When describing your property for rental you have a choice. You can “knock out” your text or you can invest a little time in “doing it right”. There are benefits if you do it right – it will help you rent or sell your property!

Many vacaonrental property sites require three pieces of text "Title", "Summary" and "Description". You should prepare these in advance before you start adding your property to websites. It is also a good idea to consider several different versions of the Description as search engines like variety.

(a) Remember you are "selling" your property even if you are renting it!

(b) You are competing with many others so thought is required

(c) Your title should include the type of accommodation or property and possibly its location depending on the site you are using. You may also want to include its main USP if it has one. For example

2 Bedroom Apartment with magnificent views

(d) Your “summary text” is like a headline. It is very important. You only have a split second to catch the reader’s attention. Make sure you include the type of property and its location. For example

“Beautiful 2 bedroom apartment with sea views near to the main award winninng beach in Marbella”.

“For Sale, stylish 3 bedroom townhouse near 5th Avenue in downtown New York”.

“Large two bedroom villa overlooking Table Mountain with views of Cape Town for rent”.

(e) Your main description needs to includes your summary text, but slightly different. You do not need to describe every detail of the property, only those points that would make you rent or buy it.

Make sure the important words especially those used in your summary text appear early in your main text.

(f) Don’t forget the local area. If you are selling or long term renting don’t forget schools, public transport, shopping, night life and centres of employment.

(g) Tailor the information you provide to the type of people you want to attract.

(h) Do not copy the same text from another site. Search engines do not like this. If the same page exists on two sites then search engines will “de-value” or drop one of the pages from search results. You can take the same text and rewrite it so that it “says the same thing”, just make sure it is different!

(i) Ensure the location and property type are referenced five to ten times in your text. Do not include text like “location, location, location”! You must weave the words into your text so that each phrase is “human readable”.

(j) Important facts to include are (not in order of importance).

• Type of property
• Location
• Number of bedrooms
• Number of bathrooms
• Is there a pool
• Internet access
• Include information on access. Think about the disabledor those with problems walking
• Parking (type and number of vehicles)

Of course the above will also depend if you are buying or renting

(k) Do not include price or rental rates in the description. These should be handled elsewhere on the site.

(l) You need to keep two readers happy.

• A human.

This is not difficult to consider, just put yourself in “the readers shoes”.

• Search Engines.

They need to read the page and work out “what to do with it”. Words that are repeated or presented in bold text or “large text” are considered important and used by Search Engines to work out where to “file your page”. Think of a search engine like a librarian. It needs to know which section of the library to put your page and preferably which bookcase and shelf. When someone asks for information using several keywords the librarian will remember “I know you should look at a page in section … bookcase… and shelf …”.

To keep a search engine relevant and useful it will “dump” pages which cheat. So do not fill your pages with fifty references to your location, property type (or other important word/phrase). This will be detected and excessive repetition is frowned upon!

(m) Paragraphs. Always use paragraphs. These break your text up into manageable sections. No-one likes to read a “mass of text”.

Try to make each paragraph relate to a specific point or subject.

(n) Time is precious. So important things first. If you are selling or renting and the best school in the country is nearby then do not leave that fact to the very end. Likewise if your property is in Sydney and it overlooks Bondi beach, then this is important too.

(o) Make sure what you say is accurate. Most sites want to be respected and valued by their users. False information ultimately is no use to anyone and in certain cases can be illegal.

Following the above principles will make sure your property is correctly represented and mean that you do not lose reservations because important information was missing. A good description will keep problems from the wrong sort of guests to a minimum too. No point taking a booking from someone who has difficulty walking up stairs if your property is not on the ground floor and there is no lift!