A third attempt and maybe, just maybe...

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.
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Garri
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Post by Garri »

Catherine, I would take a wild guess and say that 95% of the sites on the web are probably 'home made', in that they are made at home by people with varying degrees of professionalism. A wide spectrum at that.

Some websites designed by 'professionals' are amateurish, and some websites designed by 'amateurs' are professional.

I'm not sure your average punter books a holiday because the website has a homemade charm, I'd be amazed if they did and good luck to you if they do. What I do know is we make our minds up as to what is good and what is bad very quickly - how many milliseconds do you have to make an impression? With the amount of competition only being a click away I would not be making too many assumptions that a 'charming' homemade site, call them what you will, is enough to make an impression these days.

There was a survey (Mori?) about people's attitudes towards web sites that revealed 75% of people interviewed judge a web site on the professionalism of the design.

They also said the use of text, use of images and overall layout were important. For me, the most interesting revelation was that 93% said they felt content was reliable if it "appeared" up to date. This is great news for bloggers.

51% said finding the information they needed was "fairly" easy.
In my experience (and I have another site linked to a travel company which does feature an availability calendar and is updated regularly) people ignore the calendars anyway and still contact me!
Nicola, in my experience I would be one of those people! I'm not a fan of the 'availability' calendar, and from your experience it would seem I'm not alone.
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enid
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Post by enid »

But remember, some people also get put off if the site is too professional
I agree with you in that a good site done by the owner of a property can be more appealing than a site done for the owner - somehow the owner puts a bit of themselves into the site and their love of their property and their region can come through. I agree that people could can get put off by a too amateur site but that isn't the case here. But then I think we've been here before Garri.
la vache!
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Post by la vache! »

Garri,
can you give more reasons as to why are you so against availability calendars? I put one on my site this year as I had a couple of e-mails last year from people saying that they were fed up with looking for holidays and wasting their time enquiring about dates which were already fully booked. If they could have checked the availability, it would have saved them time and effort. However, I'm not totally in favour of them myself and know there is the potential (as Nicola says) to convert enquiries into future bookings even if the dates wanted are booked.
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Garri
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Post by Garri »

somehow the owner puts a bit of themselves into the site and their love of their property and their region can come through.
You would think that to be case but I haven't seen many (not to say I haven't seen any) examples of that being true. I've had to look at hundreds of rental sites lately and if they love their properties then they should at least take some half decent piccies.

Bad photos I would say is the most common problem, which is odd because that is probably the most fundamental aspect when looking for somewhere nice to spend your holiday. Get that right, and you're half way there to selling me the dream.
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Garri
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Post by Garri »

Susan, the short answer to that is they're a waste of time, less so perhaps on owners' own sites but a hideous waste of time and space on listings sites.
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enid
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Post by enid »

Looking at the sites that I've reviewed on Lay My Hat I stand by my observation. We're just going to have to agree to disagree again Garri.
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Garri
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Post by Garri »

We're just going to have to agree to disagree again Garri.
OK
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enid
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Post by enid »

a hideous waste of time and space on listings sites.
I used to agree about this but have changed my mind as the avaialbility calnedar in HR works very well for me. Can I assume that you won't be having availability calendars on your rental listing site Garri - any date for launch yet?
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Garri
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Post by Garri »

Can I assume that you won't be having availability calendars on your rental listing site Garri - any date for launch yet?
It was launched in October last year but to call it a rental listings site would be doing it a disservice :wink:
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enid
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Post by enid »

Can you give the URL for it?
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Garri
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Post by Garri »

enid wrote:Can you give the URL for it?
Sorry but I did promise publicly on this forum that I wouldn't promote it on here. I guess you'll discover it naturally though at some point.
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paolo
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Post by paolo »

Garri wrote:Sorry but I did promise publicly on this forum that I wouldn't promote it on here. I guess you'll discover it naturally though at some point.
There is nothing to stop you linking to it in a signature (without accompanying text) or in your www link.
Paolo
Lay My Hat
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paolo
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Post by paolo »

I think all competitive listing sites will have to have availability searches, which is by the by, but it's interesting that vrbo, which is the most successful listing site, has just announced it is adding availability search. That means they have to cajole their 50,500 advertisers into adding a calendar - I think most still don't have one. Good luck to them in achieving that. The first email they sent out about this left me quite confused about what to do next.
Paolo
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Garri
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Post by Garri »

I think all competitive listing sites will have to have availability searches
Without giving too much away, I think there's another solution and that's all I can say at this point :wink:
There is nothing to stop you linking to it in a signature (without accompanying text) or in your www link.
You're right, there is nothing to stop me :wink:
MadDogWoman
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Post by MadDogWoman »

I've just published my third attempt. I've taken on board the feedback and it's still a work in progress. :lol: I need to take some better photos of the pool now that it is finished but on the whole, what do you think?

I liked the look of Catherine's horizontal navigation so borrowed her style. The text is pretty much the same as before and the photos edited to removed the copyright thing.
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