The Holiday Homefront: September 2020

Well, now – what an August that was! ‘No Vacancies’ right across the site. And with September and October also doing very well for bookings, this has at least given us all a chance to make amends for losses incurred during the lockdown.

As usual, The Holiday Homefront begins with articles that caught our attention (and which we believe should grab yours). Then, for those who advertise their properties on MFHC, there are some practical actions you can take to improve response levels to your adverts.

If this is your first edition of The Holiday Homefront, you should know its purpose is to help holiday property owners better manage and market their properties. It’s free and is published once a month. Click Here if you would like to subscribe to it.

Read on!

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HOLIDAY COTTAGE MARKETING

10 Simple Tips and Tropes for Writing Engaging Social Media Copy

If you spend time on Social Media, you should find these tips helpful in your attempts to engage more people, get more likes/shares, etc.) Don’t be put off by the reference to ‘Tropes’ It’ll all make sense in the article.

How To Sync Your Airbnb Calendar With Vrbo And Booking.Com With A Channel Manager

If you advertise your property on both AirBnB and Booking.com, then here’s a way to synchronise your availability calendar with these two sites, saving you time having to update them all one by one.

10 Ways to Rank Higher on Google Maps in 2020

If you haven’t registered your property on Google Maps, you should. It’s free and doesn’t require much technical know-how to do so. But there’s more to Google Maps than having a PIN identify the location of your property, as you’ll discover if you read it. We began following the article’s recommendations in March. At that time, we had a monthly traffic volume of about 500 via our Maps & Google My Business listings. Last month, this had risen to 7,000 – so, it’s advice worth following!

PROPERTY MANAGEMENT

12 Gross Things Hotels Do To Save Money

This article has found its way into the Newsletter, not to recommend these practices but to highlight ways self-catering businesses can hold the moral and reputational high ground over the hotel business by not copying them!

LEGAL & COMPLIANCE 

SNP to fast-track short-term let control areas in Scotland

Where one nation leads, others usually follow. Learn more about the Scottish National Party’s plans to introduce controls for short-term lets. If your property is in Scotland, the outstanding and highly influential ASSC will engage with this to ensure a sensible outcome. Contact the ASSC if you have any feedback, concerns, or suggestions.

FOR MY FAVOURITE HOLIDAY COTTAGE ADVERTISERS

Help to Improve Your Town, County and Location Descriptions

For every town, county and well-known location listed on MFHC, we have lovingly crafted descriptions of the areas to entice visitors. While we do our research properly, we may have missed something that will make your location even more attractive to potential bookers. Is our description of your town, county or location missing something that will appeal to visitors? To check the content of your town/county/location pages, insert a URL address like this, then send us a sentence describing it, and we can work it in. It’ll help the page rank better on Google.

• myfavouriteholidaycottages.co.uk/county/
• myfavouriteholidaycottages.co.uk/county/town
• myfavouriteholidaycottages.co.uk/location

Fresh and relevant content all help to improve a page’s search engine rankings, which means more visitors will come across your property. Email Rick Bond with your suggestions.

HELP US TO HELP YOU!

Many of you miss bookings because your cottage’s advert displays an empty availability calendar on your My Favourite Holiday Cottages adverts. This past month has seen record levels of demand for cottages. However, many owners have missed out on potential bookings because their adverts displayed empty availability calendars. 

Why is that? We are getting calls daily from people desperate to find somewhere to book but refusing to bother checking properties with blank calendars because of the time it could have wasted in making potentially fruitless enquiries. The message is: If you want more bookings and enquiries, keep your availability calendar up to date. Too busy to update your calendar? Swap our generic calendar to display your own. This ensures that your advert will be updated simultaneously when you update your website’s calendar. Moreover, users of booking software such as SuperControl, FreetoBook, Bookalet, etc., can enjoy online booking directly from their adverts. 

Please note that unlike some, we do NOT charge fees or commissions for online bookings from your advert. All payments by guests go straight to an owner’s account as they use the payment system on that property’s website to make their booking. If you’d like advice on changing the display on your calendar, click here to email Rick. He’ll check out your website, and we’ll help with the updating if we can.

ELECTRIC VEHICLE CHARGERS

Have you installed an electric car charger on your rental property? Electric vehicle drivers seem to love holiday cottages. Figures from Ubersuggest indicate that there are over 2000 search queries a month for people seeking accommodation with vehicle charging points. We have added a new search category: Cottages with Charges for Electric Vehicles. If and when you have installed a charger in your holiday cottage, log in and tick the category box in your ‘Edit’ section. It will then appear in all searches for cottages with car chargers.

PHOTO CALL: MORE FREE PUBLICITY FOR YOUR COTTAGE ON MFHC

We are introducing ‘Banner images’, which appear at the head of each town, county, location and category pages. If you’ve got a lovely photo that reflects the beauty and appeal of your location, email it to us. We’ll accredit it with a link to your advert if we use it, which will drive even more traffic. Here’s an example: https://www.myfavouriteholidaycottages.co.uk/derbyshire/matlock. The page link (bottom right) goes to the holiday cottage that supplied the image (and gets plenty of clicks). Please note: You need to confirm that you own the rights to the image and permit us to use it.

WE ARE HERE FOR YOU

As you know, we pride ourselves on our ability to respond to and help all our advertisers. If you need any help or advice or want to suggest how we can improve the site, all you have to do is get in touch.

LOGGIND IN: WHAT TO DO IF YOU’VE FORGOTTEN YOUR USERNAME OR PASSWORD.

· Your username will be the email address you used to register.

· If you cannot remember your password, use the Password reset button, which will be sent to your registered email address.

· Once logged in, click on the icon /your name in the top right of the menu bar. This will open a dropdown list of self-explanatory options.

THE HOLIDAY HOMEFRONT: RECEIVE A FREE COPY OF MONEY-MAKING AND MONEY-SAVING ADVICE FOR HOLIDAY COTTAGE MANAGERS  EVERY MONTH. 

It’s free to every UK holiday cottage owner or manager - and you will also be given opportunities to feature your cottage in its pages.

GUEST BLOGS ARE INVITED!

If you advertise a property on MFHC, you can publish a blog article promoting a holiday’s appeal in your area (scroll down a little bit to see them). MFHC property owners have written many articles. In return for a good quality (and unique) article, we will ensure that your property is included as a recommended place to stay. It will include an image and link to its advert. Blogs are well-read by potential bookers. A recent Lake District blog attracted 3,500 readers and click-throughs to the cottages advertised in it - all within two weeks. 

Email us if you’d like to guest write a blog (minimum 500 words). We can discuss a suitable topic and deadline and provide some helpful guidelines. We are especially keen on articles encouraging people to travel outside the peak season.