Please review rental 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.
paul smith
Posts: 62
Joined: Sun Dec 25, 2005 6:15 pm
Location: Turkey / UK
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Please review rental website

Post by paul smith »

Hi all, first post here and wonder if I could get my rental website reviewed. All comments welcome and any suggestions to improve site would be helpful.

www.holiday-apartment-turkey.co.uk

Paul
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Chalky
Posts: 128
Joined: Sat Aug 13, 2005 1:31 pm
Location: La Duquesa, Costa del Sol
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Post by Chalky »

Hi Paul,

Your site looks very professional, with a nice mixture of colours and good readable fonts.

Personally I don't think the opening flash sequence does you any good at all - it simply wastes the viewer's time. The home page is fine, with a good-size picture, but I wonder if it's the most attractive view to present at the outset. I would prefer one of the two exterior shots you have on the 'apartment' page to open with.

On the 'apartment' page I found I wanted to see more detail - it would be nice to have the facility to enlarge the pictures - and more interior shots.

The 'about alinkum' page is excellent. The 'photo gallery' is good, if a bit "tricksy", though I would have liked some captions to tell me what I was looking at.

Finally, perhaps your copywriter should invest in "Eats, Shoots and Leaves". "Whats on the Complex" should be "What's on the Complex?", and there are a few uses of commas that Lynne Truss would not approve of! :wink:

(Then again, Winston Churchill would not approve of my finishing a sentence with 'of' :lol: )

Good luck,
Last edited by Chalky on Mon Dec 26, 2005 11:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
Chalky

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Jo Tomkinson
Posts: 29
Joined: Sat Jan 29, 2005 11:46 pm
Location: Turkey and Spain
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Review

Post by Jo Tomkinson »

Hi Paul

I like your website, easy to use, however, if I was looking to book your apartment I would want to see more internal photos and also they're quite small.


Good luck

Jo
tizzyboots
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Dec 06, 2005 7:58 pm
Location: France

Post by tizzyboots »

Hi Paul
I'm afraid the opening animation didn't do anything for me either except to make the page longer to load (no broadband here).
The headline text on the next page was overlapping the main text, one home button and six booking buttons:shock: and the main image couldn't load - but I have a Mac (OS 9.2). Unfortunately you will be losing any clients with Macs as I would have given up at that point.
I can email you an image of how the site appears to me but my image hosting site registration has expired for now!
Sorry I can't be more positive
Gill
Give me time to think of something spontaneous!
Paul Carmel
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Joined: Tue Dec 07, 2004 12:25 pm
Location: Palma Mallorca & Greece
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Post by Paul Carmel »

Hi Paul,

Can I ask which website building package you are using?
Cheers
PC
Nightowl
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Joined: Tue Aug 30, 2005 4:14 am
Location: Cadiz, Spain & London
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Post by Nightowl »

I thought the website was quite clear and easy to use - but I agree with the other comments that the intro page doesn't add anything - I reckon most people will just skip it, anyone without broadband may even just close the page altogether and go no further.

I would have liked to have seen more interior photos and less exterior ones as the outside of the building isn't particularly attractive - and I think that interior photos need to be as light as you can get them, touch them up with photoshop if necessary.

Good luck with the coming season.
Nightowl
Forever going one step forwards and two
backwards......
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marcus
Posts: 624
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Location: Lot-Garonne / Dordogne borders
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Post by marcus »

Hi Paul,

I agree with most comments above - scrap the flash intro, more internal pics etc. I didn't personally go for the other picture effects either.

I'm a bit concerned about the large grey stripe down the right hand site and suspect that on a large resolution screen (1200 wide) this will look even more dominant - so I'd centre all the main content and have a strip of grey down each side, or have the 'body' expand to fill the screen a bit more.

I found that the buttons and title on each page took rather too much space, with the 'content' starting almost off the bottom of each screen.

The site name is good for search engines, but then is followed by page names 1, 2, 3 etc - I would change them quickly now to something more appropriate because the longer a site is established the harder it is to change the names (once the search engines know the filenames they shouldn't be changed, ideally).

I'd remove this 'vote about the site' part - it adds further to the slight impression that the site is made from a selection of flash components etc When I looked 3 people ahd 'voted' about your site - 2 said excellent one said very poor. Curious because in reality it is of course between the two, like almost all our sites.

Overall I think it's almost a very good site, and could easily be if you resist the 'flash' stuff and add some more pictures. I know, you spent ages doing them and they looked good - I've done the same myself plenty of times - so it's depressing taking them off again. Take a look at Paul Carmel's site if you haven't yet - that follows a similar general idea to yours.

Cheers
Marcus
paul smith
Posts: 62
Joined: Sun Dec 25, 2005 6:15 pm
Location: Turkey / UK
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Post by paul smith »

Paul Carmel,

I am using 1&1 internet. It’s a build your own website and not costly either. I will be implementing the changes very soon. Flash intro and website rating has now been taken out. As soon as I am able to get new internal pictures they will be added too.

Paul
tizzyboots
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Dec 06, 2005 7:58 pm
Location: France

Post by tizzyboots »

I'm still getting overlapping text an six 'booking' buttons on my Mac, but it's nice to see the Flash intro has disappeared...
Gill
Give me time to think of something spontaneous!
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