Hi new here, still learning website stuff welcome comments

[sophiashouse]

Hi just found this forum, still learning website building, welcome comments as self taught and had no one to ask.

Any suggestions on how to get more European customers?

Just been trying recipricol links but not sure, any views?

Last year was our first and bookings through our website was better than I could have imagined. This year seems to have ran into a brick wall. Is it time to panic and reduce prices or maybe wait till after Christmas?

http://www.sophiashouse.co.uk

ps where are all the other Greek owners

[Jimbo]

Is it time to panic ...

It can't be your photographs that are putting people off because these are beautifully done. Your scenics and your late-evening atmospheric shots are terrific (but I get a slightly scary feeling of plunging to my doom clutching a glass of something from the edge of your infinity pool). Way to go, I suppose!

We're in tough times. I'd suggest following the advice from experienced owners on recent threads devoted to this subject and maybe consider listing with established rental sites to supplement your website, if you're not doing so already? Many companies cut back on advertising when times get hard - usually a mistake.

Good luck.

Jim

[Big Sis..]

Hi Sophia

It can't be your photographs that are putting people off because these are beautifully done. Your scenics and your late-evening atmospheric shots are terrific

Praise indeed!!.....and coming from Jimbo who knows about such things[understatement ]
I knew the photos would be special and they are!!!!!!!!!

We're in tough times. I'd suggest following the advice from experienced owners on recent threads devoted to this subject and maybe consider listing with established rental sites to supplement your website, if you're not doing so already? Many companies cut back on advertising when times get hard - usually a mistake.

I agree with Jim.....You did well in your first year but times are really difficult at the mo even for people who have been established a lot longer.
Invest in a few of the major Listing Sites and hopefully that will help

Good luck and welcome to the Forum

[sophiashouse]

Thanks for the comments,
Makes me feel like I'm heading in the right direction.
I realised early on in the project that there were a lot of beautiful properties that weren't being done justice with their photos, so I spent 6 months studying photography magazines, bought a digital slr, wide angle lens, and photoshop tutorial dvds. Now I'm trying to learn dreamweaver for the website also trying to learn seo and marketing, glad I found this forum seems to be a lot of information and experience here.

The drop on the other side of the pool is not too bad, but have supplied the farmer with hard hats for his sheep in case of falling children.

The local villa management company has put us on holidaylettings.co.uk as well as there own site but may consider using another paid site especially if they are strong in Europe.

Thanks again for the comments

John

http://www.sophiashouse.co.uk

[Giddy Goat]

The drop on the other side of the pool is not too bad, but have supplied the farmer with hard hats for his sheep in case of falling children.

Love it! And the pics are terrific John! Welcome to LMH.

[Jimbo]

... I spent 6 months studying photography magazines, bought a digital slr, wide angle lens, and photoshop tutorial dvds.

And the results do you great credit. Shows that you don't have to be a professional anything to succeed in the rental business, just have a professional approach to the problem in hand.

Jim

[Giddy Goat]

Yes, agree Jimbo - the more effort you invest in any business, the greater the likelihood of a good return, at least in a healthy economy! You've got to be in it to win it, and that's why we're all here, to learn from each other. Prosaic but true.

[Giddy Goat]

Returning to your original question John, I see you had a good first year: are you saying that bookings could be improved upon?

People have been a little slow to respond because it's really quite a complex question you've asked. I can't help much in respect of the mainland European market, as most of my guests are finding me on UK based sites and tend to come from there and I'm getting a growing number of visitors from the US. But certainly don't reduce prices yet, (or think about getting an agency to help - perish the thought! )

Two pointers in terms of enquiries - if you're on rent-direct-from-owner listing sites as well as relying on bookings directly from your website, there's a lot of competition from properties in Greece and people are put off by not being able to see availability immediately, so I hope you're using availability calendars. I see however that you don't have a calendar on your website. There are members here who have very specific reasons why they're unable to show availability - but for those in your category who don't offer B&B, and have just one property, I would strongly advise you to have a calendar and keep it up to date. I'm a bit strapped for time but there have been loads of discussions on this issue here and I wlll find them for you later unless some kind soul has stepped in meanwhile.

Which listing sites? There's only one way to find out and that is by researching a few. Go onto some listing sites such as Owners Direct, Holiday-Rentals or Holiday Lettings. Find some villas of similar spec in Greece, see if the name of the villa is mentioned in the ad, then google the name of the villa. That's the way I go about it anyway, rather than with other search terms. It should bring up most (if not all) the other listing sites they currently use if you're prepared to look into a few pages of results. Check the ads to see how long they've been renting - whether they're newbies or likely to have had experience you can then benefit from.

Do this for a good half dozen, and you'll see a pattern emerging as to which sites are favoured for your particular market; if they show availability and healthy bookings, they're the ones to imitate!

So that's my two-pennethworth to kick start some action here. A lot of basic marketing principles are applicable worldwide, as I'm sure you already know, and you have a terrific tool in terms of those images! So only go for sites which allow a link to the website - it's worth paying a bit extra if the link isn't free. That's not to say you won't get enquiries without, but if you've got it, flaunt it!

[sophiashouse]

Thanks for the advice GG, what happened last year was that we got so innundated with enquiries that we passed an enormous amount back to the villa management company who then reduced their fees to us. This is why we didn't add the availability calender. This year I feel will be very different and will have to make filling our own property number one objective, I will look into putting the availability calendar onto the site, maybe there are some recommendations for this on the forum, I'll have alook through.

Thanks for the other advice will do some research at the weekend.

Thanks

John

http://www.sophiashouse.co.uk

[Giddy Goat]

I missed the fact earlier that you're already listed via a local management company John. They do the caretaking and turnarounds as well? I'm now a little confused - they advertise your property on a website of their own, are also in control of where else your property is advertised, and you handle your own enquiries, right? But they don't keep your availability calendar up to date for you on Holiday Lettings?

It seems to be working OK, but my thought would be to renegotiate the terms in which they are involved; are you getting most enquiries via their website, or do most come via Holiday Lettings and your own website?

If the latter is the case, and you're receiving a lot of enquiries that are no use to you (thereby creating more admin when you pass them on to the company) I would probably seek to subscribe to Holiday Lettings myself when the subscription paid for by the management company next expires. I'd then keep the availability calendar up to date and, as suggested, look to adding one of your own to your website. You could use the Holiday Lettings one there, one from another listing site once you've decided which other ones to subscribe with, or go for one of your own. A couple of management systems are offered here by members:

viewtopic.php?t=7675

and here:

viewtopic.php?t=6373

As you'll see, they have facilities which cover more than just a calendar so may be worth considering.

If the management company are happy just to do the caretaking/turnarounds, that's what I'd go for (and subscribe to a couple of extra listing sites). It will possibly work out cheaper for you, and of course will give you full control over marketing, plus cut down on wasted enquiries.

[Gite Guru]

Hey, if you're looking to get traffic from other countries, consider how your site is set up for local search in those countries.

a quick 'site' command in google lists the pages you have in the engine: http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3As ... en___GB286

Looking at this I can see you have created country specific landing pages (/it /es etc) which is a good start (more than most do) but look at what is showing up in the description part of the majority of your search results, and you'll see it's the navigation which does nothing for your search rankings, and nothing in terms of pulling people into your site. Optimise each of the landing pages fully by adding 'description' meta text in each pages source code which has your desired search terms in it in the local language, as well as being a compelling 'sell' of your property.

Additionally you might consider buying and parking additional domain names (local country derivations) as this can often ensure you're found in the local Google results. More on SEO tricks on my blog if you're interested.

You might additionally consider a highly targeted PPC campaign on Google with your results only showing in those countries you're specifically targeting.

hth, agree on the photography, makes me want to be there!

kr,

Dave

[sophiashouse]

Hi Gite Guru,

Thanks for the input, thats got both braincells smoking!. Apparently the translation scipt stores a cached version on server, just had a look and your right about the meta descriptions I'll see if can download each one edit and reload.
Incidently found the link to the translation script here if anyone else is interested: vacationrentalscommunity.com/blogs/vancouver-olympics/archive/2008/11/05/international-vacation-rental-exposure-through-website-translation.aspx

Do you think google will have a problem with duplication of content they have highlighted duplicate meta description tags for the different languages in webmaster tools.

Will look at your blog ref seo as think I'm struggling a bit there, have done some recipricol links but not getting anywhere ref page rank, may just delete them all. Aimed at two search engine phrases, "villa in crete" and "accommodation in crete", thought I was being clever by combining the two to get "villa accommodation in crete", now number one google for "villa accommodation in crete" but nowhere to found for the other two phrases and scared to change anything incase I loose what I've got. Thought about targeting different pages to different terms but not sure if google uses each page seperately or site as a whole.

Thanks for the comments seems that the more I learn the more I realise that I dont know.

John

http://www.sophiashouse.co.uk

[sophiashouse]

Hi GG,

Thanks for the input will look at the links ref calenders.

John

http://www.sophiashouse.co.uk

[Giddy Goat]

Any suggestions on how to get more European customers?

John, do you have a particular reason for asking this question, or is it simply that you think it may be a way of getting extra bods in beds?

[sophiashouse]

Hi GG,

If I could get the same number of bods in beds as last year I would be happy.

Charging in Euros (as all costs in Euros) is one big reason ref current exchange rate.

The Excel airways failure and associated press with airlines was another that seemed to be a bigger issue with UK. (spoke to a Dutch guy who was due to go to Crete after the failure of Excel) he didn't know there was a problem.

Have been told that some potential UK customers are waiting for the outcome of Gatwick sale.

Was hoping that maybe some other European countries may not be as in the doldrums as Uk ref economy.

Its a bigger market and many countries are closer to Crete than Uk, didn't know if that would help ref fuel costs (now or in the future).

Apparently Crete is very popular with Scandinavian countries.

So for all these reasons I thought it would be unwise to limit myself to Uk market.

I did look at other sites availability in the same area and very few have bookings, so I'm hoping for a rush after Christmas.

Still looking at availability calendar, but just want a calendar not full mySQL database system, (only have one database left with my hosting pakage was saving that for something else). Will have a look again today, lost big part of yesterday trying to soak up other input on this forum didnt turn copmputer off until 1 am)

Thanks John