You've furnished your vacation home with top-notch décor and high quality linens, and you have your ducks in a row regarding insurance, contracts, and taxes. Now it's time to get your wonderful property out there for renters to find. Just a few years ago, you might have had to try a variety of expensive marketing tactics like newspaper or magazine advertising. Luckily, the Internet offers many easy and cost-effective vehicles to drive potential renters to your vacation home.

Vacation Rental Websites Vacation rental websites range in size from local or regional sites with only a few hundred properties to large-scale worldwide sites like HomeAway.com, VRBO.com, and VacationRentals.com that have thousands of listings and millions of visits each year. Choose the best websites for your vacation home. When deciding which of the thousands of vacation rental websites to list on, start by thinking like a traveler. If you were searching for a vacation rental in your area, where would you begin? For most travelers, the answer is at search engines like Google and Yahoo! Look for a vacation rental in your area by typing a variety of terms into the search engine. Keep track of which websites show up consistently on the first page. Those websites likely get the most traffic to your area and are probably a good place to start advertising.

List on 3-5 websites to ensure the most exposure. Search engine rankings change daily. By listing on a variety of websites, you're more likely to be found by a traveler searching for accommodations in your market. Also, different travelers prefer the look and functionality of different types of sites and you may miss out if you don't advertise on the website that appeals to that particular traveler's sensibilities. Make the most of your rental listings. Don't squander your marketing dollars by putting up lackluster listings. Listings with an attention-grabbing headline, detailed descriptions, high-quality photos, reviews from past guests, and an up-to-date calendar tend to get significantly more inquiries than less compelling ads. Specialty Websites Specialty websites cater to the needs or interests of a certain group of people. Some are devoted to listing vacation properties specifically and some are not. Examples of specialty websites include Chamber of Commerce websites, hobby-specific websites like golf or scuba diving, and travel websites targeting particular groups of travelers like seniors or pet owners.

Personal Websites

While a personal website for your vacation rental is by no means necessary to book your home, many vacation homeowners choose to build a personal website to complement other marketing efforts. The personal website is a great tool to help you seal the deal with potential renters by giving them all of the information they need to emphasize that your place is the best home for their vacation needs. Your personal website can be a 360 degree showcase of your cottage, cabin, condo, or villa.  This Big White, British Columbia property website, for example, walks a potentail renter through extensive descriptions and a virtual tour.

What are the different ways you advertise your vacation rental? "I advertise on Homeaway, VBRO, Vacation Rentals and a few more vacation sites. Craigslist hasn't been very successful for me. Have tried advertising and responding to housing wanted ads, no luck. I have corporate rental property also and tried renting the vacation rental on one of those websites. The site does well for my corp rental properties, but did nothing for my vacation rental property. This may be because the vacation rental is 6 - bedrooms and corp rentals are usually 1 or 2 bedrooms." -Gloria, Northeast (HomeAway, VRBO, VacationRentals.com)

The Benefits of Listing on Multiple Sites Exclusivity is not a good idea when listing your vacation rental property.   Offline Marketing for Your Vacation Home: Does it Work? Tips for marketing your vacation rental off-line   How to Use Flickr to Market Your Vacation Home Tips for using photo-sharing sites to further market your vacation rental home on the web.   Advanced SEO for Your Listing: The Importance of Building Links Once you have optimized the text and photos in your listing for the search engines, you can take it one step further.

© Copyright, HomeAway, Inc. 2008, U.090217.KD