Hello everyone
We bought Maison Pasteur in June of 2002 as a home for us rather than as a holiday home for rental. However, business didn't go quite as well as I'd hoped and early retirement is on hold for another 4 years or so. We get to use it for about 1o weeks of the year, but not in the school holidays, and I fins the idea of it being idle for the rest of the year abit hard to swallow.
We're always in two minds on lettings because it is our home as well as the home we have in England. If we only managed to let the school holidays that would do for us. The last two years have been hard to let in France (we are told) and that certainly matches our experience.
If anyone has any suggestions onw how to do the website better or differently then we'll be happy to have your comments.
Best wishes to all - John and Barbara Haslett[/b]
Review Maison Pasteur please
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John Haslett
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Wed Feb 16, 2005 3:35 pm
- Location: Languedoc, France
- Contact:
Review Maison Pasteur please
Totally new to all this but willing to have any views or comments about our website.
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Paul Carmel
- Posts: 3836
- Joined: Tue Dec 07, 2004 12:25 pm
- Location: Palma Mallorca & Greece
- Contact:
John:
Welcome to the forums!
I must say that I really enjoy your site! It seems like it's designed very well and is absolutely full of information. You have a distinct, high-contrast color scheme and a printable version -- very nice! There are just a few little things here and there.
Cheers!
Welcome to the forums!
I must say that I really enjoy your site! It seems like it's designed very well and is absolutely full of information. You have a distinct, high-contrast color scheme and a printable version -- very nice! There are just a few little things here and there.
- Do you actually say on the home page that this is a rental house? You discuss special offers, have testimonials, etc., and your page title says that the property sleeps 12, but if I were a newcomer to your site and didn't know anything about it, "Maison Pasteur, Maureilhan, Languedoc – sleeps 12" wouldn't necessarily be helpful. I suggest an intro paragraph that explicitly states the property is a self-catering holiday rental in a wine-producing village 25 minutes away from the beaches of south France. And I might put something similar in the page title, too, to help with search engine placement.
I don't see any picture captions for your header images... I want to know for sure exactly what those pictures are! e.g. which house is yours on the header picture for "The House?" In most cases it's pretty obvious, but on the web one should never assume the viewer is going to "Get it" without having to be told.
On the "Driving in France: page, for some reason the paragraphs switch from km/h to mph. I'm not sure why on that, but I don't think the French ever drive at 120 mph! However 130 or even 140 km/h is not uncommon on expressways. I've seen 160 a time or two, but that's still nowhere near 120 mph.
Speaking of unit conversions, I do love the tables you have available for doing just that in length, temperature, etc., and the "What is Where" table is great! I love that idea.
On your "Personal brochure" page, the labels for the input boxes are the same color as the cell background... so it looks like two floating input boxes with no label. I'm using Firefox, so it may not look like that in other browsers, though.
I can't decide if I think there are too many links on the left navigation menu or not. Giving people plenty of information is good, but they can also feel overwhelmed by the idea of browsing such a large site. Then again, the amount of information you have available could be a secondary means of bringing people to your site in the first place -- e.g., finding you by searching for "driving rules France" or something. Still, I just personally feel like the menu may be too long. Perhaps you could try breaking it up a bit, just by putting an extra line break between the "Make a Booking" and "The Village" links. This might make things look less daunting while still keeping the information easily accessible. Just a thought, though -- I'm not sure about this one.
Where you put your e-mail address on the page, I suggest using a simple bit of javascript to hide your e-mail address from spam robots that crawl the web searching for new addresses to add to spam lists. I use one on my page and my info@ e-mail is remarkably free of spam (I probably get one spam e-mail every few months).
Cheers!
Brooke
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Paul Carmel
- Posts: 3836
- Joined: Tue Dec 07, 2004 12:25 pm
- Location: Palma Mallorca & Greece
- Contact:
Hello John and Barbara,
I really like your site. Not just the design, pictures and text, which are all very good, but the sheer amount of stuff there, which demonstrates that you really care. If I was a potential renter I would definitely be swayed by the extra effort you have gone to, because if you do it on your website I think you will do the same with the house.
I'll just pick out some little improvements I can suggest:
- Maison Pasteur page. That's a nicely composed picture, but I would take the pool cover off, and I'd also prettify it with pots of flowering geraniums along the wall, or equivalent. That would soften the slightly 'blockish' nature of the facade, and add a bit of colour (red/pink).
- The House. Definitely remove the cars from the pic! I know you have them there to show the scale but I think you would be better off with a nice clean pic, and preferably with the golden light of early morning and evening to warm up the white render.
- General information. This page is quite long, and covers a lot of information, most of which are good selling points. Few people will read all of this on a monitor so I would either present this as a bullet-pointed list, or pick out the keywords in bold, so the scanning eye can pick out paragraphs that are of interest. You have the DVD player and library right at the bottom - easily missed unless someone is reading the whole page.
- The Village. Could be a better picture. It's mostly of the road. The news that the local shop sells good wine for 3 euros a bottle should perhaps be tacked on the end of the first para, rather than the bottom of the page.
- French Life. This paragraph is not terribly appealing, bearing in mind you are selling the location as well as the house: "The village comes to life for a short period in the morning as people are summoned by the church bells and then it goes back to sleep for much of the rest of the day." But it could be just me.
- Temperature page. Why not add a graph of average monthly temps in your location?
- A Week in April. This is a nice idea - one guest's write-up of his week at your house. But although your house gets a good endorsement at the end, the week actually has too many negatives in it. The long para about not getting the flight, how it was raining and cold, the only restaurant in town was full, etc. I personally wouldn't include this.
In general you are not really selling the benefits of the property in your writing. This may be a good thing - just set out the facts and let the pictures do the talking. But I think you could tweak the text by imagining the reader with a thought bubble above his/her head which says "So? What's in it for me?"
For instance, your location - in the heart of a French village - you could work on that to tune into what people's ideal of a French village is and what they might do and how they might feel when there. You don't have to do a Peter Mayle, but a little more flowery wouldn't hurt.
By the way I also agree with everything Brooke wrote above. Except the 120 mph - I've seen plenty of cars doing this and more in France!
I really like your site. Not just the design, pictures and text, which are all very good, but the sheer amount of stuff there, which demonstrates that you really care. If I was a potential renter I would definitely be swayed by the extra effort you have gone to, because if you do it on your website I think you will do the same with the house.
I'll just pick out some little improvements I can suggest:
- Maison Pasteur page. That's a nicely composed picture, but I would take the pool cover off, and I'd also prettify it with pots of flowering geraniums along the wall, or equivalent. That would soften the slightly 'blockish' nature of the facade, and add a bit of colour (red/pink).
- The House. Definitely remove the cars from the pic! I know you have them there to show the scale but I think you would be better off with a nice clean pic, and preferably with the golden light of early morning and evening to warm up the white render.
- General information. This page is quite long, and covers a lot of information, most of which are good selling points. Few people will read all of this on a monitor so I would either present this as a bullet-pointed list, or pick out the keywords in bold, so the scanning eye can pick out paragraphs that are of interest. You have the DVD player and library right at the bottom - easily missed unless someone is reading the whole page.
- The Village. Could be a better picture. It's mostly of the road. The news that the local shop sells good wine for 3 euros a bottle should perhaps be tacked on the end of the first para, rather than the bottom of the page.
- French Life. This paragraph is not terribly appealing, bearing in mind you are selling the location as well as the house: "The village comes to life for a short period in the morning as people are summoned by the church bells and then it goes back to sleep for much of the rest of the day." But it could be just me.
- Temperature page. Why not add a graph of average monthly temps in your location?
- A Week in April. This is a nice idea - one guest's write-up of his week at your house. But although your house gets a good endorsement at the end, the week actually has too many negatives in it. The long para about not getting the flight, how it was raining and cold, the only restaurant in town was full, etc. I personally wouldn't include this.
In general you are not really selling the benefits of the property in your writing. This may be a good thing - just set out the facts and let the pictures do the talking. But I think you could tweak the text by imagining the reader with a thought bubble above his/her head which says "So? What's in it for me?"
For instance, your location - in the heart of a French village - you could work on that to tune into what people's ideal of a French village is and what they might do and how they might feel when there. You don't have to do a Peter Mayle, but a little more flowery wouldn't hurt.
By the way I also agree with everything Brooke wrote above. Except the 120 mph - I've seen plenty of cars doing this and more in France!
Paolo
Lay My Hat
Lay My Hat
I didn't answer your question about getting bookings. You only want to let the school holidays, so that's good. But I wouldn't bank on your own website bringing in many bookings, unless you have it well optimised and with good inbound links. It will be hard for anyone to find it using a search engine, because the rental listing sites will be above you.
So if you can't beat them, join them. Your first year I would pay for at least 4 advertising sites, and the second year you can drop any that are not performing. You can read my long-winded methof of finding the best advertising sites here:
viewtopic.php?t=257
The other option is Google AdWords pay-per-click, with the ads pointing to your site.
So if you can't beat them, join them. Your first year I would pay for at least 4 advertising sites, and the second year you can drop any that are not performing. You can read my long-winded methof of finding the best advertising sites here:
viewtopic.php?t=257
The other option is Google AdWords pay-per-click, with the ads pointing to your site.
Paolo
Lay My Hat
Lay My Hat
Wow -- I don't think I've ever seen anyone in France going 200 kph! That's astonishing...
...that's a pool cover! Oh! Heh... I couldn't quite put my finger on why it looked off.
By the way, when you take a picture of a pool I highly suggest that aside from it being a sunny day, you also get a nice ripple going on the surface of the pool. Then it looks like it's actually being used, as well as picking up all that nice sunlight and reflecting it all over the place.
Cheers!
...that's a pool cover! Oh! Heh... I couldn't quite put my finger on why it looked off.
By the way, when you take a picture of a pool I highly suggest that aside from it being a sunny day, you also get a nice ripple going on the surface of the pool. Then it looks like it's actually being used, as well as picking up all that nice sunlight and reflecting it all over the place.
Cheers!
Brooke