Stay The Bay - What do you think?

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.
Beergander
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Joined: Thu Jun 04, 2009 7:35 pm
Location: Cornwall
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Stay The Bay - What do you think?

Post by Beergander »

Hi,

I'd be really pleased to get some feedback (Good or bad) from the industry experts (You lot!), on the website for our holiday home in Cornwall www.staythebay.co.uk

Many thanks

Guy :D
la vache!
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Joined: Wed Feb 16, 2005 7:22 pm

Post by la vache! »

Hi Guy,
I can't think of a bad word to say about your website. It is perfect for me - I've no criticism at all I'm afraid, so not very constructive. It is clean, simple, easy to navigate, with great photos. It has all the important info I need at a first glance on an uncluttered homepage. Great job!
Marks
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Joined: Mon Nov 06, 2006 10:16 am
Location: Costa Blanca

Post by Marks »

Looks great. My suggestion would be to replace the pictures that have grey skies with one with blue skies. Those that are blue really stand out in the gallery. The only thing I didn't like about the gallery was different sized photos. Other than that good site :D
Some guests just need a sympathetic pat. On the head. With a hammer.
Martha
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Joined: Sun Apr 16, 2006 7:01 pm
Location: Chamonix

Post by Martha »

Very nice :)
My only suggestions for improvement would be to check the copy for punctuation e.g.

Completed in 2011 (add comma here) Stay The Bay is part of The Bay Talland development (and maybe here) representing luxurious holiday accommodation on the South Cornish coast.

The detached Hillside home (shouldn't have capital H)

Also this is perhaps just me, but I think the copy could be a little more personal - it reads a bit too much like estate agent speak to me. Writing about your own place is incredibly tricky I know :)

Looks great though, nice job!
Chalet la Foret, Chamonix
Beergander
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Joined: Thu Jun 04, 2009 7:35 pm
Location: Cornwall
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Post by Beergander »

Many thanks for the prompt responses and comments.

I've made some adjustments already and will certainly add some with blue sky as soon as we get some!

I see the site as a living document that will grow with the house so should hopefully improve over time.

It's the SEO I need to get to grips with now!!

Thanks again
Martha
Posts: 2289
Joined: Sun Apr 16, 2006 7:01 pm
Location: Chamonix

Post by Martha »

Naming your images (the actual filenames) with descriptive names like hot_tub.jpg will help with SEO - at the moment they're just numbers. Changing and building the site is really good for SEO too!

try running it through this for some quick pointers
http://websitegrader.com/
Chalet la Foret, Chamonix
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Nemo
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Location: Norfolk

Post by Nemo »

Very nice Guy, can't add more to what the others have said. Hope you have great success.
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CSE
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Location: Galicia

Post by CSE »

In addtion to the above pointers I have some more SEO tips, but seeing as this was a professional job they should have known about what I am writing here.

The website does not use HTML headings (<H1> to <H6>)
I would suggest you have a bit more content, not more pages just a few more words.
You have some flash on the first page. There are ways to make the pictures flow from one to another with HTML. Flash is not so good for SEO.
There is no robots.txt file.
There is no XML site map.
The website does not have a favicon either.
There are 15 errors in the HTML on the first page. There may be other pages with errors, but i have not checked.
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http: ... ebay.co.uk
Your meta description should contain between 70 and 160 characters. It is around 251.
Never try to out-stubborn your guests.
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wallypott
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Post by wallypott »

Fancy a house swop! Looks gorgeous, no criticisms from me, sorry. I am green with envy.
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Windy
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Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2007 8:21 am
Location: Windermere UK

Post by Windy »

Pity you don't take dogs :-)

Nice clean well designed site!
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cottageguru
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Location: Ontario, Canada
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Post by cottageguru »

Lovely site with appealing photos and an attractive layout. I would echo the comment about making the text more personal though. I like to feel a connection with a vacation rental owner when I'm searching for a property; to know why they bought the place and what they enjoy most about it.

I had a problem with reading the availability calendar - I didn't think I had colour vision issues but I found some of the colour shades so close it was difficult to differentiate between them. For accessibility reasons, it may be useful to offer a text version of your date/rate chart
Heather

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