The My Favourite Holiday Cottages team is very proud to announce that our website is now the Number 1 Position on Page one of Google for its key search term 'Holiday Cottages UK' and on page 1 for two others. Our increase in the rankings has massively increased the amount of traffic the website has been seeing. The number of unique visits we are getting now exceeds 12,000 a month, generating far more click-throughs and enquiries than ever before.

We're not resting on our laurels, though, as we continue to improve the amount of traffic the website receives through our investment in SEO, Social Media and our Festival Cottages section (see below), as well as many other features which we have planned coming up in 2012.

As well as updating the general design of each Festival cottage page, our Festival Cottages section continues to expand with more festivals from up and down the country

Over the last year, we’ve been steadily building a stronger presence on Twitter to provide information to holiday cottage owners as part of our services for My Holiday Marketing. Over the last month, we have successfully expanded this to include a new Facebook page for owners. We’re also pleased to announce that we have established new Twitter and Facebook pages to attract potential bookers to your listings on My Favourite Holiday Cottages, all of which are and will continue to contribute to the steady increase in visitors to the site.

To get the ball rolling, we’d love it if you could ‘like’ and follow the pages by clicking on the links below. We’d appreciate the extra support – and as this will help drive more traffic to the site, it’ll also benefit your listing.

(My Favourite Holiday Cottages) Twitter Facebook

We always like to place as much emphasis as possible on

The Lake District has long been popular with writers, artists, poets and holidaymakers. But when is the best time to visit? Summer days can be beautiful but busy. The Winter months can be equally stunning and much quieter, while the Autumn colours should not be missed, particularly if you’re an avid photographer. However, one of the best times to visit is coming up right now. So, without further ado, why not consider a trip this May?

Why in May, you might wonder? Well, it’s a beautiful time of year. The days are getting longer, typically with more sunshine and less rain. The Easter rush has passed, and the Summer influx has yet to come. 

Historically, May is one of the driest months of the year in Cumbria, meaning wet-weather gear can stay in the rucksack. And whilst hosts of golden daffodils might be past their best, the countryside is a riot of colour. There are carpets of bluebells and

We’ve now animated’ the right-hand sidebar to get more people to visit your website (or make an enquiry). If you look at a listing, the sidebar with links to your site will follow you down the page. This provides visitors with a clear call to action alongside your essential details, regardless of where they are on the listing, so even more people should be able to click through to your website.

We have had a flurry of new festivals signed up recently. Added to the Festival Cottages page, we now have Ireby Festival near Keswick, Ryedale Folk Festival and Beverley Folk Festival in Yorkshire, alongside Ludlow Open and Ludlow Festival in Shropshire. We also have finalised the details of festivals in Penzance and Northumberland so that we will reveal these details in the following newsletter. If you know of any cottages in any of these areas that would like more bookings during the festival and

has already been adopted by many owners on the site, but did you know that you can embed the calendar on your own website if you don’t already have an availability calendar? You can find the Availability Calendar Code needed to make it work under the ‘Availability Calendar’ section of the Owners Login Section. Pass this on to your website developer, and the calendar will appear on your own website.

can now be added to your listing. Add your YouTube video reference in the ‘edit’ section of each property you have listed for it to display. It’s a brilliant way for people to have a thoroughly good look around your cottage.

We’ve noticed that quite a few people haven’t added a link to their availability page. This link must work as the ‘check availability’ button is one of the three key buttons on each listing. Our analytics show that

Using some technical wizardry, we’ve used your cottage’s postcode to pin it to a map of the UK. As a result, bookers can now see the exact location of your property, making it even easier for them to work out how close your property is to the beach, countryside or the nearest town. We’ve also colour-coded the ‘pins’ so you can immediately see the size of each cottage, making it quicker and easier for relevant people to arrive at your website.

Quick Tip: If your postcode shows your property in the wrong location, login, and you can change it by using the Map Icon under ‘Your Properties.’

Over the previous months, we’ve continued to see significant improvements in the amount of traffic to My Favourites. Our website often outperforms Owners Direct; see the statistics below for Devon Beach Court in Woolacombe. With over 2,920 visits since January 2011, My Favourite

We’re happy to announce that our new Availability Calendar is available for you to use for your listing. We’ll shortly send out an email detailing how the calendar works. If you don’t have an availability calendar already, we’re also making it available for you to use directly on your website if you don’t have an availability calendar already, making it an excellent piece of software for managing your bookings.

As it’s Christmas, we’re offering half-price premium websites for the first four owners who apply before the end of December. Starting 2012 with a modern, fresh website is an ideal way to attract even more bookers to your property, and our package includes a professional photography session. We’ve already produced many high-quality cottage websites, which are proving incredibly popular with owners and bookers alike. They not only look good but, like a Formula One car, it’s

If you like waking up on Christmas morning in a luxuriously cosy holiday cottage with log fires and a Christmas dinner that only needs heating, while outside lie a choice of beautiful winter walks, then an Exmoor Christmas will tick all the boxes. Most cottages will be decorated (be sure to ask). If you're booking a cottage with children in your group, request the owner to supply the tree but leave the decorations in a box for the children to decorate.

Arrive a few days early to allow time to complete your Christmas shopping in the veritable treasure trove of independent shops in places such as Dulverton, South Molton and Dunster. Book a Santa Special on the Lynton Barnstaple Railway at Woody Bay.

Pull on your wellies and explore riverside walks along the Exe, East Lyn and Barle valleys - most of which can be based around a classic Exmoor pub or tearooms in villages such as Winsford, Withypool, Challacombe and Exford. Exmoor also boasts a lovely

With the cottages on our site, we’ve begun to notice a correlation between the quality of owners’ photos and the amount of traffic they’re getting. If your stats seem a little low, this may be why. It’s not for nothing that the main photo is endearingly termed ‘the money shot’ in marketing circles. So, to ensure your cottage listing receives the attention it deserves, the images you use must be as good as they can be. To get the best photographs on our website, ensure that: - Your main picture is in landscape, not portrait. - The file size needs to be a minimum of 1 MB to ensure quality. - The picture is bright and colourful to attract the reader’s eye.

My Favourites has teamed up with Essentials Magazine to increase our presence nationally. With the help of 12 cottages already picked from My Favourites, Essentials will include a place in a monthly competition for readers to win a short break