Advertising gites
(For actual advice about marketing and advertising your own gite or holiday rental property you might prefer to read our later entry at gite marketing.)
Funnily enough I do have a life apart from running gites and generally lazing about.
So today, I haven’t got time to tell you the anecdote about the boy at our daughter’s school who badly grazed his knee during playtime then asked to be excused from sport because of the blood running down his leg. The teacher said ‘Only if you have come to school with a note from your parents’.
No, what I have been working on is much more thrilling, to me at least. You have probably already looked through the francethisway site and been suitably impressed. I imagine you are just too polite to say anything. Anyway in my continuing and futile efforts to make hard cash from the site I have been wondering what I should do.
Don’t get me wrong, the site is doing well in visitor numbers - often we get more than 1,000 page views a day (edit 9/07: 6000 page views per day!!), and that is growing about 20% each month. But just because someone reads my sundry scribblings about the cathars or learns how to make a perfect French cassoulet, that doesn’t actually make me rich. At all. I would earn more serving pizzas in the local restaurant, and eat better as well.
So I have been thinking. Mrs B doesn’t encourage it but I couldn’t stop myself. I’ve added a section on the site which lists gites available for holiday rental. Yes OK not very original, but Mrs B stopped me thinking after 15 minutes, and asked me to clean the windows. If I’d been left in peace for another hour I would have launched the next Google.
Anyway, all you holiday hunters looking for a trip to France should head straight over to French gites and book your holiday now. Don’t be deterred just because I’ll earn a (very) small percentage - you don’t pay any extra because of that!
If you are a property owner unfortunately we can’t accept direct listings of holiday properties but we do give you some options that might help at Advertise a gite.
I know that while this is new and exciting to me, for you it is less so. You want to hear about the 5,000 euros I’m spending on replacing a four year old swimming pool liner because it was badly fitted and the company has gone out of business (sadly true).
Or about the guests who arrived and their first question was “how far is the beach?” (ummm, about 150 kilometres). Or any of the other little anecdotes that make my life here such a fun and unique experience. But as my family could tell you, for me, playing on the computer all day is what I call a fun and unique experience.
