How to encourage a response from house sitters to your homeowner ad

We often get asked by owners, what can I do to get a better response to my ad?

Just as you the owner want the best care for your home and pets, sitters also like to know about the environment where they’ll be staying to care for your furry mates and home. Here are the best ways you can ‘sell’ your ad to attract the best response from sitters.

Photos:

Uploading good quality photos of your home, pets and garden is the single best thing you can do to encourage sitters to stop scrolling and click on your ad. Why? Because humans are visual creatures. Picture this - The sitter has typed in their preferred locations and are scrolling through tens or potentially hundreds of ads looking for something that appeals to them. Whether that’s a cute pet pic, a lovely garden or an enticing view, it’s much more likely to get them to stop and want to know more than no photo at all. Also, it shows you care enough about the sitters’ comfort that you want to present your home as a desirable place to be.

We strongly recommend uploading a few good interior house shots, a photo of each of your pets and one or two of the garden or entertaining area.

Some owners also like to upload a pic of local attractions to show sitters the highlights of their local area. You can upload up to 12 photos to your ad so, by taking advantage of this you’re already on the way to attracting a great sitter.

House Features:

Filling out the House Features area is one of the quickest and easiest things you can do and it helps your ad appear more prominently when sitters search for particular features. For example, many sitters travel with a pet, in a caravan or as a family. Ticking or leaving these features blank helps sitters identify immediately whether your sit is a suitable match for them. 

Do you have a pool, live nearby a beach, gym, or supermarket? Tick it. Anything you can tick to accurately describe your house, location and the features of the home will only improve your chances of a response from sitters.

Add details into your ad description:

A clear ad description is key to finding the right sitter and the more information on your home, pets and the surrounding area you can give, the better.

Try to think about what you would want to know about a place you were going to be staying and include information you think would appeal to sitters.

Describe your house and facilities. Is there just the one bedroom available or multiple bedrooms? Do you want the sitter to stay in their own caravan or is the whole house available for them to use? Do you have Wifi, Netflix or a car available to use? 

Include local highlights. A huge part of house sitting is the chance for sitters to stay somewhere new so consider what’s awesome about your area. Do you live in a great city location, nearby national parks, popular tourist destinations or wineries? 

Lastly, include the sitters’ responsibilities. How long and how regularly your dog needs to walked, your pets feeding routines, whether the lawn will need mowing or the pool scooped of leaves. Taking a few extra minutes to add these details will end up saving you time by having only the right sitters apply.

Respond in a timely manner: 

After much feedback from both sitters and owners, we introduced a ‘reply rating’ to our messages system to make communication a faster and happier experience for everyone. No one likes being left on ‘Read’ without a response for days on end, and slow replies often leave a sitter applying for alternative house sits. 

If you have multiple replies from sitters there’s no need to rush your decision.

In the messaging area, we’ve set up several options which you can see by clicking the Reply Options tab under View Conversation on your message from each sitter. 

You can choose the REPLY option to reply to each sitter individually or, for a speedy option, send an QUICK REPLY. Clicking QUICK REPLY gives you the option to select from 3 automated responses as shown below.

If you’ve never advertised for a sitter before, creating your homeowner ad can be a completely new experience and that’s why we’re here to help. Check out all our homeowner blogs for more tips and advice or get in touch with our friendly team who will be more than happy to answer any of your questions.