Cottage Listing sites

[Sue Dyer]

I used www.internet-cottages.com for almost two years. However, early this year google changed the way it was indexing sites and it (and my enquiries) seemed to slip of the planet.

I searched as if I was looking for a cottage in my area and www.cottageguide.co.uk came up top everytime. They charge around £75 per year and have some great features you can control easily, 52 week availibility calendar, late availibility and owners noticeboard. I've had such a great season this year thanks to cottageguide - I can highly recommend it.

Internet cottages seems to be creeping back up on google too so i have renewed with them so I don't end up in an "all eggs in one basket" situation. Both sites offer very friendly service and are very approachable. You can also click thru from the sites to your own website which I think helps too.

hope this is helpful!
sue www.lilycottagebelford.co.uk

[Stephen]

Hi Sue
it is actually www.cottageguide.co.uk for british cottages which I think is a very good site, I get nearly all my bookings from this site.

I also use www.self-catering-breaks.com which is a free site and although I don't get loads of enquiries I have had some bookings from it.

How much is it to advertise on www.internet-cottages.com and would you recommend it..

I have been looking for ages for a forum regarding British Holiday Cottages !! So I wish this forum all the best and hope it is very sucessfull

Regards
Stephen
www.theoldcountrychapel.com
www.myfloridavilla.net

[paolo]

My properties are not in the UK but I will just dip my oar in to say that I would recommend a "cocktail" of rental listing sites. It's asking a lot of any one site to get you all the enquiries you need for the year. I started with 5 paid sites and whittled it down to the 3 best performing ones (plus a personal website, plus pay-per-click).

The fact is that these sites are really cheap. Even the more expensive ones that charge near £200 offer great value if they get you a handful of bookings. Imagine how unhappy we would be if we were still paying half our rental income on print ads, brochures and agency commissions.

When I first discovered this way of marketing your home I had to rub my eyes in disbelief that it cost so little AND no commission on bookings.

[John Borg]

Without doubt, 2 good sites that I use are www.holiday-rentals.com (a UK based site that gets traffic from major English speaking countries) and www.vacationvillas.net (a German based site that targets Germans, Austrians and Swiss, adverts are posted in English & German)
They are 2 very good sites that I highly recommend. I also use holiday breaks . com which is a free site, though it's layout is not as good as the other two.
They are not cheap, but they are good. 90% of my bookings come from them.

[Deedee]

I agree with John. www.holiday-rentals.com is excellent.

[Sue Dyer]

Stephen, sorry I didn't see your query re internet cottages earlier.
It is about the same price as cottage guide - £75. As I say, the bulk of my bookings are through cottage guide but Internet Cottages has filled the odd week, enough to justifiy the relatively small payment.
I second the remarks re the forum - brilliant idea!!

[Stephen]

I have just found a free site www.selfcatering-directory.co.uk

Free Basic Registration or Gold Membership - £29.36 per property per year (or 49 euros if outside the UK)

Might as well give it a try saying it is free,plus it has a link to your own website.

Stephen

[Chris Radford]

Reading these posts has been very helpful for me in thinking about the options for listing sites.

I can confirm that I have had good experience with www.internet-cottages.com (2 or 3 enquiries a week and at least 10-15 referrals to my website each week and some interest from www.holidaylets.net with around 1 or 2 enquiries a week.

I have used www.seasidecottages.co.uk which is low cost at £29.50 but generates fewer enquiries (1 a month?)
If you are by the seaside www.gocoastal.co.uk is free - a bit weird in appearance, but it is enthusiastically run and friendly

However I am thinking about doing some others as well and was wondering about www.holiday-rentals.com and www.cottageguide.co.uk. There seems to be a split between the owners of UK property and those in other countries. I have the impression that holiday-rentals is quite sunny/ski/golf orientated and cottageguide is much better for British Cottages. Has anyone with a UK cottage had a good time with holiday rentals?

Has anyone had a bad time with www.cottageguide.co.uk. ?
The briefing for new advertisers seems very particular and they seem not keen on external links (e.g. your local tourist board).

I am also interested in peoples experience of using local tourist board advertising. I am sticking with York Tourism bureau and Swanage (Dorset) tourist brochures but they are expensive and I am finding it hard to track whether they work or not?

Bit of a ramble but any more thoughts welcome

Chris

[Christine Kenyon]

this is a reply to Chris's query about the cottageguide site. I can only endorse what others have said - it's excellent and extremely good value for money. Any updates are done extremely quickly and they are always very helpful. We've had few problems with links to other sites. The options for late availability and owner's noticeboard also work very well - and you can edit them yourself.

Christine
www.cottageguide.co.uk/stybarrowcottage
www.cottageguide.co.uk/troutbeckcottage

[Sue Dyer]

I can't recommend Cottage Guide enough. I think I may have said that bookings with the site I was using seemed to dry right up at the beginning of the year. I found cottage guide really easy to join up to - wish they'd let you join over the net though instead of having to post a cheque - I'm impatient in these cyber days!
I too had to remove links such as tourist boards as they went through to alternative property listings but the sheer volume of referrals and bookings I've had through them has been well worth it.
I like the feature where you can check the stats to see how many people have viewed your property on their site and how many have clicked thru to your website.

[paolo]

John,

You recommended vacationvillas.net for the German-speaking market. Can you tell me a little more?:

- for your standard annual fee, do you fill in your ad in English, and they translate it for free into German?

- what happens when you get a booking enquiry in German and you don't speak German?

- what is the approximate ratio of enquiries you get from the German-language ad as opposed to the English-language one?

Thanks for any advice on this - if you prefer you can PM me.

[John Borg]

Paolo,
let me answer your questions one by one:
I fill in the standard form, naturally in English, as like you said I don't speak German, though with the rate of German guests we have, I'm learning! The site then does an identical one in German / German-Swiss / German Austian as they have different versions.
When I get an enquiery in German, which is very often, I just use a free-translation off the web! You don't get a true translation, but you get enough to understand the basic questions. (many times I ask our guests if they happen to be German!)
When the query comes from the German site (http://www.fewo-direkt.de ) I just send the basic info in English - you would be surprised how many Germans speak English! These queries are usually from Germans, Swiss or Austrians.
As for the ratio, I would think that 8/10 come from the German version - my actual target in the first place.
This site is just as good as holiday-rentals, speaking from my personal experience. The layout of the sites is practically identical and so are the fees. And YES, you can edit as much as you like, at no extra cost!

[paolo]

Thanks John, I think I'm going to give it a go for a friend of mine.

I think for those with homes in France (and others) this may be a great little source of enquiries. I did quite a full survey of which sites come up on page one of Google for people looking for rentals in Provence, and this site did pretty well in English. It should do even better in German, as there is less competition and that is their primary language.

By the way, what site do you use for German translation?

Cheers!

[John Borg]

For translations I use http://www.freetranslation.com/
I have never realy searched for different choices as this site suits my purpose. I do admit that sometimes the translations come out wierd, but it's enough to get by on.

[Sue Dyer]

HA!!! My friends CD had a review on a Dutch site. I thought I'd run it through and it gave me a few smiles....

His second CD was called "Low Rent Romeo"... This translates to "Low Yields Interest Romeo" which is much more interesting...

Guitarist "Dan Wilkinson" has been renamed "Then Wilkinson" and singer Gram Parsons becomes "Wrathful Parsons"... I love it!!!