Vacation Rental and Holiday Home Advertising - How to Get the Most from Your Ad

The online holiday home advertising market is a very crowded place to find your ideal vacation rental. With thousands of fantastic holiday properties available to rent, how do you make your holiday home stand out from the 1000's of other listings?
This article looks at how your property advertisement can be optimised to improve its attractiveness and readability, and to highlight its uniqueness ensuring holidaymakers select your property first.

As with all holiday home marketing sites, your property advertisement will be displayed in their standard format and will find itself amongst many other properties in the search results, but what can you do to make it stand out?

• Write an interesting title for your property. Instead of "Two bed villa in Spain", spice it up with "Beach front Villa with Breathtaking Views over the Mediterranean". Try and limit the title to 10-12 words, more than 12 words becomes too much of mouthful.
• Choose your best most attractive photograph to be used in search results. Remember at this point, this is the only picture of your property holidaymakers can see. Make sure it's a complete picture of your property.
• Your brief description should summarise the best attributes of your property. If you have a privately heated pool - mention it. Don't forget to mention the location.

Now you've persuaded holidaymakers to view your property advertisement it doesn't end there, you need to maintain the charm throughout the main body of your advertisement.

Provide lots of photographs of your property, the surroundings and any special features (pools, balcony with sea view etc). After all, people want to see where they will be staying during their holidays. With a rental listing site you are usually limited by the number of pictures you can add, so don't cram your advertisement with too many scenic pictures - 1 or 2 is fine. Don't forget to add a caption with each picture to help draw people in.
Take your outdoor photographs on bright clear days, preferably when the sky is clear and the sun is shining. Take your indoor pictures during the day with plenty of natural light, switch all the interior lights on to help improve lighting conditions if required. Remember dull pictures look boring and unattractive, use your imagination and create attractive & interesting pictures.

Let holidaymakers make an informed decision and provide lots of information describing your property and its location. Use short paragraphs with 3 to 4 sentences, and break up paragraphs by using bullet points and sub-headings. This makes it easier to read and digest the information.

If your holiday home marketing site has the facility, ask your guests to add their feedback to your property advertisement. Holidaymakers like to read about 3rd party experiences before deciding where to take their family vacation. If your property has been shortlisted with one or two other properties, your guest's comments could win you the booking.

Don't overprice the rental rates for your property - be realistic. Check out the market and compare other similar properties in your location. If you overprice you may loose a booking, and hence a weeks rental income which can never be recovered. The exception to charging higher rental rates is if your property has a unique feature or more/better facilities than other similar properties within your location. Regularly review and update your rental rates based on market conditions.

Once you have completed your advertisement, check it for spelling errors and ensure you haven't repeated yourself. When your advertisement is live, check it again and also ask your family & friends for feedback - they can provide an unbiased opinion which can be invaluable.

Ensure you maintain your property advertisement and keep all your information & prices up to date and accurate. If you redecorate your property or change the way it looks, take new photographs and update your advertisement. If you use an availability calendar, keep it up to date.

These points are quite straightforward and cost nothing to achieve, but its surprising how many property rental owners overlook the more obvious and simple things. A carefully planned and well written holiday home advertisement will help generate more interest - leading to more booking enquiries.