I have been marketing our own vacation accommodation, exclusively through the internet, since 1997.

Internet marketing has changed a lot in the last 12 years, but right now things are changing very fast and a lot of the advice and information is not relevant.

The main changes are –

– The quantity of accommodation on offer has grown, in our area of Languedoc (Sud de France), today there are over ten times the number of properties, bed and breakfasts, gites and villas on offer than ther were when we started in 1997

– Holidaymakers and tourists are a lot more selective and demand a far higher level of comfort and demand better value for their money. Overall rental prices have not risen in over 10 years and in real terms have fallen by up to half. However, the number of visitors to France has not risen, this year it is down, perhaps up to 20 percent.

– Advertising on the Internet has exploded – when we started there were a handful of International advertising sites and a couple specialising in France. I started a couple of very successful sites myself (1stVacations.com and RentalsFrance.com) which were at the top of the search engines for over three years (from 1999 to 2003 with traffic in the millions). Now there are thousands of advertising sites listing and offering vacation properties, some are still very good, but once they listed a few thousand places – now their listings are in the tens of thousands and some over 100,000 rentals.

To balance this a little, there are of course more people using the Internet now, but those using it to find and book holidays is not in proportion to the overall growth of Internet users.

Another factor shifting the advertising usage is the move from computers with keyboards, to mobile devices (like the iPadand iPhone etc) – Google clearly is addressing the changes in usage and all big players are developing tools and apps focusing more on local searching and semantic information.

I am writing this as I had a recent exchange of mails with a guest who has just bought a hope her andasked me for advice on renting it out. Here is my correspondence which outlines some of my views on this.

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Hi Tony and Carole

The house is offically mine, as of yesterday. Very exciting. I think I will go there for a few weeks in late October – I’ll let you know, as it would be great to see you when I’m there.

Meanwhile I can finally start the process of trying to rent it – I couldn’t even begin before because we had no firm possession date – there were so many delays, most of which I blame on the Atlantic Ocean. Anyway, I think to begin I will put it on one of those holiday lettings websites, and I remember you saying some were better value than others, and I’m wondering if you can tell me which would be a good choice? I know I’m late in the game for renting it to anyone this fall, but I’ve got to try anyway, lest my bank account run even drier than it already has.

I’m going to do a facebook and twitter account for it and get my cousin to work on the lame (aka useless) website that I inherited with it but all that is going to take time. I want to get it out there in the holidayer’s universe as quickly as I can, so I figure banging it up on some holiday website is the way to do that.

Looking forward to seeing you again, this time as a homeowner!

Carolyn

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Hi Carolyn

Felicitations – We look forward to seeing you when you are here.

Marketing your rentals – the Internet is the most important marketing tool to use, but now this is very different to the ways to market of even only a few months ago.

Apart from direct personal contact with friends and relations, using the Internet to generate clients for your rentals is the most important method.

From the late 1990s until last year, getting found on the search engines was the best way to get clients, if possible with your own site, but usually for the vast majority of owners through the paid listing sites.

Things have now changed completely, computer searches through search engines are falling, search patterns have altered and referrals to websites are increasing from social networks. Also there is a big shift to mobile devices for searching, away from laptop or desktop computers. Search engines are still important of course, but in our own case account for only 16 percent of visitors to our sites and this is falling monthly. Overall searches last month globally (coincidentally) are 16 percent down on last year. Visitors are coming from other “applications” and direct references.

These trends seem to be increasing and accelerating.

Combine this with a fall in both the numbers and the spending by tourists to France, plus a general feeling of “concern” about money and value makes getting good paying renters is a different game to what it was a year ago and a different planet to when I started marketing our apartments solely through the Internet in 1997

Another factor making the Internet rental listing sites less effective is the sheer number of them appearing every week, there are literally thousands of sites offering listing services, some paid, some commission and some adding fees to take bookings. Every permutation to offer other peoples properties to rent through Internet listing is out there and none now seem to be cost effective, efficient or working.

I am mostly talking about the general listing websites who get their profits from the numbers of advertisers – the more advertisers they get, the more they make. This is a self-defeating plan as the more listings they get, the less visible your individual property becomes, they then drop their prices to keep the advertisers and therefore need more listings. However, some niche and local sites are successful.

The shift in search methods by individuals from search engine general listing to more focused search, plus the use of mobile applications to search with has also changed the way people look for rentals.

Add to this the concern about fraud, deception and safety and finding an effective way to advertise is getting very difficult.

But –

The bottom line is, millions of people are coming to France every year (16 million visitors to Languedoc – that number 16 again) and many are renting private accommodation which they find and select through the Internet. The skill is to get them to first see your property and then to decide that your property is the one they want.

A few key factors….

For vacation rentals, the Internet is the main way to promote you property .

There are 61 million listings on Google for vacation/holiday websites

There are over 8 million listings on Google for vacation/holiday websites for France (as it happens one of my sites is number one today)

There are over 87 thousand listings on Google for vacation/holiday websites for Languedoc (as it happens my sites are one and two and I have two other sites in the top ten)

There is more on offer so the prices are lower than they were a few years ago;

People are demanding more for their money.

People are booking later each year.

So how do you promote your rentals?

Set the right price for the niche markets you have determined.

Offer the services and unique selling points of your property which satisfy the niche markets you have determined.

Get clear an objective advice from local, successful, experts as to what people expect from a property like yours (get three opinions at least, do not pay for them – well drink a bottle of wine with them or whatever – paid opinion is skewed)

Did I mention niche markets?

This is the key to your overall marketing strategy – once you have determined the niche(s) you need to research the ways these particular target clients use the Internet – then present yourself in front of them offering the right price and the right service.

All this with flair and a design to attract and pull you above the competition.

So what do I advise?

I no longer advise any listing services – I believe the best is http://vrbo.com, but the cost for an effective advert is now over $550 a year and you will need a lot of business to justify this. http://gite.com I also believe is good, but they only take top level properties with pools. http://www.holiday-rentals.co.uk/ costs about £300 a year and again it is unlikely they would generate a profit for you.

Your own website – this is essential, but to get it to a position where it is visible in it’s own right and gets business for you either needs a lot of time, experience and skills for you to do it, or the services of an expert which is expensive – charges are from $50 to $200 an hour -you need about 50 hours work to get started and over 10 hours a month continual marketing skill and this is very rare.

There are many “experts” offering services to get you to the “top of the search engines” – these are all frauds, many are a disaster as they use tricks which quickly get you banned from Google etc and you are over $1000 poorer as well – there is no easy solution to successful Internet marketing – or any marketing anywhere at any time.

These simple economics have made a lot of vacation property owners quit the rentals business.

Social networks are a must – a Facebook page – perhaps look at several of the other 200 top social network sites and consider them if you have identified a niche market which they service.

Twitter – schedule a series of tweets eery day using keywords for your niche markets.

Forums – every niche market has a plethora of chat rooms and forums to satisfy them – post on these regularly, build a following and shamelessly promote yourself.

I have said you need a website – it must work for all computers and definitely for mobiles using Apple an Andriod software. This restricts the format you can display – look at my sites for http://vilaroquette.com and for http://southernfrance.fr – these are the minimum you can offer for presentation.

Build (or get built) your own website which uses a low cost, or free, content management system (CMS) so that you can do all the maintenance and upgrading yourself. In my opinion there is only one choice, WordPress from http://wordpress.org

Get the best photographs you can – if you are an enthusiastic photographer, do these yourself – if not – get them done.

Write copy which is structured to address both the niche markets you have identified and mentions the unique points, location etc of your property – get these “keywords” to account for about 3 perent of each page of content and no more than three keyword per page – sp you are likely to need a minimum of ten pages from 350 to 500 words long.

Add something to this website every day, a diary/blog/photo/page/ something relevent and interesting.

Get the site optimised for performance, speed and structure – ensure all aspects that are used to deliver information to search devices are accurate and comply with the guidelines laid down by these services.

Keep up to date with the services guidelines by reading their advice pages, get onto their newsletters and reading their blogs, at least once a week.

The name of the site should clearly indicate what you re offering – you have a very strong name, but it is not relevant for your house – it is too directed at the whole of France – it may seem to attract traffic, but this will rarely be relevant for your property.

Brainstorm a name which geo-locates and describes your place. This is not easy but avoid any village name most people will never have heard of – I have spent a great deal of time researching and registering names – for you I start with something like “rentmyhomeinlanguedoc.com” and develop this to things like “pezenaslanguedocrental.com” or “pezenasperfest.com” (all are available at this moment) – do not bother with anything but .com – the name needs keywords which are searched for – don’t worry about the length or awkwardness of the name – very very few people type these in anymore – they click from other sites and most referrers like twitter shorten them anyway.

I realise this is not answering your question – “which sites to advertise on” – but for this year – none will, in my opinion, bring you any viable business – if you advertise on the four I mention – you could be spending over $2000 to get perhaps your money back in new rentals

I am working on a raft of new ideas, mainly to help develop my own marketing, but to do this I have to expand to involve many other people and build cooperative sites and marketing plans.

Lots to talk about when you are here – this may be a two bottle problem Holmes!

best wishes

Tony

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Hi Tony

Wow! I’ve got a lot to learn…I’ve given the house a name – Maison Rose-Clair – and made a facebook page and twitter account. I know what I really need to do is get the website better, but it’s a bit of a longer arc project – a friend who works for Apple tells me I can create a new one through Iweb and get it hosted on some Mac site that also allows it to viewed on mobiles. He says it’s very easy to maintain, but I have to get my mitts on Iweb before I can begin.

Anyway, I just finished a few weeks of intense work in my actual job, so now I can devote proper time to the house. Thanks so much for all this info – I’m going to be studying and digesting it and hopefully implementing it correctly.

I’ll be out there Oct 28 for a couple of weeks, so be sure to set aside some wine-drinkin’ time.

Thanks again,
Carolyn

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Hi Carolyn

The name of your home need not be the name of a website used for marketing it – search algorithms like a site name which targets the offering – rentals are location defined so a name identifying a term fixing your position and which is searched is very important so my point about a name like languedocgite.com or pezenashomerental.com is more useful than castelnau.com which is not a useful search term – and is already taken anyway.

At present I am working with names using SudFrance as the wine and tourism in Languedoc is adopting this term in preference to the name “Languedoc” (as most people have no idea where or what it is)

Making a website is not difficult iweb is simple and useful, but very limited – this summary may help http://www.applematters.com/article/iweb_a_first_look/ – iweb is expensive for what it is and is only useful if you have all Apple stuff.

There are many free hosting sites and services, a paid host starts at $3 a month – you are bound to have friends with spare server space – I host dozens of sites for people and can help if you wish.

The software and tools needed to make sites are getting easier every day – My preference for websites is WordPress from http://Wordpress.org – this is free open source software and not hard to use – I can set up the database and load the basic tools for you or I am sure you have many friends who can do this – all you then have to do is use a simple dashboard to add text and photos to your site – for example, I did this for a friend on Monday – http://barbaraheide.com – Barbara knows nothing about website design, servers or any of that stuff.

But getting the site to bring in clients is a big and expensive skilled operation – the main value for you is simply as a “leaflet” or “catalogue” for your home and to give the address to people wanting to know more.

Getting the advertising done is where you first asked me to comment and at present I do not believe any of the big advertising sites are viable as so much has changed and is rapidly developing in internet search patterns and use of mobiles etc.

My bottle opener is poised in anticipation

Tony