Hello, It’s Luisa here from Dalbeattie, a small town in South West Scotland.
We moved here from Yorkshire just over a year ago and we love it!
The area is beautiful - hills, woodland and beaches all nearby.
We go to Italy a few times a year and we’ve had some brilliant housesitters looking after our pets (only a dog and 2 rabbits at the moment)
This time, however, we’ve had very little interest, not sure why. End of April, beginning of May is a lovely season to enjoy Dumfries and Galloway.
The house is great but the garden is still very much work in progress and i wonder if that could put some people off
I attached the link to our listing to my profile - any comment on how to improve it would be much appreciated! Thank you
Hi there,
I took a look at your listing for you. Overall it looks friendly, welcoming and appealing, and you have a tonne of great reviews, which is fantastic. Here’s some tips to consider for improvement:
1: Use a title that tells sitters straight away why they should pick your sit. Stating “house sit” in a title just wates space - anyone viewing your listing already knows this is a house sit. Instead, try something compelling like “Discover Dalbeattie & the Solway coast; beaches, hiking & more!.” Adding “short notice” to the title also doesn’t actually do anything for sitters.
2: In your intro, try introducing yourselves a little more (you haven’t stated your names or much about yourselves). You can also tell sitters how many sitters you can host, and when you’d like a sitter to arrive (how much overlap time do you expect?) We can already see your dates, so no need to explain that you’re going for 2 weeks in April.
3: In your home and location section, you haven’t mentioned anything about where public transport is. I don’t know your area but I do know that Scotland can be quite remote and hard to access much without a car, so tell sitters whether a car really is ideal for seeing the attractions you’ve listed. Do you have bikes, perhaps? Can you offer to collect sitters from the nearest station if needed? Many people also won’t take the time to explore external links, so just summing up the local area in a few sentences is best. You can save the links for the welcome guide
4: Responsibilities section sounds fine and perfectly reasonable, but it’s helpful to tell sitters how long the dog can be left for & where she sleeps.
@Luisa55, welcome back to THS Forum.
We visit SW Scotland periodically. Checked your listing
Time dog left? 2 hours walking daily is non-trivial (fabulous non-leash) as Springer Spaniels require above-average effort. Housesitters likely wish to explore the lovely local area. Encourage state honestly number of hours that Holly can be left. Without this information, and given breed, potential applicants may guess unable to leave dog and simply not apply. If Holly cannot be left for a reasonable duration then, given your near-term dates, encourage consider Plan B.
Car included? Neither a requirement nor an expectation but probably very useful to non-local housesitters - especially as listing states “she’s always ready to jump in the car”. On our UK housesits, perhaps half have included use of a car. Can make a transformative difference to experience of dogs, especially active ones.
I live in Edinburgh and recently did a 3 week sit near the Mull of Galloway. Loved it. I hadn’t seen your sit listed until now, (because I search by dates), and am already booked up those dates. But, having read your listing, seeing that you have a spaniel, I would have applied, if I was available. I will now favourite your listing. for future. Marion
We love Dalbeattie, I stayed at Kippford in a caravan once upon a time. We’re from Durham (but spend a lot of our time pet sitting in North Yorkshire), but we love Dumfries & Galloway.
You title needs tweaking, but your profile looks really good as-is, but make the changes the others have mentioned.
Your title, as viewed from my laptop, at the moment says:
Discover Dalbeattie and the Solway Coast. Beaches, forests…
before it says read more. So also “cycling and more!” and also wasted, because you have to click to see those.
“Dalbeattie and the” are wasted words in your title, because we can all see where you are before clicking into your add. Also, I’d avoid saying the “Solway Coast” because you’re not physically on the coast, just some won’t realise, it’s a regional thing.
When sitters search the big list of places, your place naturally shows as Dalbeattie, United Kingdom… so I’d pop Scottish or Scotland in your title, because I’d say that in itself has much larger pulling power to both the Scots, those in the North of England, and definitely those travelling from overseas, you know yourself because you moved there, we picture rolling hills & fir trees straight away.
Personally I’d put something like:-
Beautiful Scotland, Gorgeous Scenery, Friendly Furry Family
Great to have you here @Luisa55 I’m saying hello from South East Scotland!
Thanks for popping on to ask for some advice on your listing. It’s great to see you’ve had some helpful replies and that you’re able to put them into action. I did think of @RedLassie when I read your post so I’m pleased to see she’s already responded!
Looking forward to hearing more from you here on the Forum!
I’m saying hello from South East Scotland!