For your vacation rental ad to stand out in today’s congested short-term rental market, you need more than just amazing images.
Whether you enjoy writing or find it difficult, using a few straightforward steps will enable you to create a concise, appealing description that swiftly communicates essential details and gives visitors a sense of your house.
Here are the top five recommendations for owners!
1. Write the summary with the visitor in mind, not for yourself.
You don’t write merely for the sake of writing. Your objective is to share important details about your house and explain what it’s like to live there.
Imagine speaking on the phone with someone who believes the house could be ideal for them in terms of location, size, and cost. What queries might the individual have? What characteristics would you highlight? What do you enjoy most about visiting there?
2. Craft a catchy, educational heading
When you read a magazine or newspaper, you typically skim the headlines for things that catch your attention before reading the full article. Visitors who go through home listings experience the same thing. Travelers can find residences that fit their needs by using compelling headlines.
Which of these examples, in your opinion, would catch your attention?
Listed advertisements can include “House for Short-Term Rent This Spring” or “Spacious, Fully Furnished Family Friendly 2+ bedroom Home with Stunning View for May and/or June.”
The second example, which lets visitors know whether the house is spacious enough and available for their dates, offers more helpful information. But it also implies that the residence has all the visitor could need by using carefully picked terms like “spacious,” “entirely furnished,” and “amazing outlook.”
When viewing local vacation rental listings, consider what potential visitors may seek. Then make a list of illustrative words for your headline. (For ideas, look through some postings for short-term accommodations yourself!)
Make a few headlines now. Write rapidly and experiment with the wording until you have appropriate headlines. On your family or friends, test them out. Once you’ve chosen a headline, revise it to ensure every word is necessary, precise, and detailed.
3. Allow ideas to flow
You currently have a decent understanding of what your listing is “selling.” Make a preliminary content outline by noting all the ideas you might put in the description after brainstorming.
Please don’t bother about grammar, punctuation, or spelling, and don’t try to construct whole sentences or arrange the ideas in a logical order. Any of those actions will almost certainly halt the flow of thoughts. Just as soon as possible, identify your house’s standout characteristics.
You may think of anything that attracts tourists and makes your vacation rental attractive. Its location, size, amenities, facilities, traffic flow, on-site parking, and other factors could be considered.
For many visitors, it’s also critical to know whether your home is pet-friendly, prepared for families with children, or accessible for travelers with disabilities. Include those details in your rental description and any additional information you believe potential guests should be aware of before making a reservation.
4. Compose a fast initial draught.
Excellent descriptions address the reader directly. So, picture a visitor saying, “How’s your house?” Then, produce a hasty first draught as though you were responding to that query. Help them picture your house and the surrounding surroundings by using active language. Be truthful and specific. Tell them about your favorite aspects of living there and why you think it’s the ideal place for them to stay.
Once more, don’t stop to edit your writing; you can always go back and fix any mistakes.
5. Make the draught better
It’s time to look through your work one more and make any necessary corrections after you’ve expressed all the important points. Simply follow the suggestions below to enhance your description.
Be particular
Writing that is compelling is particular, not broad and sweeping. Would the reader understand you if you said, “It’s a great apartment,” in your writing? List the specific benefits of your home instead to help them visualize it in their minds.
The following would be more accurate: “The apartment boasts picture windows that overlook the beach, a fully equipped cook’s kitchen, and a firm, comfy king-sized European Sleepworks bed.”
Use active verbs.
Active language “talks” to readers directly. Make wordy, passive statements like, “Visitors greatly like our fieldstone fireplace on chilly evenings,” more active, direct, and brief by changing them to, “You’ll appreciate the warmth of our fieldstone fireplace on chilly evenings.”
This will improve your chances of getting a booking because it is far more memorable and appealing.
Be brief.
Web information is typically swiftly scanned by readers to identify the most pertinent and interesting parts. The finest descriptions employ the fewest words possible to communicate the most important information. Avoid the common urge to ramble, create wordy sentences, or incorporate extraneous details using short sentences and paragraphs.
It would be wise to make them into brief bullet points if you have a lengthy list of amenities you wish to offer. Potential visitors can quickly scan all the pertinent information this way.
Using adjectives carefully
Words like “cozy,” “spacious,” “elegant,” and “comfortable” might accurately describe the atmosphere of your home. However, a visitor from Colorado would think little more of an apartment than a closet compared to what Londoners and/or New Yorkers might consider a “spacious” residence. One person’s definition of “beautiful” or “elegant” may strike another as garnish or excessive.
Overusing exclamation points, capitalization, and adjectives will weaken rather than strengthen your description. Instead, use precise wording that sums up the characteristics of your house in a few short sentences.
Be sincere.
Because your description sets expectations, it should precisely reflect what visitors can expect when visiting your house. If your apartment is a studio with a bed hidden in a windowless alcove, refer to it as a studio with an alcove bed rather than a one-bedroom. Tell them if the “kitchen” is a corner with a microwave and a tiny fridge or if it’s a walk-up on the seventh story.
It’s not always necessary to draw attention to your home’s less appealing aspects, but telling lies or forgetting to mention crucial information could make visitors unhappy or even angry. Being upfront and truthful will help you avoid bad ratings.
To polish the final draught,
Verify the punctuation, spelling, and grammar before publishing the description to increase your trustworthiness. When it is, you can proceed.
Why do you find the descriptions of short-term rentals to be so interesting that you want to keep reading? Have you discovered any other techniques for crafting strong descriptions? Please leave us a comment with your ideas!
