What goes around - comes around....

Most owners are already doing this but, always make sure that you send your referrals to an individual who will return the favor to you. For example, what do you do if you already have your vacation home booked and you receive a vacation rental inquiry from a potential guest?

Give the referral to a competitor in the area who also only owns a single property. This does two things that will benefit you. It build good will with the person to whom to provided the referral and it allows you to build good will for the person seeking the vacation home. Go to a site like www.findrentals.com if you do not have a buddy and do a search with the client and help them find a vacation rental that will make them happy. In the worst case scenario, you will have something very nice.

Indeed, the vacation rental world is a small place and it is important to have a sound reputation.

Thanks,

Homespun Websites LLC

Chat feature for your vacation home

I found a pretty cool chat tool that was brought to me by one of our best and early clients. He showed me this amazing add on that you can use to help manage folks who are looking at your vacation rentals and vacation homes.

So check out www.chatstat.com. I have am working on many ways to capitalize on this tool. Please feel free to give advise any thought you may have to use this tool to increase bookings and inquires to your vacation rentals and vacation homes.

Homespun Websites LLC

The professional image

Each day I speak to people about the vacation rental business I remind them that they are in the hospitality business. Websites and listings are just commodities these days for a typical vacation rental owner. The fact of the matter is that each year millions of domain names are bought and sold, millions of websites and web pages come and go. In my mind the key is to be professional from top to bottom. (I am not a lawyer and any of these ideas should be run through your lawyer, tax advisors or any others who help you in decisions relating to your vacation rentals and homes). That said, I would apply for a limited liability company, aka LLC, though your attorney or through www.legalzoom.com. Only use www.legalzoom.com if you know what you’re doing with respect to all aspects of setting up such an entity, I.E. taxes, estate planning and legal. Next, I would give serious consideration to setting up a system that will allow customers to book a room with you the same way they do with www.expedia.com. The idea behind this is there is a growing market of people who prefer to make a decision and "BOOK IT" right away. The conventional wisdom at my company is that a well laid out professional website with a booking engine will have a higher "BOOKING RATIO" than a standard vacation rental listing or website. In short, consider a real time booking engine.

Next, keep the message professional and short on your phone line and answering system. Lots of times, a long "windy" message results in a hang up by the prospect. Note: sometimes your message can be short but an electronic operator will come on and leave a long and annoying message teaching you how to leave a voice message. Along the same vein, dedicate a line for your vacation rental. An inexpensive solution is a SkypeIn phone line that you can get at www.skype.com very inexpensively. Skype has some amazing features that cost almost nothing compared to a standard phone line with any major Telco. Another choice is Vonage, www.vonage.com, because they can convert voice messages to text to which will allow you to receive an email in lieu of having to login to your voice mail, listen to a bunch of messages and finally get to the one you need. Imagine trying to do that when you’re in the middle of a meeting or already on the phone.

The key is to do anything reasonable to get back to your prospective guest immediately. Obviously, when someone makes an owner inquiry send them back an auto response with a link to your website. Don't refer a potential guest back to your competition's website. For example, don't send them a link back to your listing service because you will just be making it easier for them to comparison shop and rate shop. Also, get back to these potential guests right away. Ideally, you should invest in a handheld device that will allow you to get your emails real time. For example, I use a Cingular phone service with my Blackberry. This allows me to respond within seconds of receiving a call. The benefit of this ability is obvious. Finally, don't be afraid to send a SMS text message to your potential vacation rental guests. SMSs are ideal because they are so quick. I could send a response to a caller with my BlackBerry like "I will call you right back as soon as I get out of my meeting because I am offering a discount on my property this week. Please give me 10 minutes to get back to you, thanks".

These are just a few ideas but, ones that I think will make you look and feel like a real pro in this increasingly competitive vacation rental market place. Good luck getting more bookings.

Homespun Websites LLC

Marketing your Vacation Rental with a long term plan

We have alluded to this during many of our other posts. Stocks sliding, panic interest rates cuts and a consensus that the economy is slowing make managing your online marketing campaigns even more important.

The bottom line is that more people are going to have less disposable income. In addition, websites like Vamoose has consolidated thousands of properties under on domain name. This consolidation has resulted in providing potential guests with more choice. A prospective guest can choose between a hotel, corporate weekly rental units, vacation homes, property management vacation rentals and even recreational vehicles. In addition, they can decide to travel anywhere in the world. Indeed, marketing a vacation home on the internet can be an intimidating task.

The first key to success is not to be intimidated by the task of building your online marketing campaign. Simply, read as much as you can on the subject or hire a company that has a reputation for building high quality traffic. In other words, be prepared to do lots of research yourself or hire someone who has already done the heavy lifting. Make sure the person who is doing the heavy lifting has experience within your market place.

The second key is to scrutinize every dollar of your marketing budget. Evaluate the performance of your listing services, evaluate the performance of your Search Engine Marketing and Adword Campaigns, evaluate your search engine optimization campaigns, and always ask yourself these two questions:
1. Who would someone find my property?
2. Will they like what they see?

Finally, after you have made your marketing decisions execute and give these strategies a chance to take hold. In fact, most brand new campaigns can take as much as a year to begin generating significant results. Don’t quite on your campaign until you are certain it is not working. Don’t blame external factors for factors that are out of your control.

Please feel free to comment or send your inquires to info@homespunwebsites.com.

Good Luck,

Homespun Websites

Everything keeps changing...

500 Million people shop using search engines to find their products and services each day. Practically, it is impossible for a small or medium sized business to compete against the goliaths within their industry. For example, how can a person with one or two vacation rentals compete with titan like HomeAway.com.

For starters, Don’t take a one-size-fits all solution. In fact, your properties are each unique and require your input and our infrastructure to build a successful website for your hospitality business.

Philosophy: Don’t take short cuts. Comply with the best practices set forth by the search engines and deliver quality content and not garbage. This will ensure that people will “find” what they are looking for when they land on your site. This is better for the search engines, your prospective guests and your business.

Three step process to building your internet strategy:

Examination – the competitive environment is constantly changing. Your competitors will copy your ideas and sometimes enhance your strategy. In addition, your customer’s tastes and needs constantly evolve. To compound the magnitude of the challenge: technology changes by the second. The reality is that search engines always change their indexing algorithms and the directory services evolve as well. The bottom line is that without a specialist managing this process impractical.

Application:
The application of the Search Engine Marketing Strategy will involve the 5 Pillars of success: website configuration/design, high quality content creation, SEO, link popularity and PPC management.

Monitoring:
Things change – a stock broker will remind you that there are 2 sides to every transaction. Knowing when to sell a stock is as important as when to buy one. In fact, the only way to know when to consider changing campaign is by constantly monitoring it to make sure your Adwords and the Adword budget are effective. In other words, things that work today may not work tomorrow - the key is to know when and why something has stopped working.

Pictures of your Vacation Rentals

Everyone understands the importance of photos but, many vacation home owners and property managers are willing to put up average photos on their websites, listings and other advertisements.

A series of high quality photos with vivid colors will help make the buying decision easier for you prospective guests. A caption under the photo that reads, “Luxury with the comforts of home for a price you can afford”. Place a quick easy to read schedule of the weekly rates underneath the caption and you will have provided your prospects with an exceptionally quick presentation that will inspire and email inquiry or a phone call.

It's the economy

Sometimes we speak to vacation home owners who are frustrated with the performance of their websites, listing services and property management firms. People will ask me to evaluate their respective strategy for the three or four pillars of their vacation rental business. In many cases I'm able to make suggestions about possible solutions however, sometimes the slow down in business is due to a poor economy which has been exacerbated by tight credit and high gas prices.

My recommendation is to be extremely conservative with your advertising and marketing budget especially with your listing services. Go to http://www.alexa.com/ to evaluate the traffic of the respective listing service. Many of the listing services will have reasons as to why they don't rank high on Alexa.com or perform as well as their competitors. They will site the short falls of Alexa.com and have many "good" reasons why Alexa.com does not represent reality as it relates to their listing service. In my humble opinion, you will be able to easily identify the top performing listing services by using Alexa.com as a tool to aid in your advertising decisions. Remember, keep it simple. If it does not work, stop using it and if it does work, use it. Your job is not to justify the poor performance of many of these "also ran and lost" listing services. Let the traffic and number of listings on these sites justify inclusion in your marketing buget.

Good luck,

info@homespunwebsites.com

What do search engines see?

Have you ever wondered what search engines see when they index your website? This is your chance to find out. Take a look at your website, using this search engine spider simulator:

http://www.yellowpipe.com/yis/tools/lynx/lynx_viewer.php

Look through your results, watching for the relevant keywords you want Google to index. Add more to your website if needed!

At the bottom of the results, you will see a list of that page's links. Make sure that all of the links you want your webpage associated with are listed there.

Laurel Hamilton
Laurel@HomeSpunWebsites.com

Has your website been indexed by Google?

Just because you have a website doesn't mean that the search engines have found it. It can take up to 8 weeks for Google to spider and index your website. As I've mentioned before, having links to your website on more established websites will both improve your ranking and get search engines to find your website more quickly.

To see if Google has found your website:

1. Go to www.google.com

2. In the search bar, type: site:www.YourDomainName.com
There should be no space between the colon and the beginning of your URL.
For example, I would type: site:www.HomeSpunWebsites.com

3. Click on "Search"

The results will list all of the pages of your website that have been indexed by Google.
If your website hasn't been indexed yet, work on your inbound links to make it happen more quickly!

Laurel Hamilton
laurel@HomeSpunWebsites.com

Merchant Services and Vacation Home Owners.....Inevitable, continued

Well, I guess this weekend spilled into this week. Anyway, let’s talk about real-time booking engines. All a real time booking engine does is allow a consumer to "buy" travel using a credit card or debit/check card. The "buyer" will receive a confirmation after the transaction has been processed. This confirmation will include the total cost of the travel package as well as the travel and accommodation dates that have been selected by the buyer of the lodging.

As you might have guessed, Ecommerce real time booking platforms are complicated. Think about developing a system to send the travel buyer to a "booking" page. Next, the buyer needs to check the availability of the property on the desired travel dates using an accurate real time calendar, (Imagine booking the property on a specific date to more than one person!). Next, the customer needs to pay for the transaction over a secure payment gateway, assuming the property unit is available. Incidentally, a payment gateway is an Ecommerce application service provider that allows a merchant to accept credit cards. In fact, it is just like that thing you swipe your credit card through when you pay for gas or groceries. The only difference is that when you go to a gas station or a grocery store the machine that you swipe your card through reads the magnetic strip while the payment gateway requires someone to fill out an online application. The information will then be moved from your computer over a secure network to the merchant service provider. Eventually, the money ends up in your operating account assuming the transaction was "good". "Good" means that the card belonged to the person who used it and that the buyer and seller negotiated the transaction in good faith.

Clearly, the decision to accept credit cards is one that needs to be considered by anyone in the hospitality business. Furthermore, one should consider a real time calendar that interfaces with your merchant service provider. In future we will be covering more topics related to managing and accounting for your rental cash flow. Note, this is a red hot subject and I suspect you will hear much more about it in the months to come.

Please feel free to send any questions or comments to info.homespunwebsites.com.

Thanks,

HomeSpunWebsites

Making your website easy to read

Once you've done the work to get the right people to your website, you want them to stick around for a while. Here are a few tips to make your website more readable:

1. Don't write long paragraphs. Keep each paragraph short enough that it can be read easily.

2. Bullet points or lists give website visitors key information quickly and easily.

3. Sprinkle photos around your website to make it visually interesting. In addition to your Main Images on each page, photos can be added next to paragraphs, next to bullet points, and along the side banners.

4. Don't center your regular text on the page. Text is easier to read if it's left-aligned.

5. If you include a link, make it "clickable." (For an example, look at my e-mail address and website, below). All links should show in a different color than the regular text.

Laurel Hamilton
Laurel@HomeSpunWebsites.com
www.HomeSpunWebsites.com

Merchant Services and Vacation Home Owners.....Inevitable

The Internet and ECommerce had made the ability to accept electronic payment for goods and services more an expectation than an option in the mind of consumers. Content is king as far as Google is concerned but Convenience is King as far as consumers are concerned. As a consultant to small businesses, I constantly preach that the vendor/property owner needs to place themselves in the mind of the Internet consumer. In the case of vacation rentals, one must think about the profile of the person willing to spend money on your vacation home. Note: this person does not care about the price of your home, the amount of your mortgage, the cost of your cleaning service, your climate control bill, or any other cost involved with running your home. This customer is looking for a short term accommodation with a vendor they can trust that will deliver a valuable travel and vacation experience. As the vacation rental market matures in the United States less emphasis will be placed on direct contact with the property owner. In fact, I believe customers will view a vacation rental booking the same way they view a hotel booking on www.expedia.com or www.hotels.com. As is the case with all Internet commodities, this customer looking to book a vacation rental home will not be terribly loyal.

The merchant service model and bookings for commission models represent the largest revenue growth opportunity for companies like www.homeaway.com and www.findrentals.com. A vacation home owner that ignores this emerging business requirement does so at his/her own peril. Understanding sign up fees, monthly fees, transaction fees and discount rates will require a little work but in the end it will create huge market segment for serious participants in the travel and leisure business.

Hopefully this weekend I will spend time discussing real-time booking engines as they relate to vacation rentals, real time availability calendars and merchant service. (To be continued) info@vromarketing.com

Post on Vacation Rental Forums to improve Search Engine Rankings

One of the most effective ways to improve your vacation rental website's ranking in search engines such as Google and Yahoo! is to have links to your websites included on other vacation rental-related websites. When search engines see your website listed around the Internet, your PageRank increases, which means that your website moves up in the rankings.

Below is an example of a vacation rental discussion forum that you can join at no charge. At the end of each discussion post you make, include a link to your website so that your backlink will be indexed by Google and other search engines.

VacationRentalsCommunity.com

Laurel Hamilton
laurel@HomeSpunWebsites.com

Use Craigslist to promote your website

Writing a good Craigslist ad can improve your website's search engine rankings! How?

1. Visibility: Craigslist ads rank very high in Google, so your ad will show on Page 1-2 for most keywords.

2. Traffic: Include a link to your website in your ad. When it is found in Google, that's another opportunity for renters to find it and click on it. The more traffic to your website, the higher your website's Google ranking will be.

3. Backlink: Craigslist has a high PageRank, so Google places high value on the links listed in Craigslist ads. Having a "backlink" in Craigslist that points to your website will improve your search engine ranking.

How can you write a good vacation rental ad?

1. Write at least 100 words.

2. Just like the content on your website, your Craigslist ad should include plenty of keywords. Sprinkle words related to your vacation rental location and area attractions in your ad.

3. Make sure that your ad keywords match the content of your website.

Taking some time to write a search engine optimized Craigslist ad will pay off by increasing traffic to your website and improving your website's Google rankings.

Laurel Hamilton
laurel@homespunwebsites.com

Evaluating a Vacation Rental Listing Service

"Willie Loman" will say almost anything to get the sale including making exaggerated claims about the number of booking one can gain using a vacation home and rental listing service."

The landscape has changed in the vacation rental market place over the years. In fact, may people have built successful property management companies as well as vacation rental businesses off of the power of the Internet. More specifically, a minute number of listing services have provided a huge value. Along with the success of very few has come the hoards of "copy cat" services that don't allows meet the expectation of a property manger or vacation rental owner in terms of online views, inquiries and bookings.



Here are some of the promises that are made by many listing services.

1. People find us from the following search terms vacation rentals, vacation rental, vacation homes and vacation home. The implication of this statement is that if people find the listing service that it is the same as them finding your vacation rental. Note, there is a huge difference. Indeed, it is a numbers game. To my knowledge there is only one company that boasts enough traffic and enough complete and accurate listings for the aforementioned statement to be of any significance or relevance. The questions that need to be asked of these second, third, fourth and fifth tier listing services are as follows:

1. How long is my trial period?


2. How many visitors per year go to my specific destination using your service as a conduit?


3. How many other properties are listed in my destination?


4. How many of these listings have premium placement and how much does premium placement cost on your service?


5. How long has your listing service been in business and collecting advertising revenue?


6. Once I have gone through my trial period, how much will my listing on your service cost?


7. How much extra does it cost per property?


8. Am I allowed to link my personal website to my listing on your website?


9. What happens to the inquiries my property generates?


10. Are these inquiries resold to other companies and how do I know your not selling them?


11. Will you guarantee traffic, inquiries and bookings?


12. How many dollars in booking revenue can I expect for every dollar I spend on advertising using your service?


13. What is the rational behind the terms and conditions and the requirement that I comply with these terms and conditions? (Note to vacation home owner and property manager, you would be shocked to see what you agree to in some of the terms and conditions offered by certain companies.)


14. What happens to my properties information and my information in the event I terminate my relationship with your company?

Each person will have their own expectations as to adequate answers to these listed questions. Note, this is not a comprehensive list but, it is intended as a starting point when you are interviewing a listing service competing for you advertising dollars.

2. Premium listings on our website are worth thousands of dollars because everyone with a premium listing is "all booked up". Don't believe everything you hear when dealing with these telemarketers because their pay is based on the number of sales they make to people just like you. These misleading statements are common in the industry especially at the end of the month which is when the tel-sales team needs to meet goals and monthly bonuses. The easiest way to determine whether or not a sales representative is providing all the information is to ask for written testimonials, a couple of customers who have listed with the respective service and finally ask them for the retention rate of clients who use their service. Important, you should require that this information be provided to you in writing. In fact, the listing service should be proud to show you this information provided the listing that you pay a couple hundred dollars for is truly worth thousands of dollars.

3. We have thousands of indexed pages on Google. In fact, our competitors have less then us. Indexed pages do not necessarily translate into traffic or bookings. Always revert back to the primary question, "how many booking can I expect if I purchase your service?".

4. We have thousands of daily visitors to our website. This is a tricky one because it is hard to determine the origin of the traffic. For example, is it an owner going to add a property to his website or is it a person who was directed to the website during a sales call from a telemarketing center. In either case, these examples would not be quantified as quality visits to the site as far as the vendors are concerned because these two examples are not people who are interested in making bookings to a vacation rental. Rather, they are either being sold a listing and are touring the site being sold or are they are performing maintenance on their website. In other words, you have could have a community of visitors who are all interested in renting their properties as opposed to looking to rent a property. These types of visits have ZERO VALUE.

5. We pay thousands of dollars buying AdWords for our listing service. This is a great statement because the listing service can tell you the actual amount they spend on these AdWords and the number of listings on their website. You can determine the average amount per listing they spend on AdWords by dividing the total amount spent divided by the number of listing on the site. Note, feel free to ask them the for the same information with respect to the destination of your vacation rentals.

These are just a few of the statements and a few of the rebuttals I would offer to any of these listing sales folks who make these statements. Note, many might feel uncomfortable or rude when asking these questions but, remember these sales people are asking you for your hard earned money. They should give you these answers in writing assuming they are proud of their service. In short, get them to make these statements in writing.

Nothing personal Willie it's just business!