Revitalise your house sit profile for the best results

Keeping your profile up-to-date and fresh is a key part of staying on top of your game as a house sitter. It never hurts to put some effort into reviewing and updating your house sitting profile and so we've put together some tips to help get your listing in tip-top condition to give you a head-start advantage when you apply for house sits.

Make your profile evergreen

Figures need to be constantly updated. If you quote numbers of sits, reviews or pets, or years of accumulated house sitting, you’ll need to update regularly to keep totals current.

Check your profile and where possible turn your text into evergreen content.

“We completed 16 sits in 2020 and have 52 5-star reviews”

could become:

“We’ve done over 50 sits since we began house sitting in 2017, all with 5-star reviews”.

You only need to change when you reach milestone numbers. There's a point you reach where people aren't so interested in individual numbers. Once you get to 50 sits it doesn't much matter if it's 53 or 57 - over 50 will have the same response, and it's easier information to absorb.

How does your profile look to others?

Try viewing your profile from an “incognito” window in your browser to see it from an outsider’s viewpoint.

Is the most prominent information still relevant? Could you freshen up your title or headline?

Remember that on many house sitting platforms, updating your profile means you are moved up the search data – a small change could mean you’ll appear in more searches, at least for a while!

Are you picture perfect?

Make sure your pictures are being viewed as they should be, and that they demonstrate your full range of skills.

• Are your photos still up-do-date?
• Have you looked after different pets this year that could show diversity of pet care?

You’d be surprised how many profiles have upside down, or zoomed in photos that look fine to you when uploading, but appear visually weird to others. Check with your platform to see what size of photo and which orientation is recommended.

This goes for homeowners too - make sure you have good quality images of all the pets and the inside of the house.

Remember to use images with happy faces, outdoor active pictures with pets, or while carrying out house sitting duties. While travel pictures are lovely, you want to use this opportunity to convey the enjoyment you get from being out and about, or cozied up indoors with yours, or other people's pets.

Use all the pictures available to you and caption where this facility is offered. Try and show the great chemistry you have with pets and other animals.

Changing your photos is one of the simplest ways to freshen up your house sit profile.

First impressions count

The headline on your profile and the first image people see should reflect your personality and encourage the viewer to want to find out more about you and what you can offer.

First images should show smiling faces to help build trust. If you can show a first image with a pet, then all the better. We know how hard this can be - especially for house sitting couples. Trying to get the both of you with the pets in anything but a clumsy selfie is difficult. Try and arrange for a friend, family member or neighbour to take some photos of you both together, next time you are able to be out and about. 

Update your house sit availability

Not all platforms have calendars and some, like TrustedHousesitters, allow you to input a set of available dates, and your calendar is automatically updated according to your availability.

Make sure this year's available dates are as correct as they can be.

Where's your homebase?

It’s possible you may be based in a different country this year to last, and with pandemic restrictions, that country may be your new location for longer than you had once hoped. If you have the ability to indicate your location, make sure you update it. This will ensure you are “discovered” by owners on specific location based searches.

How relevant is your profile?

With Covid-19 very much in mind, we know many homeowners and sitters who have had to adapt their travel lifestyles. Some full-timers have hung up their international house sitting boots, opting instead for local domestic sits; others have simply decided it's all too uncertain and have taken a complete break.

How well does your profile reflect your current situation?

Do you have Covid-19 health and safety procedures in place to keep your sitters or owners safe? Pop them on your profile (briefly) to show you are Covid aware and house sitting safely.

Review your skillsets

Do a good review of your skillsets and abilities. We find every year we house sit that we learn new skills, tackle different challenges and find outselves in new locations. Much of this adds to the skills we can offer and we make sure to update both our house sit profiles and our own personal house sitting website.

What can you add to your online profile that's relevant to house sitting?

As you can see in the image above, looking after sheep and rounding them up for feeding was part of our daily duties at a house sit in the UK. Adding a picture to our profile, quickly shows anyone looking for sheep care that we have some experience.

Are there services you can offer like grooming pets, cutting pet nails, or trimming overgrown hair. Do you have experience with particular breeds, or large dogs perhaps? What about experience of cleaning and maintaining swimming pools and solar systems. Or are you an experienced gardener who can do a spring time prune of the rose bushes?

With lockdowns limiting the services that people can obtain within their homes, you might find you can offer something that might just set you apart from the others who are applying.

• can you adminster pet medications and injections?
• have you learned a new language that will give you an advantage?

Update your profile with anything that may give you an edge when homeowners view your relevant experience. 

Demonstrate flexibility

We’ve found that flexibility is key at the moment. Having a home base and not needing back-to-back sits has meant we’ve got every sit we’ve applied to so far in France. Fortunately we can be flexible with our dates because we have invested in a campervan. This means we don’t have to rely on open hotels or Airbnbs between sits or if dates change unexpectedly.

Of course not everyone will have a mobile home, but just having a flexible approach and indicating this in your profile and application may help you secure more house sit jobs during this testing time.

Have you got all your house sit reviews?

Have you got all the reviews you can get? Maybe now while people have more time on their hands you can re-approach those house sits where the owners didn't get around to doing your review.

Conversely, make sure you’ve done all the reviews you can for your homeowners, even for repeats.

Has you house sit website introduced new features?

How well do you know the platform features available to you? House sitting websites and apps are regularly updated. It's easy to miss some new options that may benefit you.

Take a good review tour of the platforms you use to see if there are any features that might enhance your profile or application process.

For example, we know that TrustedHousesitters introduced links this year for LinkedIn and Airbnb profiles. These may not be relevant to everyone, but if you have these links available, they can provide added credibility.

HouseSittersAmerica on the otherhand has had a complete overhaul of their platform, in line with other websites in the group.

Check to see if there are any new options you can take advantage of this year.

If you take the time to do a thorough review of your house sit profile at the beginning of each year, it won't take long to update your photos, skills and experience. Better still refresh your listing at the beginning of each season. Make it the best it can be always! As the world opens up again to house sitting, and with more new pet parents looking for pet lovers, we aer sure this little extra work will pay dividends as you compete for the best sits in the more desirable locations!