Tips on how to increase Internet Traffic on your listings
Social sites like Facebook.com and bookmarking resources like Delicious.com are becoming more and more popular these days and more people use them as alternatives to Search Engines and Online Directories.
Free online classified sites like Craigslist (craigslist.com) and Kijiji (kijiji.com) have also become more popular and thus valuable resources in the Vacation Rental business.
Our site's traffic analysis tools show that a number of visitors from such resources increase almost every week. The Internet is changing and it is good to be ready for the changes.
Here is a short review and a few tips on how to use these Free Internet resources to increase the number of visitors to your listing.
First, open your listing at Rent-Cottage-Canada.com. Find a new box called "Share & Bookmark" on the right side of the listing's page. The box has 14 sites with links prepared for your listing to be bookmarked with everyone of them.
Use the following sites to share your cottage listing with the site members.
www.blinklist.com - lets you create lists of pages that you can share.
www.delicious.com - a very popular social bookmarking service that allows users to tag their bookmarks. For example, bookmarking your listing with Delicious, Tags like the following (depending on your property's location and facilities etc) would be good to add: cottage chalet rent Canada Ontario parry-sound Georgian-bay vacation fishing hot-tub. The more tags the better. Every additional tag will provide an additional link to your listing.
www.furl.com - used to be called Furl, but now it's Diigo. Another bookmarking service almost as good as Delicious. You can even export you Delicious bookmarks directly to Diigo!
www.digg.com - Digg is a place to discover and share content from around the Web, from the smallest blog to major news outlets. Everything is submitted and voted on by people like you. If you ever manage to get your property listing's link to the top of Digg's list - the site will virtually get melted, the traffic is huge over there!
www.fark.com - is a news aggregator and an edited social networking news site. Anyway, it's always good to have an extra inbound link to your listing.
www.reddit.com - is a source for what's new and popular on the web -- personalized for you. Same thing as with Fakr - will not hurt to have an extra inbound link to your listing.
www.newsvine.com - Updated continuously by citizens like you, Newsvine is an instant reflection of what the world is talking about at any given moment. Similar to Fark and Reddit.
www.google.com/bookmarks - Google bookmarks. I am not sure if you can make the bookmarks Public, but it's always good to let Google know about your listing. You must have a Google account in order to be able to use this service.
favorites.live.com - Microsoft Live bookmarks. Can be shared with people in your network. A Hotmail or MSN account is required.
bookmarks.yahoo.com - Bookmarking service from Yahoo. A Yahoo email account is required.
buzz.yahoo.com - Something similar to Digg.
www.facebook.com - share your listing with huge Facebook community. One of the must-do bookmarks.
www.myspace.com - similar to facebook and also a huge thing!
To bookmark your listing with the sites above, simply click on the site's Icon in the "Share & Bookmark" box (from your listing's page), and then bookmark if you already have an account with the site, or create a free account then bookmark it.
It may take from half an hour to an hour of your time to submit your listing to all these sites, considering you don't have accounts with most of them.
Your listing will benefit from theses sites' traffic for many years to come.
Regarding the online classified sites like Craigslist (www.craigslist.com) and Kijiji (www.kijiji.com). You can use these resources to post Free ads.
One of the problems with these sites is that the ads will only stay there for a three months or so. To keep your ad on site you will have to re-post it once in a while.
Another problem is that the listing representation is not going to be as good as on a site like ours (detailed description, unlimited photos etc). Most of the time you will be able to post a short ad with a couple of photos and a link to your cottage's website (if you have one).
However, even if you don't have a website you can always publish a link to your property's listing on Rent Cottage Canada, so the potential renters will be able to see the real beauty of your cottage.
Your listings can be reached with two different URL's - one long, one short. It doesn't really matter which one you use since they will both open the same listing. Long URL's will serve your listing better when indexed by search engines.
You can find both links on the "Manage your Listing" page of Rent Cottage Canada: http://rent-cottage-canada.com/owners/
Also, all of these resources are 100% free.
Please email me if you have any questions.
Regards, Yuriy
PS: Bookmarking your listings to the sites above, I'll appreciate if you bookmark http://rent-cottage-canada.com/ too.
PS2: And, just to let you know about another new feature on your listings - "Google Local Search". Also located on the listing's page right side. Allows your visitors to search for almost anything (like restaurants, hospitals, grocery stores, drug stores, police, marinas etc) near your property, then display directions from your cottage to what they find with Google Maps.
Apr 4, 2009
New Feature: Make an Offer. Name your own price. Group Inquiries.
You are always too busy, but still want to get the best deal? Then you are in the right place! Try our new Group Inquiry tool.
Name Your Own Price. Make an Offer. Submit a Group Inquiry.
Send one inquiry to many property owners at once. Name your terms and price and get the best available deals directly from the property owners in the area of your search.
Save your time and money - Submit a Group Inquiry.
Only two minutes - that is how much time it takes to contact any number of property owners using our Group Inquiry tool!
How it works:
1. Search for rentals with our Cottage Finder or Google Map Search.
For instance: Search for "2 bedroom, Waterfront, Non-smoking cottages in Nova Scotia"
Then click on the banner from the search results page or on the Google Map;
2. Fill in and submit the Inquiry form. The Inquiry will be sent to all properties returned by your Search query. In a few days (most of the time in a few hours), the property owners will reply to your Offer if they are interested;
3. Review the replies and choose the ones that interest you. Respond to the chosen property owners to seal the deal.
Visit the following page for more details: http://rent-cottage-canada.com/make-an-offer/
Name Your Own Price. Make an Offer. Submit a Group Inquiry.
Send one inquiry to many property owners at once. Name your terms and price and get the best available deals directly from the property owners in the area of your search.
Save your time and money - Submit a Group Inquiry.
Only two minutes - that is how much time it takes to contact any number of property owners using our Group Inquiry tool!
How it works:
1. Search for rentals with our Cottage Finder or Google Map Search.
For instance: Search for "2 bedroom, Waterfront, Non-smoking cottages in Nova Scotia"
Then click on the banner from the search results page or on the Google Map;
2. Fill in and submit the Inquiry form. The Inquiry will be sent to all properties returned by your Search query. In a few days (most of the time in a few hours), the property owners will reply to your Offer if they are interested;
3. Review the replies and choose the ones that interest you. Respond to the chosen property owners to seal the deal.
Visit the following page for more details: http://rent-cottage-canada.com/make-an-offer/
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