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Suzanne Stephens

Marketing Mountain Home Vacation Rental

By: Suzanne Stephens
Sunday, August 19, 2007 9:36 AM

Do any of you have experience marketing vacation home rentals with your Point2Agent site? A client for whom I designed a non-real estate web site has come to me for another web site. He has an almost new custom-built 2-bedroom home in the NC mountains that he wants to put on the vacation rental market. Though his home is in a very small mountain resort town, his new site will compete with several established sites for search engine position. I wonder how much Point2Agent's syndicated advertising might help generate both rentals and traffic to help his SEO.

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Comments

Sharron and Steve Lobman
Member Since '06

Sharron and Steve Lobman said:

Suzanne,

I have been thinking the same thing, as my husband and I are going to be offering our current home for vacation rental.

August 19, 2007 11:15 AM
Cal Griffin
Member Since '06

Cal Griffin said:

Down here on Edisto Beach we have not used P2homes but we do use www.vrbo.com  "Vacation Rentals By Owner"-a lot of my clients are having a lot of luck with this site.  No huge fees is the big draw.  Give it a look and see what you think.

www.calgriffin.com

August 19, 2007 12:14 PM
Diana Russell
Member Since '06

Diana Russell said:

Thanks for the link, Cal. I think I'll tell him about that site *after* he pays me to design a site for him! He can easily afford to do both, plus he will be competing with several gorgeous sites.

Sharron, here is a product that might interest you. It's not cheap, but very full-featured. I'm going to suggest that my client subscribe, then iframe it into his custom site. He's an oil industry consultant who works outside the U.S. most of the year, so I think this product will cover his needs very efficiently without requiring a lot of his time.

ttp://www.reservier.com/

August 19, 2007 2:25 PM
Diana Russell
Member Since '06

Diana Russell said:

Oops! Sorry folks! I forgot I am logged into Diana's site. I get my multiple personalities confused. Suzanne

August 19, 2007 2:26 PM
Sharron and Steve Lobman
Member Since '06

Sharron and Steve Lobman said:

Suzanne,

I was wondering what was going on!

Sharron

August 19, 2007 3:04 PM
Sharron and Steve Lobman
Member Since '06

Sharron and Steve Lobman said:

Suzanne,

Can you give me an idea of the price range? It looks awesome!!!

August 19, 2007 3:09 PM
Suzanne Stephens
Member Since '06

Suzanne Stephens said:

Here's the price list, Sharron. The difference between Lite and Pro level pertains to whether you want to accept credit cards. Unless you want to be restricted to a simple solution like PayPal, with which non-members or people using an email address that PayPal doesn't recognize can pay with a credit card, it's probably worth the extra money to go with the Pro version. Setting up a site to accept credit cards is a pain in the rear, as is getting a merchant account and transaction gateway.

http://www.reservier.com/Products/Desk/Pricing.aspx

There's a link in the right column to their credit card rates. You might want to ask specifically about their monthly minimum and monthly fees, since it's likely that you'll have some off-season months with no rentals As I recall, you're in the N. GA mountains, right? If your area is like Bryson City, NC, you probably will get very few bookings between the end of leaf season (mid-Oct.) and Memorial Day, so be sure to factor that in when setting your rates. July and August are the busiest season in Bryson City, especially mid- to late-August, when people are trying to squeeze in vacations before the kids start school. (Can you tell I spent many years doing advertising for Nantahala Outdoor Center and Endless River Adventures?). However, I did notice that the site below designates Thanksgiving and Christmas has high season--rather a surprise because when I lived there in the late -80s, the place was dead, dead, dead around the holidays.

http://www.watershedcabins.com/reservations.phtml

A good series of articles:

http://www.reservier.com/Owners/Owners.aspx

August 20, 2007 2:10 PM
Sharron and Steve Lobman
Member Since '06

Sharron and Steve Lobman said:

Thanks so much for the info, Suzanne!

August 20, 2007 6:07 PM

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Suzanne Stephens
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Suzanne Stephens
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