Create a successful advertisement

Educate yourself before you rent out your holiday home - it pays off

Villarentaldeals.com would like to share with homeowners to help them improve their rental income. Most exercises are surprisingly simple, but the effect can be very powerful.

Look through our homeowners FAQ guide here and be inspired to build an advertisement for your holiday rental business that works.

1. What is the procedure to setup an ad?
2. How to create a trustworthy advertisement?
3. Photos - your most important tool
4. Description of the holiday property
5. Quick fix to optimize your holiday ad
6. Should you ask for a reservation deposit and security deposit?
7. Is it recommended to use a booking form? See our example
8. Which payment options should you offer?
9. How to ensure that you never miss an enquiry sent to you
10. Do you create the advertisement your self - or do we?
11. How long time will it take before your ad goes online?
12. How do you pay for your advertisement?
13. Can your advertisement receive a better position?
14. How do potential renters locate my advertisement?
15. How do you know if an enquiry is genuine?
16. Important if you use a web based e-mail client like hotmail, gmail, yahoo or aol
17. Conditions to accept

1. What is the procedure to setup an ad?

• You create an account here
• When you have received your password in an e-mail, click the activation link, you login to your account from the top of the page
• Click on "Add property"
• Follow the simple steps on the page
• When your ad is created, edit your owner profile and you may upload photos
• Setup bookings in the booking calendar
• You can list unlimited properties for FREE

1.1. Featured listing and Highlight listing

• To featuring or highlighting a property you need to activate them. To activate this you need to buy credits. Go to "Buy credits" in your control panel. 1 credit is has value of 1 USD. Buy a minimum of asked credits for the preferred package. You can buy more credits to us them for further featured listings or highlighted listings.  Top

2. How to create a trustworthy advertisement?

Consider the fact that a potential renter is going to pay a person who he has never met or heard of before. So even before any contact is established, he is aware that he is booking the family holidays without a safety net. So it is very important that your ad reflects trust. You can build trust by following this advice:

• Show a name on a contact person - not a company or nick name
• Show a telephone number. The renter will probably not call, but it is comforting to know that they can call you if needed. Make sure to write the country code (like 0044) as they might be from abroad
• Show and maintain your booking calendar so the renter can see that others have booked your holiday property.

• Send a formal booking agreement including all travel, payment and contact information. You could consider using our standard rental agreement
• Reply their e-mails fast - otherwise they might regret or book another property
• Remember - correct and informative communication will build up the renters trust in you and your property Top

3. Photos - your most important tool

Good photos is your key tool. We want to emphasize the importance of ensuring your photos are of the best quality, as they rent out your property for you. We advice you to ensure you have done the following

• Take your photographs on a sunny day with blue skies
• Morning and afternoon sun gives your photographs the best light
• Make sure to keep the sun in your back when you take your photographs
• Your best photo should be photo number 1 as this is used as a thumbnail photo in the listings
• Try to display photos in pairs so a horizontal is not next to a vertical photo
• When taking indoor photos, we recommend to use flash and to open the curtains
• Show photos from indoor, outdoor and the surroundings like pool, garden, beach etc
• If you want to take a step up - contact a professional photographer
• The maximum up-loadable size of pictures is 72 dpi and maximal 1024 pixel wide. Top

4. Description of the property

There is no limit regarding the length of the description. You can write as much as you like about your holiday home and area. We do ask it to be written by yourself and not copied from a another holiday ad on www.villarentaldeals.com.

In general it is a good idea to highlight the positive sides of your Villa, apartment or so on, but also the facilities in the local area. Write an informative description, not too long, not too short. People need to be informed but don’t want to be bored.

Take focus on following:

To see an example of what we consider to be an effective and appealing layout with a good description and nice photos, refer to http://www.villarentaldeals.com/luxury-3-bedroom-villa-ao-nang-krabi/l8 for inspiration. Top

5. Quick fix to optimize your holiday ad

It is important to make an attractive advertisement that people just can't miss. We offer various tools from your account, that may prove important to your rental business. Here is a quick guide to some of the most important tools

• PHOTOS - Your best card, so make sure to study section 3
• TRANSLATE YOUR ADVERTISEMENT - Our system offers the possibility for you to write your advertisement in many languages. Enter your account and translate your ad into the languages you manage to write. It will boost your ad in the search engines for more countries and open doors to more potential renters. Renters often feel more comfortable if they rent from a person of their own nationality.
• GOOGLE MAPS - This is a great extention to the trust building of your advertisement. We have renters saying that they do not trust an owner which does not show a map of where the property is located. Type in your city, move the red maker on the point where is your property located. Done!  Check your map on-line after you have saved your property details.
• BOOKING CALENDAR - We strongly suggest you to use the availability calendar and keep it updated. We see a trend that visitors prefer to contact ads which display a calendar. This way the visitor feels he is one step closer to securing a holiday home. We sometimes receive complaints from clients saying that a period appears available in the calendar and then it isn't. A period is shown as booked when the reservation fee has been paid, so make sure to update it at this time
• REPLY FAST - If you reply your inquiries fast, you increase your chances of being the first to get the booking.
• STRUCTURE YOUR BUSINESS - If a renter can feel that your communication is correct, fast and informative and that you have thought about everything, they are more likely to trust you and book your holiday home.
• MANAGE BOOKINGS - If an booking comes in, you will get a notice by email. In your account under "Manage bookings" you will find all bookings listed which you have received. For new incoming bookings  you need to contact your customer immediately to confirm his booking and get your reservation deposit. Until you waiting for his payment you should set the period as "pending" in your calender. After he has paid you the deposit set the status to "booked". Check it regularly to ensure you haven't lost any.
• MANAGE INQUIRIES - In your account under "Manage inquiries" you will find all inquiries listed which you have received . Check it regularly to ensure you haven't lost any
• STATISTICS - Here you can get an idea of how your ad is doing compared to others and you can follow how many hits and clicks it receives Top

6. Should you ask for a reservation deposit and security deposit?

We do not require you to do so, however we suggest you to consider the following

• SECURITY DEPOSIT - Be aware that if you ask for a security deposit, you add one more step in your procedure which costs money in bank transfers and extra work for you. We usually advice people to consider how much a renter can break and what are the odds that he will do it, compared to the extra work and costs involved. Our experience tells us that very little is broken, so if it is only your TV that holds significant value then see it as a business where a glass or chair accidentally may break.
• RESERVATION DEPOSIT - You should ask for a reservation deposit to avoid losing rental income on empty weeks which cannot be rebooked because of the short notice. Most homeowners ask for a 30% to 50% deposit upon reservation. The remaining 70% to 50% should be paid either four weeks prior to arrival or upon arrival.
• BOOKING FEE - To guarantee serious bookings for your property, we do charge the customer a small 5% booking fee. This amount is finally our commission and is deducted from the total booking amount. You just need to care of the Net amount called "Total price due at check in amount"
• DISCOUNTS - You can create easy RETURN CUSTOMERS or get RECOMMENDATIONS if you offer your customers an discount with your final offer.
• SPECIAL OFFER - you can activate the special offer option to offer 10% discount. This is shown in your ads and attract customers.

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7. Is it recommended to use a booking form? See our example

We do not require you to use a booking form. We do however recommend you to make a formal agreement between you to avoid misunderstandings and to build up the owners trust in you. This can be done via a standard e-mail or word/pdf file in English. We recommend that you use our standard booking form that holds the most common information which can be useful for you and the renter.

• A link to the ad (Go on-line to your ad and copy the link from the browser) so the renter always can enter to see the home which they booked
• Booking date
• Arrival date
• Departure date
• Total price
• Reservation deposit
• Your contact information and phone number to a contact person on site
• Your bank information including BIC/SWIFT and IBAN
• Property address
• Renters name and e-mail address Top

8. What payment options should you offer?

International bank transfers are often expensive, so you may want to consider alternative payment options. These are the options we know other homeowners use

• Cash payment on arrival
• Debit/credit card - We recommend you to setup a free account on Paypal, which will give your clients the possibility to pay you by debit/credit card. You will get an account similar to what you know from web banking which you can access 24/7. When you have enough money in your Paypal account, you click on "send to bank" and the money will be sent to your own bank account. There are two advantages using Paypal. Your clients pay you easy and secure and you can see their payments a few minutes later. Paypalis owned by Ebay and has millions of users, so you can be sure it works and is secure. They have phone support if you need assistance - call 0044 8707 307 191. Click on the banner below to get started

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9. How to ensure that you never miss an enquiry sent to you

To avoid your enquiries end up in your spam or junk folder we have setup a few extra features to ensure you safe delivery of inquiries. If you use a web based e-mail client like hotmail, telefonica, btinternet, Yahoo! or Gmail you should add info@villarentaldeals.com to your contact list or white list. Furthermore we recommend you to check your account at villarentaldeals.com regulary. Top

10. Do you create the advertisement your self - or do we?

Initially you must create the ad via your account. However if you need assistance to upload photos or similar, our friendly support team is always here to give you effective support or even to create the ad for you. However since you know your property and local area best, you will be the best person to create your advertisement. Top

11. How long time will it take before your ad goes online?

After your registered account is approved At the moment you click the button "Add property", your advertisement will go live. You can at any time modify the information in your advertisement. Top

12. How do you pay for your advertisement?

Once you have registered your account, you have the option to select a Featured listing and Highlight listing package. With an paid package you will be asked to send us the payment. You may pay via debit/credit card or bank transfer. Most homeowners pay us by debit/credit card via our Verisign SSL secured connection. If you login to your account and click on "Payment", you will see our payment information. Top

13. Can your advertisement receive a better position?

Yes, for a small fee you can get a Featured listing or Highlight listing.Top

14. How do potential renters locate my advertisement?

We have divided the page in different sections so visitors have several ways to locate your holiday ad. They can search by country, city, availability, sleeps and prices in different languages. Furthermore your ad will in time become picked up by search engines including Google, Yahoo!, MSN and other which daily spiders our Villarentaldeals.com. Top

15. How do you know if an inquiry is genuine?

We have experienced that some homeowners have been contacted by fraud renters trying to trick money from them. We now closely monitor all inquiries and potential renters and if we find something suspicious about an inquiry we sent you, we will notify you. You should be alerted on any of the these

• The renter is from Nigeria, Sudan, The Ivory Coast or any other country from central Africa
• If the story sounds to fantastic like "My government sent me on an official assignment", "I work for a Christian organisation" or "I would like to pay the full amount up front"
• If the written English is very poor, but very formal
• You receive a cheque with a larger amount than you asked for
• If the renter wish to pay you via "Western Union" or similar company which is not a bank Top

16. Important if you use a web based e-mail client like hotmail, gmail, yahoo or aol

To avoid your enquiries end up in your spam or junk folder we have setup a few extra features to ensure you safe delivery of enquiries. If you use a web based e-mail client like hotmail, btinternet, telefonica, Yahoo or Gmail you should add info@villarentaldeals.com to your contact list or white list. Top

17. Conditions to accept

We have a few conditions which you will be asked to accept once you create your ad on Villarentaldeals.com. If you wish to read the long version you may here read our terms and conditions to advertise. Top

If you have questions not answered above, kindly contact us via info@villarentaldeals.com