Spring 2008 Owner E-Newsletter
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Welcome to our Spring 2008 Owner E-Newsletter! 
Did you miss our last E-Newsletter? You can read the Winter 2008 Owner E-Newsletter online today. We have been very busy over the last three months working hard for you while at the same time listening to your feedback and making improvements to our website and service offerings. Here is a quick recap of our recent activities: We attended the Vacation Home Expo in Atlanta, GA, and gained a number of new customers at the show (Welcome to you!). We have begun some major website upgrade initiatives that include: updating the listing details page that will highlight certain elements better, adding a new pay for performance model thus allowing you to choose which model you can subscribe to (look for these two to be rolled out in the next few months), and a new marketing campaign that involves getting your rentals out to other websites to increase the exposure and traffic of Surf to Ski Retreats. This campaign has been very successful and we have seen a 100% increase in visitor traffic and 300% increase in renter inquiries month over month. We would be happy to share our traffic reports with you, just ask! In this issue we will complete our series titled: "Attract More Renters" and describe how to write an effective vacation rental listing for your Surf to Ski Retreats listing. You will also learn about another product to help market your rental, how you can link your website to our and finally our current promotions. We hope you enjoy and find this E-Newletter helpful!  Attract More Renters (Part 2) In part 1, you were introduced to how renters search for vacation rentals and the importance of knowing what your keywords should be. In part 2 we will dive deep into the workings of your Surf to Ski Retreats listing and how to effectively compile a well written vacation rental listing for both renters and the search engines. You have a list of keywords, phrases and sentences to describe your vacation rental, now what? There are a few important sections to the listing you need to know about: 1. Title - This is seen by renters on the search results and at the top of the details page. The technology behind Surf to Ski Retreats makes the listing title VERY important. There are special tags that wrap around the title to tell the search engines this is important text. The search engines look at this text, within these tags, and places a higher weight on the importance/relevance of your Surf to Ski Retreats listing title. Make your title meaningful, concise and one that focuses on your rental. 2. Short Description - The short description is also located on the search results and the listing details pages. It is one of the first things a renter reads about your vacation rental. Although it is only 250 characters in length, you can add quite a bit of detail and keywords to this section. Consider using it as the teaser to entice renters to view the listing page, or to contact you. 3. Long Description - Only viewed on the details page it allows you to write anything and everything you want about your vacation rental. To obtain qualified leads, add as much information about your rental in this section. It will greatly help renters decide if they want to rent from you, thus not wasting your time with a lukewarm lead. A large percentage of online users (38%) choose their vacation home rental based on the nearby activities. Add descriptive text to showcase the nearby activities. There is an activities section, but writing about the activities and things to do will greatly help your odds in getting more hot inquiries and leads. Another item to describe that will help for both renters and the search engines are the local attractions. If you are near a famous beach, ski resort or theme park, add that information to your listing. Tying all this information together is very important. Write your descriptions for humans, but keep in mind the search engines. Do not just add bullets as the humans will be repelled by this writing style. Make it inviting and welcoming for the human reader. Having descriptions that tie in well together will help with people being able to directly find your listing page from Google, Yahoo, MSN and other search engines. Writing a Well Formatted Listing Let's put all our tips together and expand a little on the most important elements: pictures, location and rate. Pictures are worth a 1000 words and quite possibly make or break a qualified inquiry! Add pictures of the interior, exterior, views and nearby attractions or activities. The pictures should be clear, in focus, bright and showcase as many aspects of the rental as possible. Use keywords in your descriptions so that the search engines can index the page better. Put these keywords together in sentences that describe your rental home and mix it up a bit too. A good short description could be:
You might not think to include the street name, or complex, but we see lots of searches for specific areas, roads and communities. Including the location is critical to writing a good listing. The long description should describe the inside of the rental, the neighborhood and things to do in the area. Also describe the policies such as if it is pet friendly, if there is a wheelchair ramp, or if it is adults only. The more content you write about your rental (using keywords), the better it will be for both search engines and renters. Also consider adding your policies via the Policies forms as there are special sections for them. Pets? Refunds? Cancellations? Deposit requirements etc....? If you have any reviews from the previous owner, add them. Add comments from friends or family members that have stayed! Add rate information. If your rental is an upscale luxury rental, you will avoid unnecessary inquires. Same with a min stay requirement as you will avoid renters who want to stay one night when you have a 3 night min. Presenting little information means you run the risk of either getting no inquires or inquires that don't convert because the renter asks fishing/probing questions and when the answers are not to their liking they move on to something closer to what they are looking for. We hope this information helps you put together a killer listing that generates many qualified inquiries! If you want any specific pointers for your Surf to Ski Retreats vacation rental listing please contact us! We will be happy to help you. Product Spotlight: Activity Destinations With the increase in travelers looking for hobby vacations, mancations, girlfriend-getaways, adventure vacations and others, we have created a number of marketing products that allow you to advertise your vacation rental as a specialty activity destination. Consider adding one of these specialty products to help increase the interest and visibility of your vacation rental to more renters. These products are searchable on the home page and we have created special landing pages that allow the search engines to index your rental much better.
We currently offer these Activity Destination Products:
In the next few weeks will be adding several more and if there is a niche are you would like to market your vacation rental in, let us know! Current Promotions & Discounts For a limited time, the one year listing is only $99. This is before any special discounts, including the multiple listing discount we offer. Visit our website and learn about our other promotions that will save you money and increase visitors to your listing page. Our current promotions include discounts for the Featured Listing and Activity Destination products. Link Your Website to Ours Link to us and you will get a $10 credit on your account that can be used for anything. This is a special offer for just our customers. Find text and/or images, along with the code, to link your website to ours. http://www.surftoskiretreats.com/LinkToUs We encourage you to link your website to us as this will increase our rankings and traffic which in turns means more people are able to find your vacation rentals. Please contact us to obtain this credit. If you have questions about this program or require any technical assistance. Thanks for Reading! We hope you found this E-Newsletter insightful and enlightening. Feel free to contact us about any of these articles. Look for the Summer 2008 E-Newsletter to arrive in three months! |
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Copyright © 2008 Surf to Ski Retreats - Vacation Rentals For Every Season, All rights reserved.
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