Blogger Sidebar Problems Fixed !

I finally managed to fix my problems with the sidebar moving to the bottom of my page !

My sincere thanks to Rat from the blogger help group, who posted to the following solution :

Fix Your Sidebar by Changing Template

As you can tell, in the process, I had to choose a new template. I much prefer the new "blue" scheme, so it is some compensation for all my trouble that I have ended up with a nicer template !

Regards,

Kevin

Blog Problems and Google Ad Sense

My apologies to those of you who may be confused by the format of my BLOG lately.

I recently tried to add Google's Ad Sense to my Blog and then decided to delete it. However, in the process, my sidebar seems to have moved to the end of my page. I havn't a notion as to why this is, but checking on some of the help boards, it appears I am not unique in my experience.

I have tried playing around with my template, but have probably done more harm than good at this stage.

I will keep trying, but in the meantime, if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know. !

Regards,

Kevin

Vacation Home Owner Blogs

Are you a Vacation Home Owner ? Do you have a BLOG ? I would like to try to collate a list of all Blogs by Vacation Rental Home Owners or that are related to the Vacation Rentals industry.

So, if you have a BLOG that you would like me to list, just let me know by leaving a comment here.

Alternatively, go to my main website, Compare Owner Holiday Rentals and leave me details, using the contact form .

While you are there, why not sign up for our free newsletter ? We will send you a list of Free Vacation Rental Listing Sites , together with some Special Offers for Vacation Rentals Owners .

Regards,

Kevin

RDFO Review Posted

I have completed the reviews of RDFO and posted on Compare Owner Holiday Rentals .

As mentioned previously, RDFO is not a traditional Vacation Rental by Owner site, but acts as a search engine. By registering your personal site (or listing on another vacation rental site) with RDFO, your property shows us in searches on the RDFO site.

The other unusual characteristic of RDFO is the referral network. Basically, this provides a facility for allowing you to give ( and hopefully receive) rental enquiries and bookings to ( and from) other vacation rentals owners. When a vacation owner receives a rental enquiry for a week that is already booked, they can pass this on to other vacation rental owners in the network.

I was thinking about whether this would work in practice while writing the review : I often pass on booking enquiries for my property on the French Riviera to other vacation rental owners , but seem to get few ( if any) referrals from them. It could be that I simply receive more "over-bookings" than other owners, or it could be that my altruism is not being returned in kind!

Anyway, although the RDFO system seems to operate on an "honour" basis, feedback from owners who have used it is positive. Maybe there are a more altruistic bunch than my friends ( or maybe the enquiries are spread more evenly).

I asked RDFO is they considered implementing some sort of comission system to provide incentives to share bookings, but they indicated that would add complications ... and besides, right now it is working, so why mess with it ?

RDFO indicate they have a patent pending on their referral network, although I know similar schemes have used in the past, so how defensible the patent is remains to be seen.

However, I certainly wish them well.

As always, comments are welcome.

Regards,

Kevin

RDFO

I recently came across an ususual vacation rental by owner site called RDFO ( www.rdfo.com) . Actually, they had read my article on Consolidation in Vacation Rental by Owner sites and contacted me, because they agreed with the basic premise that vacation rentals sites will need to find a way of differentiating themselves in an increasingly competitive marketplace for vacation rentals.

RDFO basically operates as a search engine and is particularly attractive for those vacation rental owners who have their own site. Basically, when you register with RDFO, your personal site shows up in their searches, allowing you to leverage their web presence, but maintain your own individual site design and layout. Your availability calendar also shows up in the search results, so that renters can quickly see if you have a vacancy for the required time.

RDFO also has a patent pending on it's use of a referral network. Basically, this allows you to share enquiries with other owners. I need to do more research to investigate, but the principle is that you can refer bookings to other owners for periods you are already booked, and vice versa. ( I need to check how owners are incented to reciprocate, as many owners can jealously guard their enquiries.)

Besides registered properties ( it costs $80 per year but you can find an attractive Special Offer on the COHR site), RDFO also lists thousands of other non-registered properties. My asumption is that, over time, they will try to move to a higher percentage of registered owners, but for now, the extra results benefit renters by providing more choice.

I have added RDFO to Compare Owner Holiday Rentals and intend to write a review of their site in the next week or so : it's nice to find an ususual offering in the vacation rentals marketplace.

Regards,

Kevin

Vacation Rental Site Optimization : All the Web Live Search

Optimizing your vacation rental site for search engines takes a lot of hard work and some creativity.

I have just come across All the Web's beta test of Livesearch and I must say, it is an impressive tool that you may find useful in search engine optimization !

Livesarch allows you to enter a search term and while you are typing, brings up relevant results. In addition, it will prompt you with search terms that might be useful in narrowing your search.

For example, if you type "vacation rentals", livesearch will return a standard list of search results on the right hand side of the page. However, on the left hand side, it will list a number of other search terms ( e.g. vacation rentals by 0wner), which you might want to consider using.

If you continue typing, say vacation rentals california, the results on the right hand side of the page are updated to reflect this search term. Also, the left hand side now shows updated suggestions for narrowing your search ( e.g. vacation rentals california beach).

This is quite a useful tool if you are looking for inspiration in finding search terms that might be useful for optimising your vacation rental site.

If you enter these terms into other tools such as Good Keywords, you can check the popularity
of these terms with search engines : with some luck ( and a little persistence), you may find some terms that you can use for optimizing pages on your vacation rental site.

Can you guess which terms I used to optimise Reviews of VRBO, Cyberrentals ?

Regards,

Kevin