Changing website hosting from Squarespace to PMP

Everything to do with using your own website to advertise your rental property. Design, usability, hosting, getting listed on the search engines, optimising your site, pay-per-click, etc, etc.
SarahvdV
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Jan 30, 2015 10:48 am
Location: Estepona, Spain

Changing website hosting from Squarespace to PMP

Post by SarahvdV »

Hello there everyone, I am fairly new to both holiday rentals and to LMH so first things first - a little introduction. I am Sarah and based in Senegal. We starting renting out our villa in Estepona, Costa del Sol Spain in late 2014 and it's been going pretty well. We advertise on HA, HL, Airbnb, Micazu and a German site. We feel we needed to launch a website and I wish I had researched it more before I signed up to Squarespace. I hadn't heard of PMP at the time and I have since realised, thanks to this excellent forum and all your input, that it is a better option. So I signed onto Squarespace in Jan, bought my domain name but haven't activated our website as yet as only just had a professional photo shoot done. So my question is: should I make the transfer? Does PMP have easy access to rental specific features such as rates tables, calendars, photo gallery, contact form? Paid USD 96 for Squarespace so reluctant to pay similar again for PMP in the event it doesn't add so much value....thank you all and look forward to hearing you feedback! Sarah vdV
Villa Passiflora
User avatar
GRL
Posts: 821
Joined: Fri Sep 12, 2014 4:31 pm

Post by GRL »

You can have a 14 day free trial with PMP which will give you time to see if the site offers everything you want. If you do decide to pay and use them please do ask me for a referral code which gives both of us £10 off the annual subscription.

And welcome to Lay My Hat :)
User avatar
NeatandPicky
Posts: 377
Joined: Thu Aug 30, 2007 12:58 pm
Location: Pissouri Bay, Cyprus
Contact:

Post by NeatandPicky »

Hi Sarah

We have all the features you list on our PMP website. We also have some hidden pages that don't show in the menu. We use these for things like our booking terms and booking form (which has a compulsory tick box to indicate agreement), and other info that we don't want to share with competitors, but do want to share with guests.
FelicityA
Posts: 2816
Joined: Fri Nov 05, 2010 2:54 pm
Location: Cotswolds
Contact:

Post by FelicityA »

Welcome to LMH Sarah! PMP currently only costs £69/annum and is excellent value for money, in my opinion. Quite the nicest CS you can find and so quick to respond! I didn't know about the hidden pages that NeatandPicky mentions, so after 4 years I am still discovering things. You can have a blog as well. I have an external 3rd party calendar as they did not have that feature to start with. Theirs is likely better and I must get around to switching that.
Nigel Goodwin
Posts: 707
Joined: Thu Apr 04, 2013 3:50 pm
Location: Newquay Cornwall
Contact:

Post by Nigel Goodwin »

i use PMP and am very happy with it.

How do you currently take bookings and manage availability?

A web site is an advertising front end, to manage bookings and availability you need a back end. I use SuperControl, but many others here use PIMS.

Of course you can do it all manually if you have the time.
SarahvdV
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Jan 30, 2015 10:48 am
Location: Estepona, Spain

Post by SarahvdV »

Dear Rosie, NeatandPicky, Felicity, Nigel,

Thank you for the welcome and for sharing your experiences and advice - and sorry for the late reply. It's Eid holidays where I live so with the creche and school closed so have been running around endlessly after the littles.

Rosie I may just well PM you for that discount code, probably at the end of the weekend. Thanks!

Nigel we take bookings via HA, HL, Micazu, a German site, Airbnb and manage those bookings using a manual system I set up dependent on Excel. But I will look into SuperControl and PIMS should we need to revert to a different system.

Really appreciate all your time on this, thanks all.

Sarah
Villa Passiflora
User avatar
kevsboredagain
Posts: 3207
Joined: Sat Jan 20, 2007 9:32 am
Location: France
Contact:

Post by kevsboredagain »

Nigel Goodwin wrote: Of course you can do it all manually if you have the time.
I think sometimes the time taken to manage bookings manually is over estimated. Armed with a spreadsheet to calculate all my dates, events and payment URLs for each booking together with a set of templates, all stored in Dropbox for access anywhere, I've never felt the need to have a software package manage my bookings.

Taking a booking takes minutes and totals probably just a few hours per year to manage. Updating prices on listing sites on the other hand takes way more time, as each is different.

Perhaps if I had more than say 5 properties, or was taking lots of short bookings, I would need something more formal as the amount of data would increase but for a low amount of data, I'd rather sink the money into advertising than to a solution for a problem that seems so small to me.

Just my opinion and everyone has different needs or expectations.
User avatar
Casscat
Posts: 2692
Joined: Sat Jul 05, 2014 10:43 pm

Post by Casscat »

PIMS for me has been a godsend. I refer to it all the time and my property manager has access so he can check out all the information he is going to need about who is arriving, when they will arrive and when they leave. All their contact data is in one place and he always messages them to ensure that they have his details to hand. I add notes for his benefit and mine about any special requirements - and post-holiday notes if I need to keep a reference about either exceptionally good guests who should be welcomed back with open arms or exceptionally bad guests for whom there should never be any future availability! :lol: As I only have one property I just use the 'entry level' subscription and it's worth every penny of its very modest cost.
User avatar
NeatandPicky
Posts: 377
Joined: Thu Aug 30, 2007 12:58 pm
Location: Pissouri Bay, Cyprus
Contact:

Post by NeatandPicky »

Have to agree with Casscat. Happily handling things manually, (one property), I held out for ages, but since taking the plunge am delighted with PIMS. So many brilliant features, even on Lite version. Plus it's nice to support (albeit in a small way) a fellow LMHer who contributes so much to the forum.
User avatar
Casscat
Posts: 2692
Joined: Sat Jul 05, 2014 10:43 pm

Post by Casscat »

NeatandPicky wrote:Plus it's nice to support (albeit in a small way) a fellow LMHer who contributes so much to the forum.
+1
Post Reply