I am not a marketing wizard or an internet expert but, as someone who has had three successful years renting out my cave house in Cullar, I would like to summarise the lessons I’ve learned for an online campaign:

1. Get on a good rental website

Without at least one listing on a big site you will get lost in the crowd. We use OwnersDirect which charges an annual fee but has been well worth it in terms of bookings. Make sure you take time to put a really appealing ad together on the site with good photos and really talking up your strengths and facilities – read the competition listings for ideas!

2. Design a website

In addition to the rental company listing, it’s definitely an idea to put together your own website. If you don’t know how to, involve a friend or relative with IT experience. Choose an emphasis (“family”, “luxury”, “activities”) and back this up on your site with the text and photos. We aimed at being welcoming and friendly and include lots of photographs of local scenic beauty spots.

3. Links

To get your website noticed you will need to link it from as many other sites as possible starting with your rental website which will allow you to link from the listing to your site. Also link from all the other sites you use for 4, 5 and 6 below.

4. Free advertising

Search around online and you’ll find a lot of sites where you can advertise your property for free e.g. Angloinfo.com, Kugli.com, Friday-ad.es.

5. Articles

You can publish articles about your area and post them on sites like ezinearticles.com and articlesbase.com with links to your site. They can be quite short articles just about local features or activities. Remember – include lots of photos!

6. Forums

There are lots of Spain-related forums where you can mention your property or link to its website (just search “forums spain”). Remember to respect the rules of the forum – some of them don’t like you to advertise blatantly.

7. Keep your booking calendar up to date

Your ads and website will probably have a booking calendar to show availability: most important to keep them all up to date There is nothing more frustrating for a potential customer than to see their only 2 weeks in the year is “free”, and discover it is in fact already booked when they send you an email.

8. Sensible pricing

Give some thought to your pricing, is it better to fill your rental at a lower price for most of the year, rather than charge high prices and only have the rental booked out for a few weeks. If you have a place with a pool it will have to be much cheaper during the months when it is out of use. Look carefully at what the competition are charging because your clients will.

9. Social networking sites

Sites like Facebook are becoming increasingly important for marketing. You can include photos and details of the property on there and send round updates to your friends and contacts (like “now taking bookings for 2010” or “photos of local fiesta added”).

10. Make a big splash with the pool

If you have a pool it’s a big selling point in a hot country like ours so feature it prominently; a big photo of our pool is on the front page of our website.

Distressed and repossessed property

Spain golf