Having read the thread about asking for opinions witout an introduction, I have finally said hello everyone (after 8 months of just looking on), and now I really would like some honest opinions about our website: www.lfrgites.com
It is the first time I have done anything of this sort so I realise there could be a lot needing change - but please don't too technical about advice, I will need it in plain english!
I must admit to regularly feeling the need to tweak the site, but not sure if I end up improving things or not.
A much tinkered with first website, is it enough?
Hi,
I like your website as it seems simple and to the point. You have 2 cottages and lead in with 2 big photos of very charming looking accomodation and other photos that give you a good feel for the standard and type of lodging offered. It might be nice to have a small map on the first page so that people can situate you straight away. It is not at all apparent if you are on the coast or rural without delving further.
Yes font type could be a bit more sophisticated but it's not shocking as is.
I cannot tell you how to do it but it is just as important to look at meta titles and titles etc for SEO or does all your traffic come to you from listings?
I like your website as it seems simple and to the point. You have 2 cottages and lead in with 2 big photos of very charming looking accomodation and other photos that give you a good feel for the standard and type of lodging offered. It might be nice to have a small map on the first page so that people can situate you straight away. It is not at all apparent if you are on the coast or rural without delving further.
Yes font type could be a bit more sophisticated but it's not shocking as is.
I cannot tell you how to do it but it is just as important to look at meta titles and titles etc for SEO or does all your traffic come to you from listings?
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kendalcottages
- Posts: 2474
- Joined: Fri Nov 27, 2009 11:08 am
- Location: Kendal, between the Lake District and the Dales
- Contact:
A big first problem for me is the size of the page. It doesn't fit on a 1024x768 screen resolution, the size used most by most internet users (when I last looked at the figures).
Kendal Holiday Cottages Ltd., Kendal, Cumbria - between the Lake District & the Yorkshire Dales.
I use Firefox and also found the font too large.
The banner/all of the information goes right across my screen. But do all of your visitors use 1280 wide screen resolution? There is nothing more annoying then to have to pan across a page.
On the first page the first paragraphs overlap the first photos. Not by much but it makes the last line difficult to read.
Also in your prices page the paypal symbol does not sit easily and again overlaps some of the wording. I have found this also on a number of occasions on various other pages on your site.
Season: For me the dates are a bit vague too. When is half term? When is exactly whitsun included? When are the Xmas (not Christmas?) holidays? You ought add exact dates to cover any confusion.
One last thing way are you using PNG graphic files? It thought the best way to present photos was JPEG. With JPEG you can obtain a better compression and still keep a relics image quality.
I do like the colours they are bright and cheerful. The layout is clear too.
Hope this helps.
The banner/all of the information goes right across my screen. But do all of your visitors use 1280 wide screen resolution? There is nothing more annoying then to have to pan across a page.
On the first page the first paragraphs overlap the first photos. Not by much but it makes the last line difficult to read.
Also in your prices page the paypal symbol does not sit easily and again overlaps some of the wording. I have found this also on a number of occasions on various other pages on your site.
Season: For me the dates are a bit vague too. When is half term? When is exactly whitsun included? When are the Xmas (not Christmas?) holidays? You ought add exact dates to cover any confusion.
One last thing way are you using PNG graphic files? It thought the best way to present photos was JPEG. With JPEG you can obtain a better compression and still keep a relics image quality.
I do like the colours they are bright and cheerful. The layout is clear too.
Hope this helps.
Never try to out-stubborn your guests.
I'm using Firefox too and the layout and font sizes both seemed fine to me. Not being techy I have no idea what my settings or resolution are (would expect that they are standard as I haven't changed anything). Widthwise I see the background at both sides of the page - no horizontal scrolling needed. I need to scroll downwards, but not excessively so.
Also no other layout issues, except perhaps a slightly misplaced paypal link/info on the prices page.
Also no other layout issues, except perhaps a slightly misplaced paypal link/info on the prices page.
I think this screen size issue is down to whether you use a widescreen or not.
If you are on a standard screen, you have to close your favourites down manually, rather than have it done automatically (like on LMH). I'm sure that's easy to resolve.
Other than that, I think it gives a lovely impression, and a very good idea of what to expect, and to me it is clear that a lot of thought and a lot of design-nous has gone into the houses. Well done, in general, Pen.
If I can pick a fault, I really don't go for the green-on-green colour scheme, it turns me off, but that's personal taste, init?
Bon Chance
Moliere
If you are on a standard screen, you have to close your favourites down manually, rather than have it done automatically (like on LMH). I'm sure that's easy to resolve.
Other than that, I think it gives a lovely impression, and a very good idea of what to expect, and to me it is clear that a lot of thought and a lot of design-nous has gone into the houses. Well done, in general, Pen.
If I can pick a fault, I really don't go for the green-on-green colour scheme, it turns me off, but that's personal taste, init?
Bon Chance
Moliere
Jumping is just dressage with speed-bumps.
You know, LV, I thought "Whoops" the moment I submitted it . . . but I was called away to something else by the Boss, and didn't get a chance to repair it!
I guess I'd better leave it now, otherwise this corresponence won't make any sense.
Mea culpa - why do these damn foreigners insist on assigning gender to their words? They can sex-up their vocabulary quicker than Alistair Campbell can sex-up a dossier!
Mols
I guess I'd better leave it now, otherwise this corresponence won't make any sense.
Mea culpa - why do these damn foreigners insist on assigning gender to their words? They can sex-up their vocabulary quicker than Alistair Campbell can sex-up a dossier!
Mols
Jumping is just dressage with speed-bumps.
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Rocket Rab
- Posts: 2248
- Joined: Mon Sep 18, 2006 5:37 pm
- Contact:
Thanks everyone, I'm trying to digest this lot and do some more tweaking. Not sure about location confusion though it - it says rural in the first line, but I guess there is room to expand on that.
Casasantoestevo - I hadn't even thought about screen size - silly really now I've checked on our old computer I can see the problem, so will resize some things to correct it.
We get a reasonable number of french and dutch bookings and as their half-terms are different to UK ones I prefer to be a bit vague about exact season dates - it also saves having to alter dates each year!
Until last summer all our bookings were either via listing sites, word of mouth or repeats, but the demise of holiday let - which worked very well for us led to a re-think.
We have now collected a few reservations directly from our site, but my knowledge of how fonts affect SEO is non existant!
Sorry if green is a big issue - I just wanted to get away from blue which every site in Brittany seems to use, and as a lot of our guests are walkers etc it seemed appropriate.
For some reason we get a lot of interest from Australia and also from single sex couples - not worked out why on either front - any ideas???
Casasantoestevo - I hadn't even thought about screen size - silly really now I've checked on our old computer I can see the problem, so will resize some things to correct it.
We get a reasonable number of french and dutch bookings and as their half-terms are different to UK ones I prefer to be a bit vague about exact season dates - it also saves having to alter dates each year!
Until last summer all our bookings were either via listing sites, word of mouth or repeats, but the demise of holiday let - which worked very well for us led to a re-think.
We have now collected a few reservations directly from our site, but my knowledge of how fonts affect SEO is non existant!
Sorry if green is a big issue - I just wanted to get away from blue which every site in Brittany seems to use, and as a lot of our guests are walkers etc it seemed appropriate.
For some reason we get a lot of interest from Australia and also from single sex couples - not worked out why on either front - any ideas???
Like others, the first thing I noticed was the overall width of your design which is governed by the main header (1230 px). That will undoubtedly cause problems for many people. I know the iMac is shipping these days with a screen no smaller than 21", but laptops are generally more popular than they ever were and they usually come with much smaller screens.
An increasingly popular method in web design is using grid based layouts, my personal weapon of choice is 960.gs - it's actually a CSS framework, meaning it comes with base code which you can use and adapt as you like.
In terms of how fonts affect SEO, that shouldn't be a problem. You can easily change the size of fonts using CSS. I notice in your CSS file that you're using fonts such as Book Antiqua and Sprint SF. I don't have these fonts on my system so the alternative serif font you've designated will be applied instead in this instance.
Web typography is a discipline in and of itself and one hugely neglected. In my opinion, it's better to design websites using web safe fonts but use subtle typographic techniques with the CSS to enhance them and give some variation.
An invaluable little tool for checking the look of web safe fonts, and others, and for adjusting attributes on the fly is Typetester. It even churns out the CSS code for you!
If you must use specific fonts then restrict them to headings and/or sub-headings and make them images. You'll lose out on SEO doing this but at least you can use the font you want. That's a trade off I wouldn't make, but each to their own.
Other techniques for using specific fonts include Flash (same SEO issue as using images), or an increasingly popular method is using a Jquery plugin called Cufon - I'm seeing a few WordPress themes using this technique.
Other considerations for using specific fonts in your design are:
- @font-face: a css rule which allows you to download a particular font from your server to render a webpage if the user hasn't got that font installed. This means that web designers will no longer have to adhere to a particular set of "web safe" fonts that the user has pre-installed on their computer. More info can be found here: http://www.font-face.com
- Typekit: This will change the way you design websites. Add a line of code to your pages and choose from hundreds of fonts. Simple, bulletproof, standards compliant, accessible, and totally legal. More info here: http://typekit.com
This is an area that will develop quite rapidly over the course of this year and next as web standards become more mature and certain browsers catch up.
An increasingly popular method in web design is using grid based layouts, my personal weapon of choice is 960.gs - it's actually a CSS framework, meaning it comes with base code which you can use and adapt as you like.
In terms of how fonts affect SEO, that shouldn't be a problem. You can easily change the size of fonts using CSS. I notice in your CSS file that you're using fonts such as Book Antiqua and Sprint SF. I don't have these fonts on my system so the alternative serif font you've designated will be applied instead in this instance.
Web typography is a discipline in and of itself and one hugely neglected. In my opinion, it's better to design websites using web safe fonts but use subtle typographic techniques with the CSS to enhance them and give some variation.
An invaluable little tool for checking the look of web safe fonts, and others, and for adjusting attributes on the fly is Typetester. It even churns out the CSS code for you!
If you must use specific fonts then restrict them to headings and/or sub-headings and make them images. You'll lose out on SEO doing this but at least you can use the font you want. That's a trade off I wouldn't make, but each to their own.
Other techniques for using specific fonts include Flash (same SEO issue as using images), or an increasingly popular method is using a Jquery plugin called Cufon - I'm seeing a few WordPress themes using this technique.
Other considerations for using specific fonts in your design are:
- @font-face: a css rule which allows you to download a particular font from your server to render a webpage if the user hasn't got that font installed. This means that web designers will no longer have to adhere to a particular set of "web safe" fonts that the user has pre-installed on their computer. More info can be found here: http://www.font-face.com
- Typekit: This will change the way you design websites. Add a line of code to your pages and choose from hundreds of fonts. Simple, bulletproof, standards compliant, accessible, and totally legal. More info here: http://typekit.com
This is an area that will develop quite rapidly over the course of this year and next as web standards become more mature and certain browsers catch up.