July 2013 Newsletter

New: Search for Cottages by Town

Starting this month, we're adding a page for every town where a cottage is listed on My Favourite Holiday Cottages. Researching and writing a few hundred words describing around 700 towns in the UK has ensured the lights in the office have been burning long into the night.

You can find the Town Search page on the main menu bar, the sidebar and advanced search pages. We've also upgraded the drop-down search bars to show how many cottages are in that town/county/location to aid bookers in homing in on their desired cottages.

New pages help bookers find cottages more easily, and they also mean new traffic, allowing us to send more bookers to your website.

We're still uploading town pages, so if the town where your cottage is located doesn't yet appear, don't fret - it's still being written and will appear as soon as it's done.

Bigger, Brighter and Better!

We've enhanced the appeal of the site to users. When not writing town copy, we've been using analytics to see how people use the site - which buttons they hit, pages they visit and, in particular, where they tend to depart the site.

Naturally, we want more visitors to spend less time searching and more time viewing listings, hopefully leaving the site in order to visit your cottage's website to book it.

So, by carefully enhancing colours to attract the eye, using larger fonts to make the pages easier to read, and making other little tweaks, we have improved the user experience for your benefit.

We've also upgraded all the listing pages with an improved design. While the main purpose of the site is always to drive bookers to your website, some bookers like to send enquiries instead, so we've revised the enquiry form to make it simpler to use.

Late Availability Enhancements

The hot weather has led to an increase in bookers using the Late Availability function. With this in mind, we have added a Late Availability button to the top menu bar and the box on the Home Page.

Don't forget that this function is free for you to use and only takes 2-3 minutes to list a property once you've logged in.

More Speed Improvements

Woosh! We've continued to slash the time it takes for pages to open. Speed appeals! Search engines enhance sites with healthy speeds, and visitors want what they're looking for to load instantly. Either way, you'll benefit from more bookers visiting more cottages.

We've also been working on speeding up our ability to make improvements. We reorganised some things on the backend, allowing faster improvements in the future.

Ways to Increase Traffic to Your Holiday Cottage Website

In the first of our two blogs for July, we published four top tips to help you increase traffic to your own holiday cottage website. The suggestions are free or very cheap to apply, and they are simple to do.

Visit the My Holiday Marketing blog to read: Ways to Increase Traffic to Your Holiday Cottage Website.

Let's assume you liked the first blog on this theme. If so, here are three more cheap and easy ways to increase traffic to your holiday cottage website.

Read the follow-up: More Ways for Your Holiday Cottage Website to Get More Traffic.

Six Secret Beaches

Every month, we publish a themed article in our news section. These themed articles promote cottages with unique features, interesting areas to visit, or special activities throughout the UK. The first of these is Six Secret Beaches in Devon and Cornwall.

If you'd like to suggest a theme (especially if your cottage would play a suitable part), then email us: at info@mfhc.co.uk

Themes currently being planned include 'Cottages with a Real Welcome', which includes photos of welcome packs and other things you do to make people feel welcome the moment they arrive. Let us know if you have anything to contribute!