Please review my website

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.
Mosca
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Joined: Wed Jan 19, 2011 3:07 pm
Location: Andalucia, Spain
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Please review my website

Post by Mosca »

Hello,
I would be very grateful if anyone has the time to give us feedback on our site. We have been trading for over five years and have three properties in two villages in the Axarquia, Andalucia, Spain. The site is hosted by Homestead, which is a drag and drop site so I have not developed any HTML skills. My SEO skills are pretty hit and miss too, though I do have Market Samurai.

We have different target markets for each property:
A five bedroom "Big group Holiday" or "Family reunion" house
A two bedroom "Small children family friendly" cottage
A one bedroom "Romantic retreat" for couples

Our USP is authenticity. Experience the authentic rural life of Southern Spain in the breathtaking unspoilt foothills of Mt Maroma (2000m).

We offer a great centre for touring - beach 30 mins, Mountain 30 mins, great cities within reach.
We are great hosts - we meet greet and intervene or not effectively and with sensitivity. We are great cooks. We offer comprehensive and original information in articles and books.

We have a growing market from Canada and the USA
About 30% customers are from the UK
We would like to develop our Spanish and French markets
(these customers can drive to us)

Find us on vivasiesta dot com

Many thanks in advance!!
Last edited by Mosca on Sat Feb 04, 2012 11:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
lorca
Posts: 2358
Joined: Fri Jul 25, 2008 3:34 pm
Location: The Axarquia, Spain

Post by lorca »

BTW - some of you may have seen this website before -
this request is from my husband and webmaster 8)....

Many thanks!
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CSE
Posts: 4414
Joined: Mon Nov 06, 2006 3:34 pm
Location: Galicia

Post by CSE »

I have noticed that some pages change design layouts as I am flicking through. Are they meant to be the same?
When clicking on internal links sometimes I get a new tab/browser other times it opens in the same browser.
Some pages do not have a link to other pages other then the home page.
I am seeing some minor errors in the HTML when I looked at the coding through the validator. Have a look and se if you feel you feel it is important to correct them.
http://validator.w3.org/
I can see there is no sitemap.xml file.
There are no alt text names to the photos. Most, if not all, photos have been scaled down on your website. To help loading times and only if they are not used anywhere else reduce the size of the photos to the size they are posted in the page.
The site loads quickly and clearly. Loads of information, but as I said above the layout changes lets the presentation down for me.

Possible missing information: Knowing a little of the white villages usually you have to park outside the village sometimes car enter with limited access. Are there any parking difficulties for these properties? What about access within the house(s)?

Well done on getting all of those reviews on TA.
The houses look nicely presented, but I am sure they are even better in real life (if only all of us could get that across on a website). I am delighted to see you have an official licence from the Junta de Andalusia too. It must be hard doing businesses with a fair few of those unregistered properties around Andalusia.
I hope someone else will post their review soon.
Never try to out-stubborn your guests.
Wendy@NorthIdaho
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Location: North Idaho, USA
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Post by Wendy@NorthIdaho »

You have beautiful places with wonderful views! I really don't have much to say to improve the site. The only thing I noticed was the font size seemed to be different on the same page between the different paragraphs. So you may want to check that, that point was made to me about my website and when I changed it it definitely looked better.

Great place, I'm sure your guests love it!
Wendy
New Vacation Rental called DayStar Lodge! (Sold Narrows Cottage now have a rental management company called A-List Rental Management)
lorca
Posts: 2358
Joined: Fri Jul 25, 2008 3:34 pm
Location: The Axarquia, Spain

Post by lorca »

Many thanks Wendy and I and I

I and I your comments are really helpful - yes, we are in the process of making the site more consistent - but we will be back for clarification re some of the more technical ones!


Lorca
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CSE
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Joined: Mon Nov 06, 2006 3:34 pm
Location: Galicia

Post by CSE »

I too am in the process of rewriting our website too. It is never as easy as one imagines.
Never try to out-stubborn your guests.
BlueSkyBlueSea
Posts: 22
Joined: Thu Jan 06, 2011 11:36 am
Location: Portland, Dorset
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Post by BlueSkyBlueSea »

Hello,

I noticed on the homepage you are showing several images. You have two rows of 5 images each. Some of the images that make the row up are larger than the area visible. It would be better to convert this row of 5 images to be just one image, but still showing all 5. This takes the number of requests the sever has to make to retieve the images from 10 requests to just two and in the process your file sizes will be that much more reduced as well. As Google now ranks on page speed as well it is always good to keep in mind how to minimize file sizes and number of requests to the server.

You also have an inconsistent look to your hyperlinks which could confuse some visitors.

Hope that helps a little.
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Clive in Abruzzo
Posts: 60
Joined: Mon Aug 29, 2005 8:05 pm
Location: Abruzzo, Italy
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Post by Clive in Abruzzo »

Hello Mosca,

I notice that your site is optimised for wide screen browsing. These days most monitors are running at 1280x1024 pixels but around 45% of my visitors are still viewing at 1024x768 with a very few hanging on to 800x600. This means that when such visitors look at your website they have to use the horizontal scroll bar at the foot of the window in order to see all of your content. Below is a screen capture of what your site looks like when viewed at 1024x768.

Image

The Google translation app has a good go at translation but it's not perfect. I speak fluent Italian and note quite a few errors with the Italian version. Below is a capture of the Italian version of your homepage. You can see that the line, 'a five bedroom holiday home...' is longer as the Google translated version and has therefore wrapped which doesn't look too good.

The translation widget also for me looks very tacky.

Image

The middle TA badge overlaps the bottom one.

By the way it's fairly straightforward to bypass the 'Malaga Villas' link in the centre of the TA badge, however, to do so you will need a tiny bit of html knowledge.

I notice that you don't have a favicon.

A small point which possibly wouldn't bother anyone else - Scrolling down using the browser's vertical scroll bar allows me to move the browser window down about 47 metres. Again, irrespective of the content you can fix that with a bit of css and html. I know, that's easy for me to say....
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Gwion
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Location: Snowdonia, Wales.
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Post by Gwion »

Having asked for peoples opinion on our websites I'm trying to add my own reviews as suggested.

Great photo's. I love the way you have the sun pouring in through windows others with the lights on adding contrast etc. I think there really great.

I'm not so keen on the layout. Maybe buying a template might be the way to go. Where you buy a template depends on what you're using to edit your website.

Brilliant comment from the Guardian. I wish I could get coverage like that.

I'm no expert so please ignore all of the above.

Gwion.
lorca
Posts: 2358
Joined: Fri Jul 25, 2008 3:34 pm
Location: The Axarquia, Spain

Post by lorca »

Thanks a lot folks for taking the time to comment

We´ve just found a bit of time to do this

I know we´ve taken a difficult route ( a drag and drop set up, but not a template). However, despite having no HTML skills, we´d rather try and improve our current site, rather than go down the template route at this stage.

I´ll start with the stuff I understand...... and will be back with questions about the rest :oops:
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Gwion
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Location: Snowdonia, Wales.
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Post by Gwion »

lorca wrote:Thanks a lot folks for taking the time to comment

We´ve just found a bit of time to do this

I know we´ve taken a difficult route ( a drag and drop set up, but not a template). However, despite having no HTML skills, we´d rather try and improve our current site, rather than go down the template route at this stage.

I´ll start with the stuff I understand...... and will be back with questions about the rest :oops:
It's a difficult decision to make I know. If your building the website as a hobby, then great. If you're hoping to become a web designer, then great. But if you want to sell holidays I'm not convinced self build is the way to go.

Say you were a chef starting a new restaurant. You could probably build the kitchen from scratch. Buy the wood, learn to use a chisel etc. You'd be rightfully proud of your creation, but the restaurant would have suffered. A compromise might be to go to B&B and buy the pre made units. Then fix them in place as you want. Or third, you just get the professionals in and concentrate on the cooking.

I suspect this is more of a hobby for you. Which is admirable, and you should be proud of what you've achieved so far. But readers of this forum should not be fooled. Too often students of a 2 day HTML courses in an adult learning centre leave thinking that they can create a commercially successfully website from scratch. It wont happen.
lorca
Posts: 2358
Joined: Fri Jul 25, 2008 3:34 pm
Location: The Axarquia, Spain

Post by lorca »

Thanks Gwion

It´s a difficult one. The rentals are certainly not a hobby for us, they are our only source of income.

You may be right that a professionally designed website or template would be better . However we are constantly adding and updating our information, and we like to be able to stay in control of this. Templates have many advantages, but all things considered, we prefer the personal feel of the DIY option. I know it´s not ideal, but we think it reflects the style of our properties and area pretty well. I know it does need lots of work, esp re consistency of style and layout - but, amateur as it is - I think it´s the best option for us at the moment, flaws and all. Our client group seems to like it, and John´s done a great deal of work on SEO - so we´re on page one for our main keywords.

Sorry if this sounds defensive - I know there´s a lot to do. I´m taking on board all the comments (for which e are very grateful) and if we can possibly act on them with the knowledge and system we have then we will.
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Windy
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Location: Windermere UK

Post by Windy »

I know it does need lots of work, esp re consistency of style and layout
That's what CSS is for. It's not terribly difficult to master - you are more than halfway there after all.

Take a look at www.sitepoint.com for some starter material. It's a great resource.
lorca
Posts: 2358
Joined: Fri Jul 25, 2008 3:34 pm
Location: The Axarquia, Spain

Post by lorca »

Windy wrote:
I know it does need lots of work, esp re consistency of style and layout
That's what CSS is for. It's not terribly difficult to master - you are more than halfway there after all.

Take a look at www.sitepoint.com for some starter material. It's a great resource.
Brilliant site, thanks!

I shall read and digest - 8)
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Jimbo
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Post by Jimbo »

Gwion wrote: If your building the website as a hobby, then great. If you're hoping to become a web designer, then great. But if you want to sell holidays I'm not convinced self build is the way to go ... Too often students of a 2 day HTML courses in an adult learning centre leave thinking that they can create a commercially successfully website from scratch. It wont happen.
Interesting discussion: does advanced technology help or hinder?

Until recently, professional photographers served apprenticeships or went to college to learn their trade the hard way (reciprocity failure – the horror!). Automatic cameras were for amateur dilettantes. But the cameras just got better and better and began to work more quickly and efficiently than their sophisticated human masters. There were always the ‘trap situations’ where only knowledge could save you, but camera designers became ever more subtle in overcoming these problems and the gap (once huge) between professional and amateur becomes ever narrower.

I regularly meet pro photographers who cheerfully proclaim that they haven’t a clue how their cameras work but are earning a living nevertheless. Then again, they probably drove to the assignment in a car in which the same applies.

Jim
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