When is a 'Cottage' not a 'Cottage' ????

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caroig
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Post by caroig »

I'd posted the following as a separate thread as I'd missed this one.
caroig wrote:The word villa doesn't have any resonances for me, but it is undoubtedly the main 'descriptive term' for a rental property in Spain, at least for the uk market.
I'd like to avoid it, but am I just swimming against the flow? Does anyone rent cottages in Spain, converted farmhouses?

What should I use? Any thoughts?
Cottage does not rank up there with google compared to villa, although I think it's more appropriate.
lorca
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Post by lorca »

Copied from your original thread - it moved as I was typing!


We have two cottages in Spain (and one 5 bedroom restored traditional village house).

They are definitely cottages ....(or casitas as they´re called here). Little restored village houses. Definitely not villas

Little restored houses in the countryside (fincas) and larger ones (cortijos) are usually described as country houses. Like other countries there are lots of types of properties here but unfortunately not all listing sites recognise this. We no longer advertise on any site that doesn´t allow renters to search on "cottage" or "village house" (or gite -shame it only really applies to France).

It´s true that most people who want to come to Spain are looking for a villa with a pool or a seaside apartment - but fortunately for us there are quite a lot who aren´t

But ultimately caroig, it depends what your property´s like and how you think people searching for a place like yours would call it (if you get my drift)
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caroig
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Post by caroig »

Hmmm, thanks lorca, yes perhaps country house is what I should be looking for. Clearly it's irrelavant what I want to use, it depends on the what people are searching for.

Villa seems to have creeped away from the coast, up into rural Spain if the listing on HR and others are anything to go by.

"Cottage spain" gets 5% of the traffic for "villa spain" on google, and cortijo spain half that of cottage spain. "Country house spain", "casa rural spain" don't even get a mention for the UK market.

As you say, the question is, what do brits look for a rural hideaways in Spain type into their browsers? Does the "villa" search market overlap with "rural houses" or are they just looking for something on the coast.
lorca
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Post by lorca »

Yes it´s a difficult one. We finally decided that people looking for a villa wouldn´t be looking for properties like ours so it wouldn´t help us much to use it as a keyword - people might see it and move on.

On the other hand (mainly because there´s much less competition) using words such as cottage and village in our key words has helped us get to number three on page one of google for "cottage andalucia" "self catering andalucia" "holiday cottage andalucia" etc. We think this way we´re focusing more on our niche market.
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Windy
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Post by Windy »

Well we are either a "lodge" or a "log cabin" on our own sites, but then sometimes we had to be a "chalet" and if the listing site didn't offer those as options we have been a "cottage" or even a "villa" or "gite"
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kendalcottages
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Post by kendalcottages »

We usually list ourselves under "apartments" if there's the option. Failing that, it'd be "self-catering" or, if there's really no other choice, "cottages".

We're a bit strange in that the company name is Kendal Holiday Cottages Ltd. and the domain name includes the word 'cottages' but with time hopefully the name will become more fitting. For now, it at least helps us with one of the more popular searches for anyone going on a self-catering holiday.
Kendal Holiday Cottages Ltd., Kendal, Cumbria - between the Lake District & the Yorkshire Dales.
Margaret
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Post by Margaret »

I have lost track of the number of people who have asked to book our chalet or lodge (we have apartments) in Bavaria or our cottage (actually a very extensive town house) in Wales. I have actually more or less stopped trying to correct them - as long as they understand it is flats in Germany and a house in Wales, I suppose it doesn't really matter. In Wales though, I have a feeling it does matter, because of the number of times guests comment on how spacious the house is - 4 bedrooms, 2 large receptions and farmhouse kitchen - which part of that sounds like a cottage? So I suppose there are people who are put off by the price, thinking it is 'only' a cottage.

I really must review my keywords for both websites though, to make sure I include the 'wrong' words too.
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