CSS: anybody heard of it?

Everything to do with using your own website to advertise your rental property. Design, usability, hosting, getting listed on the search engines, optimising your site, pay-per-click, etc, etc.
User avatar
Chris Radford
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed Sep 29, 2004 9:30 am
Location: Swanage and York in UK
Contact:

Accessibility

Post by Chris Radford »

Thanks for the explanation I Understand the benefits but have no idea how to do it other than to employ a professional

So I will go back to my old method of getting listings on other peoples rental sites and linking them back to my site to provide the enquirers with more information. I think this is what Paolo recommends. Spending further £100's or £1000's on website design or SEO experts just does not seem to make sense on a business that only turns over £25K a year when what I am doing seems to work.

Despite my very basic abilities using a few well chosen keywords I still get 50-80 unique visitors a week who find my sites through primary search engine searches in addition to the 40-50 who are directed there by listign sites. I only need 52 customers a year for each house and I am achieving that in York and in Swanage I get over 40 (Jan and Feb are hard to sell!!) Spending this extra money to get another 3 or 4 customers each year seems unnecessary

If there is anyhting simple that I can do myself then I remain all ears and am keen to learn

Thanks for the debate I shall read any more posts with interest and an open mind :D
Aiming for 90% occupancy
User avatar
paolo
Posts: 3885
Joined: Thu Jun 17, 2004 1:18 pm
Location: Provence, France
Contact:

Post by paolo »

Chris,

Kepp doing what you're doing, because it sounds like you are doing it right!

I don't think we need to get into CSS for our little sites. I do think we need to make sure our sites are easy to use and don't put people off. You may have seen some of these property programmes on the telly that basically all say the same thing: get rid of the clutter, get rid of the garish colours. It's the same for websites.

I wrote my views on how NOT to scare people off when they reach your site here:

http://www.laymyhat.com/newsletters/new ... .htm#found

You're getting a good level of visitors from organic search, so rather than hire an expert for hundreds of pounds, I suggest you put your site up for review when I get the site review section up (v. soon I promise) - and you'll get some good pointers from the people here I'm sure (for free!).
Paolo
Lay My Hat
Darren
Posts: 86
Joined: Tue Nov 09, 2004 5:56 am

Post by Darren »

Tony / Rich - my own personal opinion is that owners are not interested in W3C or CSS, the main areas people should be concentrating on when designing a website are making it user friendly, and easy to navigate.

I'm not a web designer to any stretch of the imagination, so my knowledge is not in this arena, actually I've only designed one website. The importance in my eyes is making it user friendly, easy to navigate, not that it fits some W3C compliance which the majority of visitors or owners, no nothing about.

Darren :)
User avatar
livinginitaly
Posts: 202
Joined: Fri Oct 29, 2004 4:46 pm
Location: Italy (at last!)
Contact:

Post by livinginitaly »

Maybe we could change the Title of this thread to 'much ado about nothing' :)

I'm right with you on that one Darren. In my opinion, all any rental site 'owner / operator' should be concerned with is developing a 'visually attractive', 'thoughtfully written' web page layout. Even Search Engine Optimisation normally wouldn't feature too heavily, because most 'traffic' comes from 'paid for' adverts.

I believe Rich was only checking on peoples awareness of the current debate on 'Web Standards'. As has been said, 'W3 Recommendations' are not currently 'enforced', but as and when they do become 'Legislation', then it will effect anyone that 'runs' a website ...... that's 'you' and 'me'. Obviously, Rich and I (who have 'been through the pain') then degraded into what some would call 'techno blabble'.

However, to show how serious this issue is being viewed, many smaller webdesign companies are claiming that if 'Standards' come into effect in their current form, then they will be put out of business. However, until they do ....... i'm sure we all have more 'pressing' things to worry about :)

Chris: (if you've managed to keep reading this far, i can go on sometimes!)

Two great sites your have there! You've selected an exellent template (particularly for the Quarterdecks 'nautical theme'), it's clear, well laid out and reads well. I really can see why you are getting results.

I only have the one 'non techy' comment and that's that maybe the main 'content' could be 'pushed up' a little.

The 'techy' comments regard how the site works with the Search Engines. Firstly, i'd place 'text links' to all the pages at the bottom of each page. This is because not all search engines can follow links from images so they will not visit and 'list' all your pages.

Secondly, i'd change the page 'names' to something more descriptive. For example your page on 'Beaches and Walks' is called '1257.html', if this was called 'beaches_and_walks.html' then it would help your listing by adding 'keywords', providing a more informative description on your 'google' listing as well as scoring better on those search engines that rate a site on 'informative URLs'.

Now i'm not too sure how much you value 'search engines' in your marketing plan, as mentioned, if all your traffic is coming from 'reciprocal links' and your happy with the volume .... why change anything? But these are points for anyone to keep in mind when building a website ..... it makes things work better, and it costs nothing.

Anyway, being a template site, i'm not sure how easy it would be to make any changes. It can depend on how the template was 'written' in the first place. But i'd be happy to help / advise if you'd like ..... for free of course :)
User avatar
livinginitaly
Posts: 202
Joined: Fri Oct 29, 2004 4:46 pm
Location: Italy (at last!)
Contact:

On a 'lighter note' ...

Post by livinginitaly »

Here's a website that is a prime example of what 'can' go wrong in our enthusiam to include all we've learned into a webpage. Come on ....... we've all been there ;)

http://www.angelfire.com/super/badwebs/main.htm turn your sound down!

Sometimes .... less, really is more.
User avatar
paolo
Posts: 3885
Joined: Thu Jun 17, 2004 1:18 pm
Location: Provence, France
Contact:

Post by paolo »

Tony (that's better...),
Maybe we could change the Title of this thread to 'much ado about nothing'
I think the existing title is doing a good job of scaring non-techies off!

That's a good site you posted as an example of how not to do it. I'm going to quote that in the now extremely imminent Site Review section.
Paolo
Lay My Hat
Darren
Posts: 86
Joined: Tue Nov 09, 2004 5:56 am

Post by Darren »

Can I also make a request that you do not include music on your website - I started work this morning, half asleep as I usually am, and was fully woken up to Greek music on an owners website! :lol:
to show how serious this issue is being viewed, many smaller webdesign companies are claiming that if 'Standards' come into effect in their current form, then they will be put out of business.
Good point, and very true. The 10 sites I visited yesterday that werent W3C compliant (including my own!) would have to spend a big chunk of money on making it compliant, and I can agree with charities who have brought the disability issue to all of our attentions - I'm blind in one eye and have trouble viewing some of the websites out there myself!

Darren :)
User avatar
BungleBob
Posts: 66
Joined: Wed Sep 29, 2004 12:37 pm
Location: Spain
Contact:

Sorry!

Post by BungleBob »

Oh gawd - I didn't mean to scare anyone! :oops:

I just wanted a feel of where we're at on the issue and I've got that in abundance - thanks for everyone's comments!

Everybody's "tech know-how" is going to be different, depending on need. I'm a web professional and totally understand owners wouldn't/shouldn't need this stuff to the depth we've discussed it.

I'll make sure to add a "geeks only" label if anything comes up again in future! :P

Rich
Post Reply