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Posts Tagged ‘Market’

To successfully market your pass rental online, you should think about adding your property to one or more Vacation Rentals Directories.   In addition you can build your own website that will feature your pass home.

If you want to build your own site, and don’t know much about designing websites, you can find many free templates to select from online.   Do a swift search for “Free Website Templates” on Google (or other search engines) and select one that fits your needs.
Here are some basic tips on how to build a successful pass rental listing or website to market your property.

-  Quality Photos.
Pictures sell.   Always include calibre pictures of your property on your website or listing.   Photos should be clear, accurate and up to date. Take some time with your photos, double look to see if everything looks neat and clean.   No one wants to look at a living room pic that has clothes and magazines laying around.
Consider adding pictures of the outside view of your Vacation Rental Home taken in different seasons.   For example, if you offer rentals year round, add pictures of how your Vacation Rental Home looks not just in the Summer, but also in the Spring, Winter and Fall.   This helps your potential renters imagine what to anticipate when they get there.

- Videos featuring your Vacation Rental Property.
If you have a video featuring your Vacation Rental Home, add it to your website or your listing.   If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video is a worth a million!

-  Keywords, Meta Tags and Titles.
If you do now know how to add keyword or Meta Tags, do a swift search on Google on “How to add Meta Tags to your Website” and read few articles about good SEO (Search Engine Optimization) practices.
SEO plays a very important part of having a successful Vacation Rental Website, and it’s not hard to learn.
When adding keywords, they should relate to your pass rental home and it’s location, such as “Vacation Rental in Orlando” or “Luxury Catskills Cabin” etc.
Titles of your pages (or your Vacation Rental Listing) should include keywords and location.   In general, your title should be a short, few words sentence (or two, if they are very shot).   For Example: “Cozy Vacation Rental in Orlando Florida.   Inexpensive getaway”.

-  Detailed, Honest Description.
When writing about your rental, include keywords that you added to your Meta Tags.   For example “Our Vacation Rental in Orlando Florida offers …” or “If you are looking for a Luxury cabin in the Catskills. . . ” etc.
Always tell the truth about your property. Misrepresenting your Vacation Rental home will only lead to angry guests. You should be very clear as to what your Vacation Rental Home has to offer.   This way the renters are not surprised (in a negative way) when they get there.   Try to cover anything that you can think of to describe your pass home in details.   Not only will this help you refrain getting unnecessary phone calls, or emails with questions that could have been explained on your website or listing, but it will also help you in case you run into unhappy guests.
We advocate that you have a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page on your website.   This page should have typical questions and short answers to them.
Think from the potential guests perspective… what would be useful to add to the description or FAQ page?
With time, as you rent your Vacation Rental Home, you will add more to your FAQ page as visitors will keep asking questions that were not covered.
When creating your Vacation Rental listing or website, let’s not forget that you should use standard capitalization. Do not use all capital letters for titles or description. In World wide web etiquette, this is the equivalent of shouting.

- Add a link to your Vacation Rental Listing on your website.   Also, if the Vacation Rental Directory site allows it, link to your website from your listing page.   This will help search engines find your Vacation Home on both, your website and your listings.

- Think about changing your description on your listings.
Search engines don’t like duplicate content.   Include all that’s important about your Vacation Rental Home on your listings, but try to write it again, instead of just simply copy/pasting your description from your website.

- Invite your prior guests to leave a review on your Vacation Rental Listing.
Travelers do read reviews.   Some are more interested in them than others.   In general, reviews from prior guests add trust in a view of potential new renters.   According to TripAdvisor almost 80% of travelers state they are significantly more likely to book a property if they can read reviews from past guests.

Write even more about your Vacation Home, update on current changes and news – Blog.
Search engines love Blogs, and potential guests will like more individualized and updated information about your Vacation Home.

Last but certainly not least, update your website AND your Vacation Rental listings from time to time.   Updated content leads to superior search engine traffic. If you don’t update your site, it will slowly get down the list on search results.

By : Tony

“The Good Life”

The Outer Banks of North Carolina has become the prime easterly coast destination for vacationers to escape to the beach and relax. The OBX offers one-of-a-kind local appeal with historic relevance like the legends of Blackbeard the Pirate or the birth of aviation.

The easterly coast is covered with resort towns that have become heavily populated, and most beach towns on the easterly coast are covered with shopping, high rise developments, parks and  huge condo units.   The Outer Banks has preserved its quaint charm throughout the years, and its one-of-a-kind feel attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors apiece year.

Starting at the Virginia Border, the Outer Banks spans three counties and runs south along the North Carolina coast for about 130 miles.   One reason for underdevelopment on the OBX is the thinness of the islands.   Most homes are either oceanfront or within short travel distance to the ocean.   Towns such as Duck and Corolla have become very favourite for pass home owners because these are favourite rental markets.

In a recent USA This day article the Outer Banks was classified into three different areas.   They are as follows:

• Northern beaches: This area includes the towns of Duck, Corolla, Southern Shores, Kitty Hawk, Nags Head and Kill Devil Hills. “Favorites include Duck and Corolla, and it’s mostly single-family homes, though at the low end you can get a one-bedroom waterfront condo for under $200,000. Most homes are in the $400,000-$800,000 range, though Corolla is known for larger oceanfront homes up to $5 million,” a local Outer Banks realtor notes. North of Corolla, where Highway 12 ends, almost 15 miles of dunes stretch to the Virginia border, dotted with pass homes accessible only by four-wheel-drive vehicles: “That’s a whole different buyer seeking remote privacy. “

• Southern beaches: Hatteras Island is even less developed than the Northern beaches, and it is well-known for its excellent fishing, windsurfing, kiteboarding, and surfing. It is also at least another 30 minutes farther from the mainland bridges and includes more fortified lands. Avon, Hatteras Village and Rodanthe, where the Richard Gere romance Nights in Rodanthe was set, are the most favourite towns, and prices are lower than farther north. “Low-end one-bedroom condos begin around $100,000, and the high end would be a seven-bedroom oceanfront home for about $2. 5 million,” a local Outer Banks realtor notes.

• Mainland: The main bridge from the Outer Banks connects to a peninsula jutting into Albemarle Sound, including the town of Powell’s Point 4 miles from the bridge. “We think about it part of the Outer Banks even though it’s on the mainland,” notes a local Outer Banks realtor, who mentions that the Kilmarlic Club is favourite with second-home owners. A master planned golf community with amenities like tennis and health club “started less than 10 years ago. All are single-family homes, from the mid-$300,000s to the $600,000s. “

Continually increasing in popularity, there is enormous opportunity in these rental markets.   If you are interested in owning a second home on the Outer Bank

Posted onMarch 4, 2011bySeaside Vacations

Seaside Vacations – Sandy Oasis

Vacation Home Rentals recently named the Outer Banks one of the top growth markets for pass rentals in the United States. Studies show that the pass rental market is expected to grow 13.1% in 2011, more than twice the rate of the travel market and four times faster than the U.S economy. About 85% of pass rental property owners anticipate 2011 to be as good as, or superior than 2010. The OBX is projected to have a 20% increase from last year alone!

Vacation rental property owners believe this growth might be attributed to the fact that vacationers are looking for small, reasonable destinations they can drive to, rather than fly.

With this news coming from one of the most visited pass rental sites in North America, there is a lot to look forward to this year. Whether interested in buying a potential pass home or searching for a weekend getaway Coldwell Banker Seaside Realty and Seaside Vacations can help you find your own beach oasis.

Family owned and operated, Seaside Vacations has spent the last 20 years bringing friends and families together to reconnect and experience meaningful and resting vacations on North Carolina’s Outer Banks (rated #1 family-friendly beach by Trip Advisor®).

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