|
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Vacation Rentals Listed Newsletter
March 2007
VacationRentalsListed.com
in this issue:
- News and Site Update.
- Featured Article: How to Reduce Spam Email.
- Learn a Little Bit Every Time: Listing Numbers and Your Personal Site.
- Future Plans.
- Personal Words from the Founder.
News and Site Update
We have completed a number of technical updates on our site. The change has
affected site performance, and you will see an increase in the traffic in the
next 4-6 weeks.
As we wrote in the previous letter, we will be completing a number of specialty
websites that are based on the analyses of search terms on our site. Right now
you can find your listings on the following sites:
Make sure you update your listings so they will appear in the appropriate
site. We are planning to add 4 more within the next 2 months.
Featured Article: How to Reduce Spam Email
Spam on the Internet is one of the widespread problems. If you have had your
vacation rental for some time, and especially if you have a functioning website,
there is a strong possibility you will find many spam emails in your inbox.
One of the solutions is to change your email account. But that's not always
possible, especially if you have used an email address for a long time, and many
people already have your email in their address books.
Here are a few tips that I hope you find useful:
- Check the email address on your domain registration. Never, ever use your
working address when you register a domain name. Your registration is available
to the public, and almost every large site offers a service like WHOIS where
your email can be gathered. It is advisable to set your domain information to
"private" if you have to use your working email address.
- Forms on your site, including those that allow your visitors to inquire about
your vacation rental, can be a big problem. There is a technique called "code
injection" that sends your visitors spam email that can harm your credibility.
- You will be surprised that many spam emails offer an option to "unsubscribe" or
"opt-out". It may sound like nonsense to you to use this option, because you
never subscribed to any spam emails in the first place, but it is strongly
recommended that you "unsubscribe." As a matter of fact, if you will diligently
do this for some time, you will see a decrease in the spam in your inbox.
- An email address that is generic, such as contact@mysite.com or webmaster@mysite.com,
will most likely bring a lot of spam. Try to avoid it as much as possible.
Check with your hosting email provider to see if your working email is set to
the "Catch all" option. "Catch all" ensures that every email that comes to @mysite.com
will go to your inbox. Once you remove "Catch all" from your account, you will
see spam reduction.
Learn a Little Bit Every Time: Listing Numbers and Your Personal Site
Each of your vacation rental listings has a listing number. Your advertisement
can be reached by entering the listing number in the URL. For example, my rental
cabin is listing number 200. To find it, I have to go to
http://www.vacationrentalslisted.com/200.aspx.
If you have a personal web site, we advise you to put a link from it to your
listing number on our site - this will increase the chances of having your
listing number indexed and of having it appear in the search engine searches.
Please contact us if you have a question on how to do it, and we will be happy
to assist you with it.
Future Plans
We are finishing our long-needed and awaited HELP section. Thank you for all of
your suggestions and guidance in creating it. The HELP section will cover almost
all asked questions and will be easily accessible by owners and renters.
Personal Words from the Founder
I am finishing this letter on March 8. In Russia where I come from, this is one
of the greatest holidays - International Woman Day. Every male, from
kindergarten to post- retirement age, will give something to all the women in
his life - mother, wife, daughters, coworkers, and friends. We still celebrate
it here in America, and I want to give my greetings to every woman who owns or
handles a vacation rental. Being a landlord is not an easy task; being a great
landlord is an even harder task. Being a wife, mother, girl friend, or
independent woman plus being a great landlord is a mission that is almost
impossible. I wish all of you women - vacation rentals owners and managers -
much success and best wishes. Happy bookings to all of you!
I started a blog that outlines the challenges and milestones in creating a
vacation rental site. I will be happy if you read it and post your comments. The
blog is a mixture of personal and professional views. I hope it will allow you
to know me better: http://vacation-rentals-site.blogspot.com.
Contact Information
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
General: support@VacationRentalsListed.com
Customer Service:
yulia@VacationRentalsListed.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|