How Do You Search for a Vacation Rental?

K

Ken

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Jan 1, 2002
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A couple of questions from somebody thinking seriously of advertising the rental of his condo in Sosua on the internet.

1. If doing a Google/Yahoo/AOL search for a rental unit for your vacation, what do you search for? Condo rental in the Dominican Republic? Condo rental in Sosua? Vacation Rental in Sosua? Whatever it is, please let me know?

2. If you have experience with searching for rental units in the Dominican Republic for your vacation, are there any DR condo/apartment rental websites that you always check? If so, which ones are they?

3. If you have rented a condo or apartment in the DR on the internet, on which website did you find it?

Thanks in advance for your help with this.
 
N

nebraskamom

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May 4, 2005
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condo rentals website

I don't know how much traffic it gets in the DR but we always used
www.vrbo.com (vacation rental by owner). it offers time shares and condos all over the caribbean and florida and other places
 
Robert

Robert

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Jan 2, 1999
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Your be glad to know Ken that by the end of this month (August) we will have a new rental section, sort of like the real estate section but just for rentals.

We we had rentals in the real estate section before, they did very well.
The new rental section will be 100% focused on rentals, so it should do even better.

We have more DR related traffic than anyone, so I assume it will do well for whoever advertises in the new section.

We also have a bunch of rentals doing well in the Directory section.
http://dr1.com/directories/index.shtml
 
K

Ken

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Jan 1, 2002
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nebraskamom, vrbo seems to be a good website on which to have a webpage. It is high up on the first page when you do a google search and I have a friend who has gotten a lot of renters from the webpage she has with them.

Robert, I'll be interested in seeing what you are offering and how much you charge. For the $300 you are presently charging you can get a webpage on two other popular rental websites.

There are 3 owners in my condominium with websites or webpages. One is with DR1 and the other two with other websites. Each of those two have a lot more renters than the third.

Having a separate rental section may make a difference.
 
Robert

Robert

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Ken said:
Robert, I'll be interested in seeing what you are offering and how much you charge. For the $300 you are presently charging you can get a webpage on two other popular rental websites.

There are 3 owners in my condominium with websites or webpages. One is with DR1 and the other two with other websites. Each of those two have a lot more renters than the third.

Having a separate rental section may make a difference.
Click to expand...

I hope so :)

As you have the numbers on renters, I would like to know how we compare?
Feel free to post them here or PM me, thanks.

Post the links of the other websites, I would take a look, I might get some ideas.
 
K

Ken

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Peters, thanks for input. One of the owners where I am has a webpage on that site.

Robert, two owners at Neptuno have webpages on websites other than DR1 and they are doing very well. One has webpages on www.viviun.com and www.vacationrentals.com and the other (who has two condos) has webpages on www.realadventures.com and www.vrbo.com plus own website. One owner has a webpage on DR1, but his two condos do not have as many renters as the others do. Right now, if I had to make a decision, I would go with two of these four since they have demonstrated effectiveness and the price for the two would be about the same as is presently charged by DR1.

I'm still inerested in knowing what websites others use when looking for rentals in the DR because I would like to know if there are websites other than the above 4 that should be considered.

Additionally, I would like to know what search terms are used when using Google or one of the other search engines to find a rental so that I can do those searches and see what websites are near the top of the list.
 
Robert

Robert

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Thanks for the links Ken. viviun.com is a good site I know they get results.

I was looking for actual numbers, 5 renters from DR1, 10 from other sites over X period. Then again, I know from experience, not many people keep those type of numbers. It's more feel and opinion than actual numbers.

Keywords:
Hundreds of different combinations (clusters) are used by surfers.
The more on-topic the cluster, the better the conversion to an email.

If your renting in Sosua, then often "sosua rental apartment" will convert better for you than "dominican republic rental apartment". Sounds obvious, but it's amazing how many people forget this simple rule.

So look for sites that do well for what you feel is your keyword clusters.

More...

- rental apartment in sosua
- sosua rental apartment
- beach condo rental in sosua

etc etc etc
 
K

Ken

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Robert, we don't have those numbers. If Neptuno had the websites, we would, but the contacts to the owners from the sites I listed are going to the owners. I just know what I observe. The apartments listed on websites other than DR1 have more renters than those listed on DR1.

Now Neptuno is thinking about getting its own webpage. To test the waters as to where, we've been using key words like "condo rental in Sosua", "rental apartment in Sosua" and the websites I listed do well, especially Viviun.
 
Robert

Robert

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Ken said:
Now Neptuno is thinking about getting its own webpage.
Click to expand...

It's one thing having a website, it's another thing having traffic.
95% of the websites created are billboards in the desert.

Make sure you put more effort and $$$ into marketing the website than making it look pretty ;)
 
K

Ken

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Website was a misstatement. What I meant was a webpage on websites like Viviun, and maybe DR1 Rentals if it lowers its price and gets results ;) .
 
P

Peters

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Jan 1, 2005
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When you do a Google search for "Dominican Republic Vacation Rentals" DR1 does not come up at all.It would be good if you could search DR1 vacation rentals by city. Yes.. DR1 vacation rentals is priced much higher than other sites.
 
P

Peters

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I know it is not a web page site but i have had excellent results with qualified renters at
www.craigslist.com. Craigslist is free I target specific citys with my listing NYC, Philly, DC ,LA etc. Craigslist is one of the 5% that is not a "billboard in the desert".
 
K

Ken

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Peters, thanks a lot for the tip. I am going to follow up on it immediately. Would you mind either posting a link to one of your ads or PM me with it so I can get an idea of how you are handling your ad?

Thanks again. I just sent you a PM
 
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Robert

Robert

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Jan 2, 1999
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Peters said:
When you do a Google search for "Dominican Republic Vacation Rentals" DR1 does not come up at all.It would be good if you could search DR1 vacation rentals by city. Yes.. DR1 vacation rentals is priced much higher than other sites.
Click to expand...

The question is.... Is that a popular search term?

We are not a niche specific site, we cover a broad range of topics, so I wouldn't expect us to come up for every search term related to the DR.

We don't have a dedicated vacation rental site, but we will have soon :)
 
I

Island Treats

Member
Sep 5, 2003
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SOSUALIVING.COM
Robert said:
Your be glad to know Ken that by the end of this month (August) we will have a new rental section, sort of like the real estate section but just for rentals.

We we had rentals in the real estate section before, they did very well.
The new rental section will be 100% focused on rentals, so it should do even better.

We have more DR related traffic than anyone, so I assume it will do well for whoever advertises in the new section.

We also have a bunch of rentals doing well in the Directory section.
http://dr1.com/directories/index.shtml
Click to expand...
Thank you so much Robert! I was horrified yesterday when I attempted to advertise my 2 bedroom/2bathroom unit in Sosua, only to discover that things aren't like they use to be. Please get this site up and running again because it was really succcessful. $$$ :classic:
 
Africaida

Africaida

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Jun 19, 2009
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Ken said:
A couple of questions from somebody thinking seriously of advertising the rental of his condo in Sosua on the internet.

1. If doing a Google/Yahoo/AOL search for a rental unit for your vacation, what do you search for? Condo rental in the Dominican Republic? Condo rental in Sosua? Vacation Rental in Sosua? Whatever it is, please let me know?

2. If you have experience with searching for rental units in the Dominican Republic for your vacation, are there any DR condo/apartment rental websites that you always check? If so, which ones are they?

3. If you have rented a condo or apartment in the DR on the internet, on which website did you find it?

Thanks in advance for your help with this.
Click to expand...


Since I rent wherever I go....

I would search Sosua rental (if I get too many car rental and such, then I would surch Town name_vacation rental). I also check craigslist, try to find classified in local newspapers (if they are online of course). I do the same search in French and Spanish, lol.

I do check vrbo and homeaway to have an idea of the rental prices in the area.


Hope it helps.
 
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M

Matilda

RIP Lindsay
Sep 13, 2006
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i have done a full report on all of the websites for renting villas and condos in the DR. Both the sites based in the US and those in the DR. pm me for the info.

matilda
 
C

CaptnGlenn

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Mar 29, 2010
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you guys realize that this thread was over five years old, right???? LOL Although, I guess it's always good to update a popular topic.
 
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