Holiday Cottage Marketing

SilliamWhale · Jul 25, 2014

Penmoel said:
Looks a cracking house with you in a very good area , would have thought you could get to your 30 weeks once you have built up a clientele and have repeat bookings. Agents do screw the job ours takes 24% yet we have not done so bad on bookings to be honest and advertising yourself is not cheap.

We stayed in a self catering place last year which used this online booking system with availability shown and online card payment, what does your booking system cost then Wil?

http://www.supercontrol.co.uk/

Currently just using holidaylettings.co.uk booking system and directing them to that. But another way of doing it is just to accept paypal or bank transfer and then just putting my own booking onto the holiday lettings calendar. I suppose I should try and figure out a way of taking online cards really, because if you book it through holidaylettings you have to let them take their fee then too.

My agent isn't coming up with the goods enough for me out of school holidays and although I'm finding I think its a slightly harder sell out of school holidays because groups of 10 adults are less common and 6 people tend to look for a house that sleeps 6 and no more.

Penmoel · Jul 25, 2014

A group of us around here are looking at setting a site up for the area attracting people to come here between the sea and the mountains, we were discussing that there is a sweet spot with regard to the size of house to let as you say 10 maybe even 6 is too large , so if a group of us can offer a range of sizes nearby may attract groups who want to holiday together but not with each other.

GTB · Jul 26, 2014

Penmoel said:
A group of us around here are looking at setting a site up for the area attracting people to come here between the sea and the mountains, we were discussing that there is a sweet spot with regard to the size of house to let as you say 10 maybe even 6 is too large , so if a group of us can offer a range of sizes nearby may attract groups who want to holiday together but not with each other.

Good idea. Room for one more?

SilliamWhale · Jul 26, 2014

Penmoel said:
A group of us around here are looking at setting a site up for the area attracting people to come here between the sea and the mountains, we were discussing that there is a sweet spot with regard to the size of house to let as you say 10 maybe even 6 is too large , so if a group of us can offer a range of sizes nearby may attract groups who want to holiday together but not with each other.

There may be local grant help you could get for that - maybe promote it as "Y gwyll" country or the like.

Penmoel · Jul 28, 2014

GTB said:
Good idea. Room for one more?

We were thinking really of keeping it very local, just this village really,

is that being too selfish

GTB · Jul 28, 2014

Penmoel said:
We were thinking really of keeping it very local, just this village really, is that being too selfish

No problem. Good luck with it.

Princess Pooper · Aug 3, 2014

SilliamWhale said:
I finally coughed up and get round to someone doing the website properly

http://greatnashfarm.co.uk/

Any feedback + and - appreciated. I may have missed some important details.

Having a reasonably good year with about 22 weeks. If I can get that up to nearer 30 and take all my own bookings it will turn into half a wage per annum for not too much work or cost.

Looks a great house and a lot of useful info in there. However, again, although I looked carefully and see mention of 5 bedrooms and 2 upstairs bathrooms I can't find reference to how many it sleeps (except on this forum!!) When it came up on google the (p10 on my search words) the text before I clicked mentioned it sleeps 10 but I couldn't find that text on the site????? Also, you list local attractions - great - can you ask those that have a website if you can link to it (get them to send a digital logo so you can use that as the hyperlink) as I am not an expert on this, but I think that will improve your listing on google? Also, will making sure you include phrases like 'family groups' or 'groups of friends' help it to come up in searches for a larger property? Although I hate the style of the website & they have obviously been at it for a long while, this one comes out pretty high up for an individual property when family group is added into the search (which was words like Pembrokeshire, Haverfordwest, farmhouse, holiday) and it has links to lots of local attractions. http://www.haroldston.co.uk/

PS - edit - I found 'sleeps 10' when I clicked on the booking link but would I have moved on before I got that far if I couldn't see how many it slept?

SilliamWhale · Aug 3, 2014

Thanks for that. I'll work on it.

JNP · Aug 3, 2014

Also add your website link into your signature here. It will help a little towards google ranking.

jade35 · Aug 4, 2014

Like the pictures on the website

agree with princess pooper's comments. Only a few extra points

Is there anywhere to dry wet coats etc for people who stay in the less sunny months, similarly I see that there is no mention of a tumble drier or equivalent , for larger families being able to wash and then dry clothes could be the deciding factor as to where they book especially if there is limited space in their vehicle when travelling. Is electricity included in the price? I may have missed the information but everything else seems to be mentioned but electricity.

Although the 'book now' link is more informative I wonder how many people will just think that they don't want to book without more information and just leave the website. Perhaps if the link says for 'more information on Great Nash Farm and to book now' . I like the review section and the replies, visitors have obviously really enjoyed their stay.

Clive · Aug 5, 2014

SilliamWhale said:
I finally coughed up and get round to someone doing the website properly

http://greatnashfarm.co.uk/

Any feedback + and - appreciated. I may have missed some important details.

Having a reasonably good year with about 22 weeks. If I can get that up to nearer 30 and take all my own bookings it will turn into half a wage per annum for not too much work or cost.

nice site, well done, professional looking and to the point, perfect ! what are you doing SEO wise to make sure it gets found ?

GTB · Aug 5, 2014

Clive said:
nice site, well done, professional looking and to the point, perfect ! what are you doing SEO wise to make sure it gets found ?

What's an SEO? :scratchhead:

Dr Evil · Aug 5, 2014

GTB said:
What's an SEO?

Search engine optimisation. To make sure your website is top of the list when people Google "holiday cottage West Wales" etc

GTB · Aug 5, 2014

Oh right, never heard of it before. How do you go about doing your SEO?

Thanks

Clive · Aug 5, 2014

GTB said:
Oh right, never heard of it before. How do you go about doing your SEO?

Thanks

any website is only any good if people can find it, if you not page 1 of a Google search then your site is basically a bit of a waste of time and money IMO

There are lots of ways to get google to rank your site higher and there is an entire industry based around doing this for people. much of it is snake oil though and full of con men !

the more you update your site the more google likes it so a news, blog or review section is very powerful, use of keywords relevant to your search traffic and links from popular sites (like TFF !) are gold so swap links with others and pay to be in some good directories on busy sites etc

GTB · Aug 5, 2014

Clive said:
any website is only any good if people can find it, if you not page 1 of a Google search then your site is basically a bit of a waste of time and money IMO

There are lots of ways to get google to rank your site higher and there is an entire industry based around doing this for people. much of it is snake oil though and full of con men !

the more you update your site the more google likes it so a news, blog or review section is very powerful, use of keywords relevant to your search traffic and links from popular sites (like TFF !) are gold so swap links with others and pay to be in some good directories on busy sites etc

Thanks. Where do I find these 'good directories' ?

Clive · Aug 5, 2014

GTB said:
Thanks. Where do I find these 'good directories' ?

there is one right here ! it google's rather well as this site is so highly ranked by google

http://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?directory/

only launched a few weeks ago but those using it are being well ranked by google if you check - try goggling someone like sumo farm machierey etc

there are plenty of others but check out how popular they are with something like alexa.com before you part with cash to list with them

GTB · Aug 5, 2014

Clive said:
there is one right here ! it google's rather well as this site is so highly ranked by google

http://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?directory/

only launched a few weeks ago but those using it are being well ranked by google if you check - try goggling someone like sumo farm machierey etc

there are plenty of others but check out how popular they are with something like alexa.com before you part with cash to list with them

Thanks Clive.

Clive · Aug 5, 2014

GTB said:
Thanks Clive.

you can also pay google to list your site top as a featured site when certain key words are searched for like "hoilday wales" etc its called adwords campaign

very effective but can get very expensive fast if you are using a competitive word like holiday cottage etc

links to facebook and twiter feeds will also help your google rank significantly

getting this right and investing in it is more important than how the site looks IMO its like having a shop that noone knows exists if your not ranked well

SilliamWhale · Aug 5, 2014

Clive said:
nice site, well done, professional looking and to the point, perfect ! what are you doing SEO wise to make sure it gets found ?

I'm working on it. My web bloke reckons to avoid paying and just use as many free tools and keep managing it as often as I can. ie advertise on forums, facebook, links etc. ie be proactive and it will start getting you where you want to be.

I don't think paying for net advertising is going to be so viable in this case but need to try and make sure everyone who has a chance of looking for accomodation to suit has a look at mine in some way or another. Winter project!

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