VRBO is the largest of the leading online listing sites. It is truly a "must" for successfully renting your second home. But it is not enough. We recommend also signing up with HomeAway.com. (Note: HomeAway now owns VRBO and most of the other leading sites.)
As for loading up on pictures on VRBO to get a higher position in the results, here's an article on just that topic. It appeared in an issue of our FullyBookedRentals newsletter:
Our advice to owners who want to offer their properties as vacation rentals has always been "Start with VRBO." Sure, the site is long overdue for a facelift. And the search tools leave a lot to be desired. But the fact is, VRBO gets about three times as many unique visitors each month as its parent company, HomeAway (1.2 million for VRBO vs. 400,000 for HomeAway, according to traffic statistics compiled by Compete.com). More important, VRBO produces results.
Early this year (2008), VRBO quietly introduced new prices and a revised photo policy. The annual cost of a basic listing is now $229 with 5 photos (up from $179 with 3 photos). You can add more photos, up to a new maximum of 16 (instead of 12) for an extra charge of $24 per photo, increasing the annual cost of your listing to $493 ($229 plus $264 for 11 extra photos).
And just why would you want to do that? According to a recent newsletter from HomeAway, "To show up higher on the VRBO list for your area."
To which we say, "Not so fast, Old Sport." Ad ranking has been an issue since the very beginning of the online vacation-rental industry, and VRBO has always used the number of photos as its primary ranking criterion. But in our opinion, playing the "pay for position" game on VRBO rarely makes sense. For two reasons:
- First, vacationers don't shop by number of photos. They shop by number of bedrooms. And in all but the most competitive vacation destinations, it's just not that big a deal for vacationers to review all the properties that have the number of bedrooms they need.
- Second, to make the review process even easier, at the click of a mouse prospective renters can override VRBO's "number of photos" sort order and re-sort the results by number of bedrooms. (That's the first thing we do whenever we use VRBO to look for properties.) So much for that extra $264 many VR owners have paid in hopes of appearing higher on the list.
In our opinion, there is only one reason to add extra photos: To persuade a vacationer to book your place instead of someone else's. So make sure that you include your very best five photos in your VRBO listing. If you need more pictures to tell your story, consider creating an online photo album and inserting a link to it in your listing. (For more on this, see the section on "Making Your Listing Stand Out from the Competition" in the free Vacation Rental Resources Guide that's posted at our FullyBookedRentals Web site.)
In short, don't just assume you have to play the VRBO pay-for-position game. That extra $264 might be spent more effectively by advertising on an additional site, hiring a professional photographer, or adding some new amenity that will give your property a competitive edge.
Copyright--Alfred and Emily Glossbrenner, www.FullyBookedRentals.com
