Website review for appledore-cottage.co.uk

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.
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Ed
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Location: Appledore, North Devon, UK
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Website review for appledore-cottage.co.uk

Post by Ed »

Hi everyone,

This is my first post, but I've been browsing these forums for the past few weeks and found loads of useful information. What a great resource!

I would really appreciate your feedback on my website - http://www.appledore-cottage.co.uk

I built it myself using a holiday home website service I found. I'm pretty pleased with the end result, but would appreciate an outsiders point of view. Maybe there's something I've overlooked?

Many thanks,
Ed
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CSE
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Post by CSE »

Welcome to the forum.

Appledore; I know it well. You must have one of the few cottages with on street parking.

The website is a standard “template” styled website there should not be too many browser compliance issues. You should add some alt text to the photos.
I have also found these issues on the first page.
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http: ... tage.co.uk
Apart from the above I cannot find fault with most of the coding requirements.


I do think you should give some better idea of rates.
“Rates for the cottage vary from £330 to £700 throughout the year.”
This statement would not encourage me to enquire.

Have a Hockings for me please. :D
Never try to out-stubborn your guests.
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Ed
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Post by Ed »

Thanks Ian and Irene.

Everyone loves a Hockings :D

Yes, we are fortunate that we are well located and have on street parking.

I will look into adding alt text to photos.

It turns out that those validation errors are coming from the YouTube videos. That code was supplied by YouTube, but it seems it does not validate, which is surprising.

I take your point about the rates. I think I will need to do something about that. The reason I haven't done anything up until now is that there are lots of them. The rates fluctuate up and down a fair bit during holidays, half term etc. We also offer discounts on slow weeks.

Thanks a lot for taking the time to give me some feedback.

Ed
lasourcetranquille
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Post by lasourcetranquille »

Ed,

I like it - it's depressing that a template can look so good off the bat when it's so hard to create one from scratch!

My twopenneth:

1) The large picture on each page takes a lot of real estate, meaning to see anything you have to scroll down a lot. It could be reduced in height a little, or the top title line could be moved over the image?

2) The location page seems to default to being completely zoomed out for me on IE8 and Chrome. Not sure if that's some setting of mine or the page but I can't zoom in as the zoom bar is only two 'selections' big. Could be just me though

3) I agree with Ian & Irene about the rates - you need to detail them as it could lend the impression that you just set the rates when people ask!

HTH
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CSE
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Post by CSE »

Ed could the web hosts – host the videos? It would look cleaner and then you would only see your videos, not want Youtube thinks you should see next.


If this is not possible then maybe the coding will have to be as is.

I understand you pricing policy. So how about adding say X amount which is to cover for general periods, then offering discounts for the weeks than are off school holidays and better offers for the slow weeks. These offers are prices you already have in mind. Have I written that down clear enough?
Never try to out-stubborn your guests.
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Ed
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Post by Ed »

Thanks HTH.

Yes, I have to say, I'm not sure I would have the time or the patience to create one from scratch. I personally think from a customers point of view this does the job well and it was really easy to set up. I can't see any reason why i would want to create something from scratch, unless I fancied a challenge.

That's a good point about the main picture. I guess it depends on your resolution settings, but I want to cater for the majority, so I will see if I can trim it down a bit.

I hadn't noticed the problem with the location page, so thanks for pointing that out. It should be fixed now (it was a setting in the system).

Thanks a lot.

Ed
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Ed
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Post by Ed »

The website builder package does not include the option to upload videos and have them host them, so i'll have to stick with the YouTube videos for now. I think there may be a setting on YouTube to not show other videos at the end? I will have a look.

With regards to rental rates I am going to sit down and go through them and see if I can create a rates table showing all of them. If not, I think your suggestion could be a good plan B. I'd hate to think I am missing out on enquiries because of this.

Thanks again,

Ed
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Nemo
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Post by Nemo »

Nice site. It's very good for something out of a tin! Makes me wonder why I'm trying to create my own (for the second time!)

A rates table is just a starting point. The customer needs to understand what he/she may pay as most people have a budget of some description. Without a rates table you may get enqiries that then don't book because the price wasn't right and that is rather depressing from an owners perspective!

My place used to be advertised by Hoseasons and they currently have 26 rates plus special offers for a smiliar property. :shock: It's a bit mind boggling to offer that many, but you can narrow it down and then create special offers as you please.
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Ed
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Post by Ed »

Thanks for the positive feedback Nemo.

I'm really pleased with the website, but I was slightly concerned, having spent my money, that people on here were going to tell me there is a good reason not to use a service like this.

I've tried to create my own website in the past, but I have to admit to it being a lot harder than I thought it would be to create something that looks professional and works in all browsers. There seems to be so much you need to learn.

I guess the main thing is that the site is doing it's job, which is to generate bookings. Hopefully sorting out the points raised here, particularly the rental rates, will improve things further.

Thanks again,
Ed
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Ed
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Post by Ed »

I've now made the following changes based on all your feedback:

- Added a rental rates table.
- Trimmed the header image slightly.
- Added alt text to the photos.

I think it works a lot better now, so thanks again for all your comments and if you spot anything else please do let me know.

Cheers,
Ed
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Nemo
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Post by Nemo »

Looking good Ed. Not all of the photos have alt text, so maybe you could add where required. One I think shows dolphins? That must be worth highlighting!

I had not heard of your website package, would you recommend it to others? Owners are always looking for different options in terms of website creation and hosting, so maybe you should start a thread or contribute to some previous threads asking for website recommendations?
lasourcetranquille
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Post by lasourcetranquille »

Ed,

Much better. On my laptop screen I can now see more without having to scroll down. Could I suggest that you add '3 bedroomed' to your first paragraph to fill in the one missing thing from that front page (I know it's further down but the more you can present without scrolling the better).

Rates page is better too, but there is no link to the booking page from there other than the 'Enquiries' button at the top. You mention 'Contact us to book' but don't link the words 'Contact Us' to enquiries, which may confuse those with English as a second language. Maybe even make the rates clickable to go to the enquiries page as well as the 'Contact Us' phrase.

Adrian & Vanessa
(The HTH was short for 'Hope That Helps' rather than initials!)
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Ed
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Post by Ed »

I will look into the alt text. I thought i'd done it all, but must have missed some.

Nemo - Yes, I would definitely recommend this website package to other owners. I'm very happy with the service as a whole. I found the website builder really easy to use. The support has been great when I needed it and they are open to suggestions (I suggested a change to the system and they did it). I think it's a good price too.
Good idea about the thread. I'll have a look and see if there is already a thread on this topic. Not sure what the rules are about posting on threads that are too old though?

Adrian & Vanessa - Sorry for calling you HTH, my mistake! Good points about the number of bedrooms and links on the rental rates page. I hadn't thought of that. I will make those changes.

Thanks again, you've all been a great help.

Ed
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Nemo
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Post by Nemo »

If it's appropriate to the thread then you can resurrect an old thread. However, it may just be worth creating a new thread with the website package as part of the title, then if someone searches for it, it comes up easily.
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Ed
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Post by Ed »

Thanks Nemo. I'll create a new thread. Maybe some other people on here are already using it and can add their thoughts too.
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