Any interested in giving feedback on 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.
Wendy@NorthIdaho
Posts: 744
Joined: Thu Oct 07, 2010 7:03 pm
Location: North Idaho, USA
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Any interested in giving feedback on my website?

Post by Wendy@NorthIdaho »

Hello,
A couple of years ago, I went through this process here on LMH and was really able to improve my site (painful though it was :D ) We have now added another rental (the condo) and some feedback we've received was that the website was confusing? I've tried to remedy that but would like to know the following:

1. Is the website confusing?

2. Is it clear that there are two rentals and that they are not connected on the same property?

3. Am I driving people away from the condo? not as many hits on it as the cottage. Maybe people just not as interested in condos?

4. Any suggestions on how to keep people on the website or to make things clearer appreciated!

5. Any other comments that you think would make my website better that I have not included above are welcome also.

www.NarrowsCottage-TwinLakesIdaho.com

Thank you for your time,
Wendy
New Vacation Rental called DayStar Lodge! (Sold Narrows Cottage now have a rental management company called A-List Rental Management)
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wallypott
Posts: 1421
Joined: Sat Mar 27, 2010 9:50 pm

Post by wallypott »

Hi Wendy

Congrats on getting number 2 up and running. Just very first impressions here:

Yes very clear there are two properties, but they both appear on the left hand side of my page, they don't centre on the open page if you see what I mean, and the back ground page/frame is rather a sombre grey/blue - like rain clouds - is the thing that comes to mind for me!!
Pmagowan
Posts: 198
Joined: Tue Aug 07, 2012 1:11 pm
Location: Tuscany
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Post by Pmagowan »

Your 'front page' does look a little cluttered and confusing to me. Starting with your title, I would prefer (especially with someone offering 2 properties) to see a professional looking logo or name such as 'Twin lakes vacations' then have your more descriptive and long title relegated into a slogan such as 'Beautiful cottage or condo in North Idaho'

Your side menu seems to be a combination of both properties. This is confusing. You have a sub-site for each. the main menu should only be for common things such as location, local attractions etc.

I also do not like the small caption text above and below the images. I would just have the description (currently above) placed below or made into a mouse-hover text caption. The information about the property I would put in large font under each picture in the text box.

For the images I would have a photo of each property rather than the one of the cottage and then the one of the condo's view. This helps people to see that there are 2 properties. Then I would just put 'Narrows Cottage' and 'Narrows Condo' rather than NC homepage. Follow this with a description, as above, in list format so that each property is easily comparable. If you are going to put 'our condo offers the following' then you should also have 'our cottage offers the following' otherwise it looks like you favour t he condo and the cottage has no attractions.

The background is a bad colour and texture. Make it plain and simple. The bottom of your page is crowded with duplicate 'seals of approval' and you explain stuff right at the bottom that should be obvious by the time you have reached there and thus is redundant. You won't need the text above the menu if you split the menu as above.

Sorry it all sounds negative, in general the site looks good and does contain all the right information. I suppose constructive criticism always looks negative! All in my opinion of course and others may disagree.
Wendy@NorthIdaho
Posts: 744
Joined: Thu Oct 07, 2010 7:03 pm
Location: North Idaho, USA
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Post by Wendy@NorthIdaho »

Thank you both for your comments, I really appreciate an outside eye looking at the site. It's so easy to not really "see" it when you work on it yourself!

I think you both have valid points and will go through and see what I can do to change some of those items. I am limited by the following though. I am not a programmer... so can only do what the template allows me to do. So am not sure about the side menus improvement. I have been bothered by that myself but when I call the company there is no other alternative. I can only choose which side to have the menu on... but will go though all the comments and see how I can implement some of the other ideas for improvements.

Thank you again,
Wendy
New Vacation Rental called DayStar Lodge! (Sold Narrows Cottage now have a rental management company called A-List Rental Management)
Pmagowan
Posts: 198
Joined: Tue Aug 07, 2012 1:11 pm
Location: Tuscany
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Post by Pmagowan »

Who or what do you use to develop your web-page? A simple way to sort it out is to work on it like it was three seperate sites. One for the main 'front page' with a simple menu like;
Narrows cottage
Narrows condo
Local information
Contact us

Then a seperate site with its own menu each for N cottage and N Condo. Their menu would be more like:
Features
Photos
Booking
Contact us

The menus do not have to be long. People will generally know that location will be in a contact us section. Guest quotes can be intersperced on a site inside big quote marks for emphasis.

Many templates will allow sub menus where you can have e.g;

Properties; Condo
; Cottage

Have a good think about what you would like to achieve. Look at other people's sites and see which look most appealing to you, which get the information across in a simple way and which encourage you to book. I am not a programmer either and my website is not finished yet (already on third total rehash). I used googlepages first, then iweb and am now on paid-for software called Rapidweaver. There is a learning curve but anyone could learn it and both google and youtube tutorials are invaluable.
Wendy@NorthIdaho
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Location: North Idaho, USA
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Post by Wendy@NorthIdaho »

O.k, I did some "tweaking" but there are some things I can't change.

1. I added text to even out a bit between the cottage and condo on the main home page.

2. The background color on my monitor is an ocean/periwinkle blue with small waves... so of my choices (in the template) seemed the one best suited to a lakeside vacation rental.

3. As far as the duplicate "seals" at the bottom, I was able to get rid of one, but the one that looks like a duplicate is only so on the main page and then the other 2 disappear as you go to the other pages because the one is on the footer so per my agreement I think it stays...

4. I'm really not up to linking to or developing another 1 or 2 websites, frankly my energy level/interest level in learning how to do so is at an end... sorry to be so blunt about that but I have so much going on and if this isn't turning people away from my business then I probably won't be doing that. :oops:

5. As far as the titles and labeling of the photos go, I had heard it was good for SEO and it also gives the guest more info which I always like when I'm looking for myself. (used some key words in the titles that come up when searching) So really not sure what to do about those suggestions. Do you think they are a really bad thing?

6. I think if I put a photo of the outside of the condo it would be too easy for people to find it along with the map so that is why I've only put the views and photos of the courtyard. I don't want to advertise the exact location along with when it is occupied, etc.. to everyone. So that was the reasoning behind that decision...

Thank you both again for your suggestions, I will take another look at background colors to see if there is a better one but this one may be the best I have to work with. I hope you don't take offense that I've not incorporated all of your suggestions but if you read my reasons above and believe they really are not valid (I'm no SEO expert! :? ect..) I won't be offended to hear them.

Thanks again,
Wendy
New Vacation Rental called DayStar Lodge! (Sold Narrows Cottage now have a rental management company called A-List Rental Management)
tavi
Posts: 2578
Joined: Wed Sep 14, 2011 9:07 pm
Location: Algarve

Post by tavi »

Hi Wendy,

Just a quick thought.

on the cottage home page you mention "new for 2012" and also refer to "thanksgiving and Christmas"
:!: :)
Pmagowan
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Location: Tuscany
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Post by Pmagowan »

Looks better. Re the photos on front page; one looks like a view of the property and the other looks like a view FROM the property. I think this is whay there is confusion when looking at your site. Also for SEO I think you just need the text in the 'alt' section where it is only visable to people who don't get the picture. It just looks funny to me with so many different sizes and styles of text.

You could put all your stickers in the footer and that way you would not have a duplicate in page 1. It just doesn't look good.

When I mentioned doing 3 websites that was only my suggestion of the style, not actually 3 websites. You would only have to cut and paste to do it. It would simply tidy up your main menu buttons. Alternatively your software may have a tick box for not including a page on the menu so that you could put some pages on a second level. If you click on my website, (it is not finished) and mouse over 'Tuscany' in the menu you will see what I mean.

Yours looks a good bit better already. I understand about the time thing! :D
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greenfrog
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Post by greenfrog »

Well done on getting the website up! It's a lot of work at first but it gets easier!

It's quite clear there are two properties, although I agree that it might be even clearer if you had a shot of each property as the main shots.

I too see it all on the left of the screen, which is a little odd. If you move the menu to the right, does it spread it out more? It's not a huge deal though if your template seems stuck that way.

Best of luck!
Lounging on the lily pad...
Damien Meuzac
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Location: Nendaz, Switzerland
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Post by Damien Meuzac »

Yep good job on putting up the website, never an easy task.

So for my critics:

1) I agree with the others, that although it is clear you have 2 properties, the way it is presented on the 1rst page is maybe not the best. Their advice is quite good, so I won't extend on that.

2) Everything is also on the left for me, I don't know if it's on purpose, but doesn't render great. (I'm on winxp, using the latest version of Chrome). If not made on purpose, I suggest you do some research on how to make this work on most browsers. I don't remember now, but I know there are some new easier ways to do that nowadays ;)

3)Everything appears quite disorganized on everypage ( I guess it's related to point 2)

4)You might want to give another title (It might require new arragement of pictures) than " Cottage photo 1" and " Cottage photo 2" So it's a bit clearer what we have to expect .. such as cottage exterior and cottage interior for example..

5)Location page: You might want to give title to your 2 google maps, again another proof here that you need to "seperate" websites for your properties. Or either a general menu with 2 seperate submenus that appear for one or the other property.

6)You might wanna add some colors in the text or change font, difficult to read through Rates & Calendars or Area activities

7)Area activities has too much info on one page, soo many links too.. just looks like a mess, like you tried to put as much as possible, but nothing really attracting me here. What is your opiniion about these activities, what are actually the best stuff to do around there? Maybe some subpages necessary if you want to put in all that info, don't know or you can make a nice pdf to download (see this for example of a great travel guide: http://www.vacationrentalmarketingblog. ... youll-see/ )and on the webpage just put some info with a bit more text ;).

8)Amenities page is nice and clear, that's good :)

OK, hope I wasn't too harsh, just trying to help ;)

All the best
Damien Collot

www.meusacrentals.com
KathyG
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Location: Le Faou, Brittany
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Post by KathyG »

My first thought was: "What's a condo?" I've heard the expression but no idea what it is...... Also, I'm glad to hear the duvet covers are washed between each let, bit shocking that they wouldn't be! Brits will use just the duvet and not a sheet between body and duvet normally. Your 600 thread sheets are mentioned 4 times on the Condo page, overdoing it a bit I think, having already read it on the first page.

Fonts for your captions is a little small and I agree it should be either above or below the photo and not both.

I still don't know what a condo is, having read the whole condo page..... :wink:
Kathy
Waterfront location in Le Faou
"My goal in life is to become as wonderful as my dog thinks I am."
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