October 2012 Newsletter

Winter Photo Competition

Our popular winter photo competition is making its return for 2012, and this year your photo could feature as the cover image for our Christmas Card. We're on the hunt for the perfect winter image, something distinctive that says, “I want to be there this winter”, so send your images in!

The winner will receive 3 months of Featured Favourites or 6 months of County Featured Favourites listings as a prize, which will greatly increase the amount of traffic that gets sent to your website. Alongside this, your property will gain some extra publicity from being featured on our blog, plus your details and weblink will be printed on the back of each card.

More details about the competition can be seen on our blog here, and all entries need to have been emailed to us by 5pm on Friday 9th November.

10 Blogs to Inspire You and Your Cottage

As we're now entering a quieter part of the year for bookings, now's a good time to take stock, make plans and begin preparing for 2013. If you're looking for some ideas to furnish and decorate your cottage, then have a look at our newest blog post on 'Top 10 Interior Design blogs to inspire you and your cottage.'

Whether you're looking for inspiration for shabby chic, contemporary, or coastal properties, we hope the 10 blogs we've picked out will provide you with some fantastic ideas to improve your cottage. Our favourite idea is buying some blackboard paint, which is fairly cheap and easy to apply. Once painted, you can have an area for kids (and big kids) to use for chalk drawings or for you to add a big welcome message to new guests. If you have a blog that inspires you then be sure to add them on the comments at the bottom of the post.

My Favourites goes Mobile!

25 % of visitors to My Favourites are viewing the site from their mobile phone or i-Pad. So, we’ve designed a template that will make it faster and easier for them to browse cottages. As more and more people are using mobile devices to access websites on the go, potential guests can now easily navigate around the site with our new design.

If people can't navigate around a website properly, they leave. So with the new design, we expect to see the time spent on the site and the number of pages viewed on My Favourites to steadily increase for each visitor. Full details of the improvements are on our blog, and you can see the new mobile site in action simply by looking for My Favourite Holiday Cottages using a smartphone or tablet. Just enter the usual website address. Your phone or tablet will automatically upload the mobile template.

As the site is so new, we're on the lookout for feedback, so email us your thoughts and opinions about how the mobile site works.

Guest Blogging,

As always we’re on the lookout for owners willing to be featured on our blogs. We have two blogs – one for holiday property owners and another for those interested in staying in holiday cottages.

If you feel your local area deserves attention, then we welcome posts to feature on our news section of My Favourites, the blog aimed at bookers. If you'd like to include an article, then email us. A great example of an article in terms of length and content was written by Paul Johnson from Kendall Cottages on the perfect time to visit the Lake District.

Not only can an article promote your part of the UK, but it will also include a link back to your website - always helpful for SEO.

Alternatively, if you have a topic you are keen to write for our marketing blog for My Favourite Holiday Cottages, the site for holiday cottage owner advice, then we're also happy to accept guest posts as well. Whether it's social media or interior design, anything that can help fellow owners to improve their bookings would be welcome. Email Rick Bond for more details, and you can read through our current blog posts.

If you don’t feel you have the time or inclination to actually write a blog but have a topic that you’d like to see covered, then just let us know, and we’ll add it to the editorial list for research and publishing.

Finally:

.As always, we're always keen to hear from you if you have any recommendations for the site and mobile site, so please get in touch with us at 01598 710631, email us or tweet us @mfhcottages.

We look forward to seeing your entries for the winter photo competition.

Thanks,

Rick and the My Favourite Holiday Cottages Team.