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The Holiday Homefront: July 2020

Well, everything seems to have taken off! There has been a massive surge in visitors to the site clicking through to the websites of properties advertised. During June, our traffic volumes increased by 161%. Let’s hope people can behave sensibly at home and on holiday and avoid another lockdown – local or otherwise.

I’ve been impressed by owners' commitment to revising their cleaning schedules and putting new practices in place. These will ensure holiday cottages are recognised as one of the safest kinds of holiday accommodation in the UK. If you can bear it, there is more useful COVID-19 information in this edition of The Holiday Homefront, along with much more helpful advice and information for cottage owners.

The number of people subscribing to The Holiday Homefront has just about doubled in the past four weeks, mainly through word of mouth. COVID news aside, if this is the first copy you receive, contents usually focus on the following:* News of regulations/compliance requirements affecting the holiday lettings sector.* Advice on ways to get the maximum return from your advert on MFHC. These range from updating your advert to getting featured on our blog and social media platforms.* Useful blog articles on holiday property maintenance, marketing and management published on MFHC last month or elsewhere.

 

Recent additions to the MFHC site include the following:

FREE BANNER IMAGE OPPORTUNITIES: Send us your location photos and get a link to a Banner Image

The photo above: Banner Image for the MFHC Exmoor page

Have you got a superb photo that reflects the beauty and appeal of the town, county or location of your holiday property?

Every search page on our site has a ‘Banner Image’. As well as being appealing, it can also feature a title and a link to a single property advert. It’s a great way to attract more viewings if it is linked to your cottage. 

If you’ve got one or more images that you think have a good wow factor to be used as a banner image, then email it/them to us. We may also use images on our social media platforms. When we do, we’ll always credit you with a link back to your advert. There’s no charge for this additional advertising bonus. Snap it up!!! Email them to Rick: info@mfhc.co.uk

Keep in mind:

  • You must assure us that you can grant My Favourite Holiday Cottages permission to use the image.
  • The image must be at least 900kb in size - but there’s no upper size limit
  • Shape: Landscape (not portrait).

  

PROPERTY MANAGEMENT

For food for thought this month, read these two articles

How to write a (Post-COVID) Risk Assessment for your Holiday Home.

Every holiday home should have a risk assessment. These should be reviewed and updated annually. And, of course, they help you to spot and prevent potential accidents for your guests or cleaners before they occur. In the event of an accident claim, the first thing any loss adjuster will ask for is a copy of your risk assessment with evidence that it has been updated in the past twelve months. If you don’t have one, your claim could be invalidated. To make life easier – click here to read this excellent guide from Schofields Insurance.

Ten Tips to Make Your Holiday Cottage Visitors Feel Welcome

Check out this list of excellent but commonsense tips on subliminal ways you can induce a warm glow in the hearts and minds of your guests the moment they arrive at your holiday cottage. Nothing underhand – and all tried and tested. Click here to view all ten tips.

 

HOW TO GET A BETTER RETURN ON YOUR ADVERT                                                        

Add a Cleaning Statement to your advert. Bookers are looking for evidence of good hygiene practices. Add a simple sentence referring to your statement within your advert. If you have a compliance logo, add it as an image in your photo gallery.

Keep Your Availability Calendars up to date– or add a link to your property’s calendar. If you don’t have time to update it, add the URL page link to the calendar on your website. Seeing a blank calendar is a massive turn-off! If you need advice on this – you only have to ask me!

Electric Car Chargers: We have set this up as a search category for the increasing number of eco guests using the site (We’re at the top of page one on Google for Eco Cottages. If you have installed one in your cottage, log in and tick the category box to get found in searches for this category.                               

Guest Testimonial Tip:  If you are in the fortunate position of having had guests staying at your property in 2020 before the lockdown and who gave you a glowing testimonial, add it to your advert.

Current research indicates that positive reviews (especially those that mention cleanliness) from guests who holidayed in your cottage in 2020 will knock the socks off older reviews. A special section in your Admin area allows you to upload guest testimonials. If you’ve got one or more of these – upload them to your advert as soon as possible! They will be very influential.

With most holiday properties now expecting guests in July, chase them hard for reviews and get them uploaded ASAP!

 

GUEST BLOGS DO GOOD BUSINESS

Guest blogs are an excellent way to increase visitor traffic to your adverts. A recent blog by Coley Cottages in Cumbria was viewed 4,864 times in two weeks and attracted 800+ visitors (and rising) to its adverts. Here’s the link to it: Lakes In Winter.

It will continue to attract visitors, ad infinitum. We don’t charge for guest blogs and can provide guidelines for willing authors.

We would like to hear from writers for blogs on the following themes:                    

·      Wild Swimming Locations

·      Year-round short breaks availability (not just outside the school holidays)

·      Things to do on an out-of-season break in your cottage

 

Also, please tell us the names of any of the following within easy reach of your property:

  • Fabulous Farmers/local produce markets
  • Brilliant Beach cafes
  • Tasty Tearooms
  • Marvellous and Quirky Museums
  • Riverside, Estuary or Towpath Walks

When we write a blog, we include a link to your advert as the ‘Recommended Place To Stay’.

II you’d like to write a blog article for our pages, we’ll be happy to discuss suitable themes, provide guidelines and help with proofing. Click here to request further information.

NB: If you are a cottage owner, you must have an advert on My Favourite Holiday Cottages if you want your property to be included in the article.BE FEATURED ON HOW SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGNSCurrently, we focus on:

Your subscription covers more than just displaying an advert. Please click on the links above to follow us on these platforms. We will follow you back. From time to time, we will share, highlight or re-tweet your own postings. Where possible, e.g. Facebook, we will tag you in our articles so that you’ll receive a notification. Please note that we can only share Social Media articles for holiday properties advertised on MFHC.

By the way... if you are adding a recent guest testimonial or two to your MFHC advert, those that are 300 characters in length or less are more likely to be featured on our Twitter Page. So, keep them brief (and frequent) if you want to be trumpeted on Twitter! We moderate all testimonials to ensure they comply with our criteria.

 

HOW TO ADVERTISE MY FAVOURITE HOLIDAY COTTAGES.

Click here to place your cottage in front of thousands of potential bookers every month. A 12-month subscription is just £125, with discounts of up to 50% for listing multiple properties.

If you’re too busy to find the time to upload an advert, let us do it for you. Our Ad-Design service will create and build your advert for you to approve for just £20 per property. This includes drafting unique content when describing your cottage.

You can display your availability calendars or online booking calendars within your advert. No ‘middleman’ commission or booking charges are applied to you or your guests once your advert is up and running. Just Pay and Display.

We understand what works in an advert and what doesn’t, so if you want a free review of your advert on MFHC at any time, contact us. We are here to help (and are famous for it).