The question nobody types
Owners ask you about the cat. They ask how long the visits are and whether you can give tablets. What they are actually weighing up, quietly, is something else: a person they have never met will hold a key to their house and let themselves in twice a day for eleven days while the house is empty and everything they own is in it.
Most people will not say that out loud. It sounds rude, and they feel awkward about it. So instead they read your website looking for a reason to relax, and if they do not find one they close the tab and message somebody else. You never see the enquiry, which is why this problem is invisible from the inside.
A sitting website earns its money by answering the unasked question first.
Say the security part in your own words
The strongest thing on a sitter's site is a short, calm passage about keys. Not marketing language. The actual process.
- How the key is handed over, which for most sitters is in person at the meet-and-greet, in the client's own home.
- That keys are labelled with a code rather than a name or an address, so a lost key is a piece of metal and nothing else.
- Where keys are kept between visits and who else can reach them.
- What happens with a lock box or a smart lock if the client prefers one.
- How and when the key comes back, and what happens if the client wants it back early or wants you to keep it for next time.
- What happens if you are ill mid-booking, which is really a question about who else gets the key.
Six short paragraphs. It costs an afternoon and it is the single highest-converting piece of writing on most sitting sites, because it is the thing the reader is worrying about while they read everything else.
Put the proof where it is read, not in the footer
Insurance, vetting checks, pet first aid and references belong on a page of their own, linked from the header, with a one line version above the fold on the home page.
Be specific and be honest. Name the type of cover you carry and confirm it is current. State whichever background or vetting check applies where you work, and when it was done. Say when you last did pet first aid. Say whether references from existing clients are available on request, and mean it.
Vague reassurance reads as no reassurance. "Fully insured and DBS checked" in eight point grey at the bottom of the page is worth almost nothing next to a paragraph that says what the cover is for.
Be discreet about the houses themselves
There is an awkward tension in this trade. Your website advertises that you look after empty homes, and the internet is public.
So handle photography carefully. Animals, yes, with the owner's permission. Interiors, only where nothing identifies the property, and never house numbers, street signs, front doors or a view from a window that places the house. Do not name streets in reviews or case notes. Do not post while a client is away, which is a habit worth keeping on social media as well as on the site.
Saying on the site that you work this way is itself reassuring. It shows you have thought about the risk the owner is thinking about.
Let strangers say yes to something small
Nobody should be asked to book a fortnight of visits from a website having never met you. It is the wrong size of decision for a first click, and asking for it is why so many sitting sites convert badly.
Offer the meet-and-greet instead. Free, at a real time, at their house, with the animal there. Say on the site what happens at it: you meet the pet, you go through the routine and the medication, you look at the door and the alarm, and if everyone is happy you take the key then. Nothing is committed before that.
That is a small yes, and small yeses are how nervous buyers move.
Reviews from people who live nearby
Google reviews with real names and photographs do work that no amount of your own writing can. A neighbour two streets over saying their house was fine and their cat was happy answers the security question sideways, which is the way people prefer to receive it.
Ask every client the week they get back, while the relief is fresh, and link the reviews near the buttons rather than parking them on a page of their own.
What this changes
Sitters who write these things properly usually notice the same shift. Fewer enquiries that go quiet after the first reply, more enquiries that arrive already knowing the price and asking for a meet-and-greet date, and less time spent reassuring people by message at ten at night.
The nervousness has not gone. It has just been answered before the message was ever sent.
Where this sits
A trust page covering insurance, vetting, first aid and key handling, careful photography and meet-and-greet booking are built into a pet sitting business website as standard, and the same approach to nervous clients runs through the wider pet business websites we make. What the packages include is on pricing. Write the key paragraph first. It is the one the reader came for.