What do you think??!!

[lehcar]

Hi,
Have just recently finished my latest website, for my own villa this time!!

website here

Wanted a nice small website, not too much fuss.

Not sure about the scrolling boxes though, are you folks happy to scroll the info? Or should it just run down the page?

Thanks
(please be gentle with me, only my 2nd post!)

[Sue Dyer]

Hi there Lehcar The site looks excellent, very professional. I'm not too sure about the scroll within a scroll though..... The text is a bit small too, I'm at the stage when I need my hubble telescope reading glasses for most things.

You seem to have thought of everything though and I'm really impressed!

[roxytoo]

I love it!!

I want to go!!

[charles]

Hi,

Not sure about the scrolling boxes - but they're not out of place considering the overall (very nice) effect of the site + some people may not intuitively look for a scroll bar other than at the side of the browser.

Two things that spoils it for me: the little red box and the multicolour stats box on the front page (doesn't fit the professional look of the rest of the site) and the "info not available" when you click "local area".

Shame it doesn't work in Mozilla Firefox and Opera too - you may have to address this issue as these browsers are gaining popularity. Happy to report it works fine in my currently favourite browser Deepnet Explorer as well as IE 6.0!

Cheers
Charles

[alexia s.]

There are tons of lovely photos, but none of the interiors (or, if there, are, I couldn't find them). I wouldn't book anywhere that didn't show the interior. Apart from that, it's a lovely site.

[lehcar]

Thanks everyone for your replies.

Charles - Yes I'm not so keen on the stat box and red one, have been thinking about changing them, you've made my mind up!
Am still putting together local area info, so that should be up and running soon.
This browser business is a nightmare and I still haven't conquered them all yet! Some of my website designs work across the board but some only really IE which is why I stated it at top of oleander site.......must look into it further. Thanks for your constructive crit.

alexia s - Yes, interior photos, I am concerned about this at the mo, although I have still got bookings for next year!!
The thing is the property is still being finished and should be ready by xmas when we go out for 2 weeks and furnish it. We stayed there in August for 3 weeks and got a lot of the outside finished but was not ready for furniture at the time (apart from a few mattresses and fridge and micro for us to use while there, was great fun, even managed to fill the pool and just topped it up with chemical every other day!)

Thanks again guys, you've been very helpful.

[Giddy Goat]

Hi Lehcar,
I'm a bit shy of reviewing other owners' websites, as the reader automatically thinks the writer is doing so from a position of authority! However I've seen enough sites on LayMyHat now to be convinced that most of us are already on the right track - we're keen and interested in the whole subject of marketing, that's why we're here! The people who really need our help don't know such a site exits, and probably don't even think there might be a better way. Hooray to Paolo for giving us this tool. Your villa in Kefalonia is no exception - it's a very cute property in a lovely situation, and the site, attractive and colourful, does it complete justice. Unless I missed something however, I didn't see any interior shots, (later - have just read Alexia's comment and your reply) and the only other negative-ish comment would be that there is a certain amount of duplication of photos. And when it came to clicking onto the box on the right (Welcome to Oleander Villa) - it wouldn't allow me to scroll down at all. A minor point!

[lehcar]

Hi Aussie Jane,

Thanks for your comments.

Am hoping to upload a few interior shots in January, although my Mum has just sent me a few of the lounge/dining area so may put them on soon.
The place is still not furnished and the grass has only just grown through. The main picture of our villa was edited in photoshop, by me, to give it grass, patio, railings and shrubs! But it's all coming together now and will look exactly the same as the artist impression by early next year.

Not sure what you meant about photo duplication - Whenever the viewer clicks on a photo on one of the main pages it takes them to a pop up larger version which is the main photo album and from here they can choose to view all photos on the website or just close and move on. Perhaps I need to make this more obvious - do you think?

When you say "(Welcome to Oleander Villa) - it wouldn't allow me to scroll down at all." not quite sure what you mean, what are you clicking on? Can you tell me which browser you use IE/Netscape etc) and on which platform (pc/mac) and with which software (98/xp/os9/os10 or other) so that I can work out a solution.

Thanks again for your input, it's very helpful to recieve different comments/points of view.

Rachel

[Giddy Goat]

Hi Rachel - this is third time lucky. As you can see from my pic, my IT skills are very basic and I lost 2 previous attempts and couldn't recover them ..... baaaaaaaa!!!!

To answer your questions, we have a Mac OSX 10.3.9, and use IE 5.2.3. It was the vertical scroll bar to the right of the 'welcome to Oleander Villa' photo that would not work, neither would the arrows at the foot of the same photo. However, when I used Safari to access the site, there were no problems! So that was a useful discovery to me, and I hope it helps U 2.

By repetitions of photos, I guess I meant that people visiting the site for the first time may not necessarily do so in an organised fashion, and may just click onto images randomly, thus dipping in and out of the album. But this is not anything you need to change and I shouldn't have mentioned it perhaps - after all, each time the visitor sees the same photo again, he/she is reminded of what a lovely property you have.

However I do agree with others, that the scrolling for info might make some people impatient. Also, have you tried printing pages from the site, and whether the scrolling facility makes it difficult? I haven't, but there are some clients who like to have the printed info to refer to.

[lehcar]

Thanks Jane for all your comments.

The printing issue - haven't thought about that one! I suppose I'm so used to having all my info stored on my computer, the computer is permanently on in our house, the office is off the lounge, so i never need to print stuff myself!! I had planned to do a printable brochure, probably using PDF files that viewers can download and then print. Better get on with it.......

Thanks again everyone.

oh - we have 7 weeks booked now - can't believe it!! and all through our website!!

[paolo]

Having whizzed around your site, I do think the information is very well structured. The trouble is that it is not like other websites, so it is not intuitive to use. This may lose you visitors, but never mind, this is the way your site is, and it is getting you bookings by itself, so it must be doing something right. 7weeks booked without an internal pic - perhaps all websites should be like this?

[lehcar]

Hi guys,

I have now put links to pdf versions of pages on my site so that it can be printed. Thanks Jane for giving me a push to sort this out!

We should be able to put some interior shots on there very soon. Can't wait....only 3 weeks before we go out there for christmas!

Rachel

[Giddy Goat]

No worries Lehcar, glad it's all sorted, and look forward to the interior shots - I had great fun doing ours. Let us all know when they're on the site. We're going to France for Christmas so are looking forward to that too, though it's our daughter's 21st to experience before that - next Sat in fact, and funnily enough we're having a Greek evening!

Yassou! (sp?)

[lehcar]

Hope you all had good christmas and new year celebrations!

We had 2 weeks of hard work at our place in Kefalonia.....we did have christmas day off though to be with the kids, poor things they've never watched so many DVD's!!

Anyway, we now have at long last interior photos on our website, so those of you who are interested, please take a look.

Cheers
and a Happy and prosperous New Year!

[Giddy Goat]

Hey Lehcar/Rachel - just looked at your site and the interior photos - the villa looks super, as does the website. No wonder you've already got a deposit for 2007! Congrats, and I hope you'll have many happy times there yourselves.