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Get some feedback on your site or ad from other rental owners and techies. Also a library of online resources so you can make DIY improvements to your web presence.
Jelly Belly
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Joined: Tue Oct 13, 2009 7:32 pm
Location: New Aberdour, Aberdeenshire
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Post by Jelly Belly »

Hi, Just had my first go at building our site from scratch using Serif Webplus X2 and would really appreciate any comments or feedback - good and bad.

Also if anyone has any tips on boosting traffic plz let me know.

Site is here:

http://www.bandbattheshoppe.co.uk
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pambon
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Post by pambon »

Hi! I liked mostly what I saw with the exception of the 2 loos!! Definitely not necessary - another angle of the bathroom perhaps? and I found the small print a little difficult to read - but then I'm a blind old bat!

I feel mean making these comments because not even in 100 years would I be able to construct my own website and I think you've done a super job apart from these 2 things!

Let's see what the real experts have to say!!

Good Luck and I love Bonnie Scotland.
e-richard
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Post by e-richard »

pambon wrote:Let's see what the real experts have to say!!
Now there's a disincentive for anyone else (with some modesty) to comment :D

Anyways, I loved the use of "white space". The colours are genuine and "welcoming" and felt very much in keeping with the offering. It was quite easy to find everything, but perhaps the font colour in the top menu could be a bit more contrasting, or perhaps a titch bigger, to make the words stand out more.

Two thoughts:
1. That Scottish Tourist board logo on the home page was a bit "in your face" - i.e. too big. At first glance, I wondered if this was a STB website, not yours.
2. Similarly, it was nice of you to give us a link to all your competition on the links page. The average website visitor can too easily click there and wander away. You've lost them.
Use the links page rather for items of interest/things to do and local attractions.
** Richard
PIMS: Holiday Rental Management system
They say we learn from our mistakes. That makes me a genius !
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Garri
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Post by Garri »

Very nice layout and colours. Horizontal navigation is a wise choice too - clean and simple, works well though I could consider replacing 'Contact' with something like 'Tariff and Bookings' or whatever wording you feel appropriate. Look at how other people have worded this.

Some further observations:

1. Boosting traffic i.e. SEO: consider more descriptive title tags than just <title>Home</title> and add <description> tags to each page.

If you search Google for http://www.bandbattheshoppe.co.uk you will see that they've done you a favour by changing your <title> tag to something more meaningful. Looks like they've picked that up from the copyright in your footer.

You've had to make the Google spider do some work, which it will hate.

Title and Description tags are your chance to tweak your site and target keywords etc etc etc, yada yada yada!

2. Photo Gallery: I'm seeing this all the time but your thumbnails appear well below the fold on my screen and I suspect so too everyone else's.

Half of the main photo itself also appears below the fold, which isn't good.

3. Logo: looks like it could be cleaned up a bit. Consider centering B&B as it looks odd left justified.

4. Left sidebar looks a bit bare and could be put some use such as housing news or calls to action. Or bullet points about what you offer.

5. Homepage doesn't have any call to action at all. Consider ending your blurb with some text inviting people to make a booking by providing a link. As it is, we need to scroll back to the nav to find out.

'Please feel free to browse the site for details of our available rooms and current rates' - this doesn't help us as there are no links.

6. 'A Warm Welcome' would be good to place a sub-heading under this stating what the accommodation is. I know you do that in your blurb, but people scan websites before reading them. A sub heading would help them, and help you SEO-wise.

7. Scottish Tourist Board is way too big and pushes your photo down below the fold. Consider making it smaller and incorporating it into your header photo. Over on the right would be good as it would provide some balance for your logo.
Jelly Belly
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Joined: Tue Oct 13, 2009 7:32 pm
Location: New Aberdour, Aberdeenshire
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Post by Jelly Belly »

Fantastic. Thanks very much for taking the time to have a look through and giving me your thoughts, it is much appreciated as I know how busy you must all be.

I will certainly be making some changes on the back of what you say *Grumbles at thought of spending more time in front of computer..but loves it really.
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CSE
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Post by CSE »

I cannot really add much to the things Garri has said.
But looking a the code I have noticed that you have not given many of your photos any alternative text, that will limit Google finding you.
I went to the validator website and found only some errors.
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http% ... or%2F1.654
or this one
http://validator.w3.org/check?verbose=1 ... age5a.html
Maybe have a look through the website to check everything is ok.
Links like to your google maps takes you away from your website.
I would also suggest you add details about evening meals. like local pubs and restaurants.

I like the layout.
Never try to out-stubborn your guests.
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Windy
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Post by Windy »

Hi Jellybelly and welcome

I'd pad out the text in the Our Accommodation table a bit - it's a bit too close to the edges of the cells for me (one of my bug bears that)

I find the photo gallery a bit distracting too - the thumbnails extend into the left column in Firefox and the photo selection thing is a bit "fierce" and in your face.

Please don't take this the wrong way but I don't find the photos on the Our Accommodation page veryl enticing. They are a bit too tight and cropped - I want to see the room and feel myself in there. (That may just be me of course)
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Garri
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Post by Garri »

I forgot to mention another potential problem...

8. Your tariff is an image which will make it a pain to change. Consider placing this info into a table which you can easily update as and when needed:

http://www.bandbattheshoppe.co.uk/wpima ... c7efa2.png
catherinedonegal
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Post by catherinedonegal »

hi jelly belly ~ well done on all your work. the site is lovely and fresh and clean looking. these are my observations (some may already be mentioned by others).

home page
i would suggest maybe working on the header a little more. could you stretch the pic and then have the B&B At The Shoppe at the top left and then that area at the bottom right of the pic perhaps?

the pic of the front of your property. could you perhaps open all the curtains upstairs and retake the pic? i think it would look better.

the scottish tb logo ~ could this be moved say over to the grey column at the left? or even reduced in size?

our accommodation page
i would respectfully suggest that you re-do the pics as i don't think they are representative of the standard you have.
pic 1 ~ too dull and is that bright spot in the middle a lamp or sunlight reflection?
pic 2 ~ lop sided
pic 3 ~ too fuzzy and faded

gallery page
don't really think you need loo shots at all. i would much prefer to see your dining room and possible living room used by guests (if you have that). you know, you could even add pics of the breakfast table set showing them what they will be eating, things like that.

another thing is that in one of the bedroom pics the curtains are closed which would make me worry that there is a huge pylon or something of that ilk right outside the window (i know there isn't from the front page pic of your house but still, others might worry).

also, i would like to see pics of the village/area in the gallery to get a better feel for where you are. the few that are on the site show a very beautiful area and so you could really make the most of this with lots more pics.

btw, with all the pics on the site i would prefer if they were clickable to enlarge so i could see the rooms/area in much more detail.

links page
first, i would like to see links to restaurants, pubs, things to do, etc in the area rather than the links you have added. i don't see any of those links benefit you in anyway.

for instance, the link to visitscotland.com just brings the viewer to the vs site. if you want to have that link at all, it would be better linking directly to your ad. with them.

the map link is not necessary imo as you already have a map on your site.

the bed and breakfast directory site, once again i can't see the purpose and as with the others would be of no use to me were i viewing your site as a potential customer. also, as with the vs link you might lose a potential customer as they will wander off reading about all your competition and forget about you.

the link to t/a. not sure i'd bother with it until you have a batch of good reviews there. i can't see any reviews so far so once again you are only giving people other options rather than keeping their mind focused on YOU which is what you want to achieve. i know they do a things to do in that area but you could easily do it yourself for your own site.

hope some of those points help and that some are of use to you. :)
GoDot
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Post by GoDot »

Having been a long time lurker on this forum, I thought it was about time that I made a contribution.

Hi Jelly Belly

There are a few minor problems with your site. Google is not indexing the current version, it's working from the old one . Example - http://tinyurl.com/ygexya3

This is a list of all of the pages Google currently has indexed for your site http://tinyurl.com/yjxwkbq as you can see, they're all the old urls.

When Garri said that Google seems to be taking care of the title tags for you, it's because Google is still working from the cached version of your homepage - http://tinyurl.com/y8uycoy

Simple solution: You should delete the old files and pages on your webhosting account, then set up 301 redirects from the old urls to the new ones in order to prevent 404 errors & to preserve the value of any inbound links.

It's also probably worth submitting an xml sitemap to Google (through a Google Webmaster Tools account) to help Google speed up the indexation of your new pages.

I'd agree with Garri on the SEO points in general on your new site.

As it stands, the site is unlikely to rank for any keywords or long-tail search terms - basically, you won't get a lot of traffic coming to your site . Here are some of the very basic improvements you should make.

The level of SEO importance on a page - aside from content - is like an upside-down pyramid. You start at the very top (the blue part at the very top of the browser), then work downwards.

Meta-title tags:
This is the text in the blue bar at the very top of your browser & it's one of the most important parts in helping search engines determine your web page's relevancy for certain keywords. If you look at LayMyHats front page as an example, the title tag isn't simply 'Home' , it's' LayMyHat - advice for rental owners, from rental owners'.

You should change yours from 'Home' to something like 'B&B at the Shoppe: Aberdeenshire Bed & Breakfast accommodation'.

It'll help you rank better in Google, plus the title tag is also what shows up in search engine result pages so it will help your click-through rate. If you're on Google, what are you more likely to click - a result that just says 'Home' or a result with the title 'B&B at the Shoppe: Aberdeenshire Bed & Breakfast accommodation'?


Meta-description tag:

This is the description snippet that shows up beneath the title tag on search engine results. It's like a sales marketing blurb and should contain some keywords. It's one of the most important factors in determining how you rank on Google, and how likely it is that people will click-through the link. None of your pages currently contain a meta-description, so Google generates it automatically. Given the relative lack of text on your pages, it's better to write them manually.

URL structure:
You should have keyword rich urls rather than ones ending in /page3.html or /page4.html, it will help you rank better on Google.

Example:
bandbattheshoppe.co.uk/page3.html could be changed to bandbattheshoppe.co.uk/bed_and_breakfast.html
bandbattheshoppe.co.uk/page6.html could be changed to bandbattheshoppe.co.uk/aberdeenshire_attractions.html

Header tags:
When Google is searching a page, it has to decide what text on that page is important. Just like in a book/magazine, it prioritises headings. These headings should be put between header tags like <h1></h1>, or for a sub-heading <h2></h2>.

Example: On the home page where it currently says "A Warm Welcome", you could change it to a h1 heading which includes some keywords like "A warm welcome to our Aberdeenshire B&B", with a h2 sub-heading like "Bed and Breakfast accommodation at The Shoppe". You can use header tags down to about h6, depending on how large you want them to appear on a page.

Another example for /page3.html : rather than having 'Our accommodation' in a larger font, you could have 'Aberdeenshire B&B features and tariffs' within header tags.

On the 'Out and About 'page, 'What's on' and 'Where to go' are not good from an SEO standpoint. They could be changed to something like "Aberdeenshire Attractions" and placed within header tags, which is more descriptive and more likely to get traffic.

URL Canonicalization:
yeah, it's a big word. Matt Cuts from Google explains it in a video here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cm9onOGTgeM

www.bandbattheshoppe.co.uk/
www.bandbattheshoppe.co.uk/index.html
bandbattheshoppe.co.uk/
bandbattheshoppe.co.uk/index.html

These are 4 seperate url addresses which bring up the same information. This might not seem like a problem, but it could potentially lead to duplicate content penalties. If some people link to the www version of the homepage and others link to the non-www version, your PageRank gets split between the two versions. The easiest thing to do is pick a url version (www or non-www) then set up 301 redirects from one set to another.

Another option is to insert a rel="canonical" link element into the page headers stating your preferred url.

Internal link structure:
Internal linking can also help SEO. For example, in the first paragraph on the front page you have the text "bed and breakfast accommodation". You could use this as anchor text in a hyperlink to the page on the rooms/prices (which I'd rename to something like bed_and_breakfast.html).

Alt image tags:
Google cannot 'see' images, you have to tell it what exactly the picture is of. You can do this through alt image tags. If you right click an image on your site, then click properties, you'll see that the alt text is blank. You should use the tag to put in a brief description of what the photo is of (Aberdeenshire B&B single bedroom, B&B at the shoppe garden etc). Again, it helps with ranking.

Basic SEO: do some research for the keywords/phrases you want to rank for - then try to include them in the meta-title, meta-description, url, heading, first paragraph text , image tags and anchor text.

If this reads like Chinese, you can find most of the stuff on Google :)
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Cassis
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Post by Cassis »

Have you by any chance written an article called "SEO 101", Godot? Great post. :D
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La Chouette
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Post by La Chouette »

I love the way you've done your photos. Did you do that in X2 or some other programme?

Jan
Austria
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Post by Austria »

Hi a great start.

Put a link about us? it reassures the punter? to know a little bit about you.

Also have an article / link "things to do"

Consider doing a blog on the area, sign up with google and refer back to your site after articles you have written.

It help with your ranking.

Good luck

Derek
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