Posts Tagged ‘advertising properties’

Note Paper - Another Important Print Component for Your Property Advertising

Monday, September 28th, 2009

How to rent your houseWell, since I’ve been writing about the importance of print components in your property advertising, I thought I’d round it out with a comment about the importance of having note paper in your rental as well. When you print brochures and / or postcards, this is an easy thing to add on for little additional cost.

Hotels always have note paper in their rooms….it’s handy for the guest and it provides ongoing promotion for the hotel. The same is the case for your rental, it’s just another way to keep your name out there….and it’s very inexpensive. Guests appreciate the little personalized touches, and paper is something they always need.

Here you want to consider a simpler drawing or photo of your house….and you can go black and white or color. You could invest in a line drawing of your house, or you could use a black and white or one color photo (B/W or 1/C is typically less expensive to print).

Since notepaper is about giving the user space to write….I just include our address, phone, and web site along the bottom of the paper.

For specific guidance on creating a note paper for your vacation property marketing, check out the Booked Solid Blueprint, which will guide you through content creation as well as give you some great resources for inexpensive and quality production. Whatever you decide, make sure that printed materials are a part of how you advertise your property.

The Importance of Proofing Your Rental Advertising

Sunday, September 20th, 2009

Rental Advertising After working with several clients this week and reviewing their ad listings, I just wanted to take a moment to highlight the importance of proofreading your vacation rental advertising listing. I think so many of us are busy, in a hurry, and are used to talking quickly about our properties because we do it so often. What I think happens is that there is a tendency to post your property information and not review it carefully. When I look through VRBO and HomeAway I’m amazed at the number of typos in both headlines and ad copy.

Why is this important? Because you’re creating an experience for your renter. You want them to be able to trust you, this is a business transaction after all. By taking the time to carefully proofread your ad, you’ll be putting your best foot forward.

Here are some actual headlines I found. You tell me, would you click through to these ads if you saw these typos? My feeling as a renter is if a property owner isn’t detailed about their advertising, which they’re paying for, what else won’t they be detailed about?

★ Greaat Mountan Home View Property

★ Close to Beach, Disconted Rates

★ Best Ski-In Comdo, Walk to Restaurants

You can take a look at previous posts that give specific direction on improving your property advertising listing, however, just take a few moments this week and carefully proofread your ads. It does make a difference!

Google Suggest Provides Great Keyword Suggestions to Maximize Vacation Property Advertising Effectiveness

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

Finding Key Word Suggestions Just Got Easier!

Finding Key Word Suggestions Just Got Easier!

Google Suggest is a wonderful tool and you’ve probably noticed it as you type in search queries. It returns suggestions in list format for search terms that are similar to what you’re typing in.

So…..how is this relevant to vacation property advertising? Well, you know by now that I spend a lot of time talking about the importance of building your foundation for online success by identifying and targeting the keywords your renter uses to find you and rent your house.

Go to Google Suggest and type in “Your Town, Vacation”. You’ll see a list of auto-complete suggestions that come up, as shown here. By starting off broad, it may return words that are not relevant, but also ones that you hadn’t considered. IE in this example, “Ft. Lauderdale Vacation House” is not intuitive to me, and I wouldn’t have considered that off the top of my head. But you bet I would look up the traffic on that word after seeing it listed here. Vacation Rental Advertising

Since search engines try to correct misspellings and guide their visitors toward the keywords they think you are searching for, this tool is incredibly helpful in your quest to determine your most profitable keywords. Again, once you understand how your renters find you, your job becomes so much easier.

If you need help further in defining your keywords, check out our keyword discovery package.