Which website builder and payment options work best and why?

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.
LizK
Posts: 7
Joined: Sat Mar 17, 2018 2:13 pm
Location: Wales

Which website builder and payment options work best and why?

Post by LizK »

Hi all

I'm a newbie to holiday lets looking to buy a property in North Wales that is currently operating as such, as well as a family getaway. The existing trip advisor site with lots of ace reviews won't transfer under new management so I need to start from scratch and be ready from Day 1.

I'm leaning towards listing on AirBnB as well as Trip Advisor (via Holidaylettings) but not taking payments through TA. Thinking of needing a calendar that synchs with others but a using a single payment system - wondering which is the cheapest / best? Making this work together is a challenge!

Any of your experience on this on in this or in general would be most appreciated.
can you help me make the right decisions? Newbie with lots to research. All help gratefully received
zebedee
Posts: 1270
Joined: Fri Sep 12, 2014 2:57 pm
Location: yorkshire dales

Post by zebedee »

Hi.
Promote my Place will give you the ability to have a website that sincs and can have as many pages as you like
, and best of all everything you write is in English. Greta support and easy instructions.
I will pm you a discount code so it will only cost £69 this year (£10 off)
Good luck and PM me if I can help further.
LizK
Posts: 7
Joined: Sat Mar 17, 2018 2:13 pm
Location: Wales

Post by LizK »

Hey Jane

thanks for the code - PMP seems to be the favourite here.

Do you use a payment system with it? I'm thinking Stripe but even though I've read the posts here and looked online I can't figure out if people can simply enter their card numbers online (as per any usual site) or if I have to take bookings over the phone?

Ta :-)
can you help me make the right decisions? Newbie with lots to research. All help gratefully received
Hells Bells
Posts: 13173
Joined: Sat Apr 30, 2005 8:42 am
Location: French Alps
Contact:

Post by Hells Bells »

You may need an additional option to take card payments online. .Yes, you can set up a Stripe account, but it isn't easy to just add it to PMP. You need something like PIMS see www.holidayrentalmanagement.com to enable Stripe to work.
SusanMay
Posts: 125
Joined: Sun Jan 29, 2012 6:23 pm
Location: Dorset

Post by SusanMay »

PMP is a favourite here. An alternative is to create your own website using Wordpress. Alan Egan of Vacation Soup has a free course which you follow step by step to create your website. All you pay for is a domain name and hosting plan.

Here is link to his site: https://learn.vacationsoup.com/courses/ ... l-website/

I was a total novice but managed to do it! Here is my site if you want to see roughly what you end up with:

https://westbaycottage.co.uk

Yours would look pretty similar, although I used Alan's old course. He has made it even easier to create a website now. Much of the effort is finding good pictures and writing the words but you need to do that whatever method you choose.

You can, if you like, pay for a booking engine too for calendars, booking and online payment.

There are advantages and disadvantages to building your own site. If you search on "wordpress" you will see several previous posts on the subject. Here is one:

viewtopic.php?t=28162&highlight=
FelicityA
Posts: 2816
Joined: Fri Nov 05, 2010 2:54 pm
Location: Cotswolds
Contact:

Post by FelicityA »

This is about PMPs payment and booking system. I am not quite sure what stage they are at and I haven’t needed to use it as I still get people to do good old bank transfer ( not had anyone not book because of this) as I don’t want to have the extra processing burden made by the card companies. https://promotemyplace.zendesk.com/hc/e ... 5001245532
LizK
Posts: 7
Joined: Sat Mar 17, 2018 2:13 pm
Location: Wales

Post by LizK »

fab - thanks Sue, I love your site and the depth of the content, the blog is a nice touch, it gives it some dynamism. I'm unsure if I want to make my rates visible as it pegs me down, the calendar looks fine but ideally people could select dates and the price would calculate automatically.

I shall think more on this.

Felicity do you ask for a deposit with your bank transfers and if not how long do you hold the dates for before requiring payment?

Thanks both!
can you help me make the right decisions? Newbie with lots to research. All help gratefully received
SusanMay
Posts: 125
Joined: Sun Jan 29, 2012 6:23 pm
Location: Dorset

Post by SusanMay »

Thanks Liz.

I think people like to easily see the rates. I know I do anyway If I am looking at places to book.

You can have the calendar where people click on a date, number of days and payment comes up automatically if you sign up with a number of different booking systems such as PIMS, bookalet or Supercontrol. You link to / embed the calendar booking pages into your website. You can also do it for free if you use freetobook, but you have to pay them (about £79 if I remember correctly) if you want to link to Stripe so people can pay with cards instantly.

I decided I wanted to double check dates and rates before accepting a booking so haven't gone down this route yet. I do use Wave invoicing with Stripe so people can pay with cards as well as bank transfer or cheque but it is an extra step where I send them an email invoice with a link to the payment screen. You never know if you lose a booking if people want to pay instantly but I have a hope that people who are prepared to make this little effort might be the sort of people who are more prepared to look after the place when they get there. Wishful thinking maybe!
FelicityA
Posts: 2816
Joined: Fri Nov 05, 2010 2:54 pm
Location: Cotswolds
Contact:

Post by FelicityA »

LizK, I SAY I hold the dates for 48 hours ( sometimes I go soft..) pending the return of the booking form ( I use Wufoo - I put a link on my PMP site) and confirmation that they have INITIATED payment. Of course I only do this when they say they definitely definitely are intending to book, otherwise it just stays open. I now ask for a 25% deposit and the balance 12 weeks in advance of arrival. I used to do 6 weeks, then 8 weeks but I had a series of cancellations (illnesses or fear of terrorist attacks in the Cotswolds and Dublin, having seen attacks in London!!!!) from Americans just before the deadline, I now make it nearly 3 months as most of my bookings, at that time anyway, were people who planned at least 3 months in advance so I had then lost large numbers of potentials.
Jenster
Posts: 454
Joined: Tue Mar 08, 2016 8:24 am
Location: Cornwall
Contact:

Post by Jenster »

FelicityA wrote:This is about PMPs payment and booking system. I am not quite sure what stage they are at and I haven’t needed to use it as I still get people to do good old bank transfer ( not had anyone not book because of this) as I don’t want to have the extra processing burden made by the card companies. https://promotemyplace.zendesk.com/hc/e ... 5001245532
I love PMP, so cost and time efficient to produce a very nice looking website. Some say it is a bit restricitve and websites can look 'samey' but I don't think that matters if it looks great and has great content.

I also use the PMP reservation manager and payment system. I find it very good, easy to use, does everything I need and simple to send guests a payment request for bank transfer payments or link for online Stripe cc payment.

Unfortunately they have not yet rolled out the online booking phase so I am still using freetobook for that, and transfering any online bookings across to the PMP res manager, which is a pain. I'm hoping the PMP online booking phase will be rolled out soon.
Bearsie
Posts: 9
Joined: Sat Sep 30, 2017 3:28 pm

help please for a newbie

Post by Bearsie »

Hi there,

i have a holiday cottage in north wales which i let through an agent. However it isn’t’ an exclusive contract so friends and family can come direct to me for bookings.
i want to set up a very simple website page which has some very basic details of the cottage and i would be very grateful to have recommendations of which service to use.

I want to buy a couple of domain names which would take people through to this simple website and I would like to have the domain names registered to me. I’d also like a link on the website page where people could click and send an email to the email address of the cottage (do i have to buy this separately?).

I would be grateful if anyone would be willing to share their experiences or suggest which service provider I might go with.

I’m afraid I’m not at all tech savvy so please assume I know nothing....I don’t!

Thanks
BEARSIE
Dotty
Posts: 742
Joined: Wed Jun 24, 2009 3:25 pm
Location: Pyrenees Orientales, France
Contact:

Post by Dotty »

I use PMP (Promote my place). I have a code that gives us both £10 off if you use it. Its 396405. (Ypu also get a 2 week trial before you have to pay anything so you can see it for yourself)

PMP is a template based website. You fill in what you want to in the various boxes, upload photos etc following their instructions. Its very simple to use if you aren't technical, but if you do get more ambitious you can also add more html code yourself to do things the standard template doesn't do. The price includes one of their own URLs but it is better to register a .com or .co.uk etc URL with your own domain name and link it to the PMP website.
(I'm no expert, but take a look at my site to get an idea of what you can do with it.... www.laroqueholidayvilla.com
Bearsie
Posts: 9
Joined: Sat Sep 30, 2017 3:28 pm

Domain registrar

Post by Bearsie »

Hi Dotty,

Thanks for that useful info. Ive looked at the website and can see why you use it. It looks very professional. I may well use it for hosting my website.

After further thought I am going to register my domain name separately. Does anyone have any experience of domain name registrars. Any good ones o ones to avail

Thanks again
Bearsie
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