Improve your property listing
Why improve your property listing?
When prospective holidaymakers land on your property listing you have 60 seconds to sell them your property. We’ve put together some advice and tips to help you create an engaging and informative listing.
Are your contact details correct?
Make sure your email, phone and website details are accurate and up to date on every property you have listed on Simply Owners. Each property can have different information, but each property needs to be checked so holidaymakers get the right details to contact you:
Property Photos
Ideally photos should be professionally taken if possible, well-lit and ordered to tell a logical and visual story of your property.
Make sure you include a photo of all rooms mentioned. Before taking photos make sure all your property lights are on (inside and outside) and the property is immaculately tidy.
You should make sure towels are straight on their rails and all extraneous household and personal items are out of shot.
You can even iron bedding making bedroom photos more crisp and tidy.
The aim is to make the property look welcoming, as if no one has ever stayed before and that it is all ready and waiting just for them. Do not include your family in the photos.
For each photo you can add a descriptive caption.
Example of image caption:
Your ‘Main Image’ is the most important photo and must be eye-catching. It is used as the first image and is the image that is used on the location pages.
It is your chance to entice holidaymakers to click on your listing.
Photos should be a minimum quality of 1024 pixels x 683 pixels in size. Do not resize smaller images to a larger size, it will reduce quality.
Property Title
Your title of your property is the opportunity to provide the unique selling point of your property i.e Why choose your property over others? Be descriptive, don’t just state the name of your property.
Advice from one of our owners
"Take a good look at what Simply Owners provides as a standard summary for every listing in addition to Sleeps, Beds and Baths (see their little blue boxes) and do not duplicate in your own Strap Line. Do not waste this facility by just putting in the name of your property. Do not use unnecessary filler words. The strap line is a heading for your property and its location and you want to catch the attention of people searching so that they click on your listing and explore what you offer and its potential suitability for them."
Property Description
The description of your property can make or break your listing. This should not just state basic facts about your property.
Include as much information about your property as possible and make the information scannable. 80% of website users don’t
read information, they scan. To help holidaymakers extract the information they need to know space out your text,
give your paragraphs headings and use bullet points.
Successful properties include all the information holidaymakers are hunting for, in an easy to scan, logical order,
use the headings below to structure your property description:
- Property Summary
- The name of your property
- Why stay here? Expand on the title.
- The local area
- What guests could do on holiday if they stayed at your property?
- Are there enough activities and attractions to write a paragraph about the area?
- What attracts holidaymakers to the area?
- What is within walking distance? E.g. Beach 10 minute walk.
- What is the best place to eat in the area? What is the closest? Any local specialities?
- What are the best attractions and places to visit? How far are they? What is the one thing every guest has to visit?
- What potential things could be worth a trip to visit that are further away?
- You can structure this two ways:
- Factual list of things to do with details/distances
- Paint a picture of a stay at your property in a short paragraph.
- What is the layout of the property room by room
- Do the rooms have single or double beds?
- Provide more details about the amenities of your property
- Is the pool heated?
- Are there surcharges for any of the amenities?
- Check in/out information
- Getting here & Access Information
- Payment terms and additions
- End with Sign off/call to action e.g.
We’re looking forward to you staying at Villa Savona, please contact us with any questions.
The key is to accurately describe all aspects of your property and what a holiday would be like there.
Advice from one of our owners
"Keep your description accurate and up to date as you change things or make improvements to your property. Check out whether your area can be viewed on YouTube or photographs seen when Googled and suggest they have a look. Summarise holiday activities for all ages to do in your area eg Tennis, Golf, Sailing, Water Sports, Skiing, Riding, Walking, Bird Watching, Painting and Photography. Use headings within the text e.g. THINGS TO DO, SPECIAL FACILITIES, RENTAL PRICE INCLUDES "
Calendar
When holidaymakers search with dates, you only appear if your calendar is enabled. Enable your calendar to get more potential bookings.
If your calendar is disabled it’ll look like this:
If your calendar is enabled, you should be able to see the calendar with dates blocked:
Please can we also kindly ask you to make sure that your calendar data is up-to-date, as we want to give holiday makers the best opportunity possible to book their holiday with you.
Please find all information on how to add bookings and import iCal links here:
https://www.simplyowners.net/owner_admin_ssl/help.php#calendar-tab
Linking to your listing
You can link to your listing from your own website, social media and other listing sites.
Each property has a short link in the format of:
https://www.simplyowners.net/ [Your property ID]
So if your property ID was P49315 your link would be:
https://www.simplyowners.net/p/49315/
You can even link directly to your reviews, handy for linking from your own website,
by adding the #reviews to the end of your link:
https://www.simplyowners.net/p/49315/#reviews
Advice from one of our owners
"Keep your calendar up to date and accurate. A property that does not show signs of on-going popularity is less likely to attract new business. This is a serious ‘red flag’. Book out your own chosen stay dates for a start or at the very least show as a provisional booking (Simply Owners plans to provide this facility). In this way a potential enquiry can see there is real interest in your property."
Reviews
You can import reviews to Simply Owners from other booking sites, or your own website.
We find that holiday makers bounce away from an advert when there are no recent reviews to show.
Information on how to do this can be found here:
https://www.simplyowners.net/owner_admin_ssl/help.php#reviews-tab
If you do not have an alternate listing to import these from and wish to import them from your guest book.
Please upload the review as stated on the link above and then send through screen shots of your guest book
to enquiries@simplyowners.net.
Advice from one of our owners
"Do not underestimate the power of reviews. The more you can get as soon as possible whilst a client’s stay is still fresh in their minds the better. You do not need to respond to each one. Potential new bookings will get bored ploughing through your similarly worded acknowledgments. However if the review contains a negative comment, perhaps even incorrect, then a professional and charming response may be required. Do not ignore. Likewise if there is a glowing, stand out, positive it is well-worth a special thank you thus reinforcing whatever the reviewer has specifically highlighted."
Pricing
Property listings without prices appear at the bottom of the listings, and will be filtered out when a
holidaymaker enters minimum and maximum pricing on the filter.
In order to appear higher up the listings, the three pricing boxes (average, min and max) must have an amount entered in them:
Advice from one of our owners
"Pricing is perhaps the most difficult to get right! Check out what the competition in your area are charging for their properties, especially those with similar facilities. Offer an ‘early bird’ discount for bookings made by a specific date of your choice for the following year/s. Alternatively hold your current charge for the following year for bookings made by a specific date."
Location
Have you checked that your property pin is in exactly the right location? You can drag and drop the pin to the correct location
if not. This is important to be correct, so that holidaymakers know exactly where the property is that they have booked.
You wouldn’t want to book a property which looked like it’s on the beach to arrive and find out it’s 10 miles
inland and you need a hire car.
Although each property has one named location it will be visible in all areas/levels that your property resides in.
What location your property is stated in is your preference, but must be accurate. If you wish to change your named location, please let us know and we can change it for you.
Facilities
Have you ticked the facilities available at the bottom of the Details Tab? If your guest filters for properties with a hot tub
and you haven’t ticked the hot tub box you will not be appearing in their search and so could be missing out on enquiries.
Make sure you clarify any details of your facilities in your description to set your holidaymakers expectations.
Hosting
Advice from one of our owners
"Make yourself available by email or telephone and respond in a timely and friendly manner. The more helpful, knowledgeable and supportive you are the more likely you are to land the booking. This type of communication also helps you assess whether your property and location is going to be right for them for their holiday. If you do not think so then be honest and perhaps guide them to an alternative property you know about close by."
Promoting your property
There are a number of things you can do to increase the exposure of your property
Business Cards
Have you requested your free Simply Owners business cards yet? This is to encourage repeat visits from existing guests.
Request them here and we’ll send them through, at no charge to yourself.
Window Cards
Have you requested your free window card yet? It has your own QR code which leads directly to your advert. If you have a lot
of passing foot traffic, put it in the window to your property and make it easy for future guests to contact you.
Both Window cards and Business Cards can be found in the details tab:
Word of mouth
Advice from one of our owners
"A much under-rated element of promotion. Any member of any family who has stayed in your property will talk about their holiday and what a good time they had. They may also recommend Simply Owners too. This will attract more to visit the website, look at your property for themselves and generally explore the listings. This is valuable to us all and a win-win."
Booking Success
You should follow up all enquiries as soon as possible. Make sure you are notified of enquiries by email and text message.
You can set this up in the owner tab of your console:
It is vital you reply to a holidaymakers initial enquiry within 48 hours. You should reply to holidaymakers whether you can accommodate them or not.
This shows holidaymakers that our owners are responsive to enquiries.
You should also set a reminder to follow up enquiries two weeks after the initial contact. Many owners have seen success with this method.
Based on the advice above, you should be able to increase your bookings and make your property more attractive to holidaymakers.
Here are some example listings that follow the advice above:
https://www.simplyowners.net/villa-rentals-playa-blanca-spain/p/49315/
https://www.simplyowners.net/villa-rentals-cortijo-cabrera-spain/p/228011/
Advice from one of our owners
"I have been listing my villa on Simply Owners for over 8 years and the founder invited me to put together this document which I hope you find helpful. I do list my property on another website but as Simply Owners has developed its website and improved its ranking on the internet - remember this is what your annual listing fee pays for - the number of website enquiries has gone up overall and my own booking success rate has increased.
Remember Simply Owners is your facilitator - the rest is up to you and the amount of time and effort you put in to promoting your property, achieving bookings and looking after your clients."
We'd like to thank one of our owners for providing their tips and advice to increase bookings.
You can download it here:
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