Please review my website if you have a minute

[blodri]

We're having a very low conversion rate depsite lots of enquiries and we're not sure where we're going wrong! Our site www.chateaucolombier.com has been up for a while - are there any improvements we should make. All comments appreciated! Thanks

[Tizfata]

Very quickly!
The 1st impression is very good.
The colours are lovely and fresh.
(the 5th pic on the year in Drome page doesn't show...)
At 1st sight there is nothing wrong with your site.
Did you do it by yourself?
Anyway, you say you do get enquiries, so possibily there is nothing terribly wrong with the site. Maybe is the respond to enquiries part that could be improved...

[blodri]

Thanks for your quick reply - we had some help - a techie son! Ive just written a new first response - most of enquiries this year have been from the French and thus needed a French response and maybe the first response has been too brief and 'Anglo-Saxon'. Have tried to warm it up a bit! Also concerned our high season prices might be too high for a full week.

[wendyj]

Hi

What market do you think you are good at? Are you aiming enough towards them? i.e. young couples / older couples / large families / people with pets... what can you do to make your place more attractive to what YOU are good at....
... don't try and aim for EVERYBODY - there are just HUNDREDS of gites the same out there...

You seem to have lots of different accommodation. I would be interested in how it all fits together (is next door going to be on top of me?) - how about floor plans?

[wallypott]

To be brutally honest I don't like the overlapping pictures, its like men (or ladies) with beards, you always wonder what they're hiding.

There is a lot of space at the top of your pages, which might be better used. It is necessary to a lot of scrolling down. Could you not widen out your pages a tad and get more in horizontally and less vertically.

I only had a quick read and didn't study it enough, but everything sounded like it was rather a long way a way - what is on the doorstep?

Do you have a floor plan - you can do them for free on floorplanner.

I didn't really understand your descriptions of the accommodation and the photos didn't help clarify things for me. Could the photos not have labels saying what they are.

Why is there a photo of the studio door? Is it to show access. Might be nice to have an interior photo too.

How can you add rooms to the studio and the top floor appartment? Or am I being thick.

Basically I think it all needs tightening up format wise, with more labels and more guides of what & where things are. I think if someone was looking at the site while you were watching them, they would keep having to ask you, what's that, or where's that?

Sorry if it sounds negative, you've done a good job anyway.

Good luck with it.

[declanja]

I had a quick look at your site and the layout and photos seem great. One issue I noticed is your copy on the home page does not show clearly what you have to offer. My initial reaction was that your property only catered for large groups. I know on your accommodation page you give details but page 1 is the place you win or lose on. Other than that I think you have done a fine job. Is your pricing competitive?

Declan

[revdev]

Hi there,

Good looking website.

Just one thing I noticed with your pricing - you have got summer high season starting on 25th June. IMHO, if you are targeting UK holiday makers I think that is fully one month too early.
We are starting our high season pricing on the 22nd July which ties in with the UK school holidays.

cheers

[Hells Bells]

Revdev, allthough I agree it may be too early, I also thing end of July is too late. I think your peak season depends on your location, and the nationality of the guests you attract. French schools start holidays in early July, as do Dutch and Belgians. He/she does say that a lot of enquiries have come from French

[blodri]

Thanks everyone that's been really useful. We've had a chat and decided we need to focus on our 2 main offers - the whole house and the studio/gite with disabled access. I'm now busy rewriting our pages to reflect that.
The whole exercise has made us look at the site with fresh eyes.
Thanks again.