Lay My Hat

Still in the early days, all my photos were to big (25mb) so will have to add them later.

http://theoldfirestation.promotemyplace.com

Love the red surround - very appropriate!

The house looks lovely - eagerly await your photos but your home page paragraph will need tidying up - you probably know that. At the moment it's too long and convoluted.

Long paragraphs to be avoided at all costs imho! Travellers need to know immediately if the accommodation is likely to suit their party and they need something to pique their interest to read on.

You can choose a list of highlights to go down one side of the page ...which is always helpful for potential guests.

Your headline in red should impart the important stuff immediately: The Old Firestation, St Margaret's, Kent. - sleeps 5 in 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. (Am sure you could improve on this but you get my drift?)

Then you can go into more detail but either using bullet points or a couple of short-ish paragraphs which really entices them to read more.

The details page is where you can describe the house in more details - with a paragraph for each room maybe?

Hope that helps - must fly.

Thanks Tavi, will get onto that, I've put some photos on now but again they are from another site, so i'll need to replace them asap with my own, at the moment they are numbered wrong and not as clear as they should be, but you'll get the idea.

Some nice internal shots there - very smart My only feeling about your lead photo of the exterior is that perhaps it could do with softening a bit. Is there any prospect of introducing some colour via pots or planting in that border?

Good idea Casscat, i'll get on it. There will be shutters on the windows in a couple of weeks, that might help too.

I love the red touches too, both on the site and throughout the house. What an intriguing space. Also like the way the front windows echo the old fire station doors. First impressions are of a very respectful and sympathetic conversion.

I have only had a brief look through the site, but here is some initial feedback:

I clicked on the 'Photos' tab and nothing happened. I am using a Mac, if that makes any difference? The photos did appear eventually but it took at least 5 seconds. Doesn't sound like a lot but I had already started clicking elsewhere by then. May be worth checking the site from other people's computers to see how it appears.
Also is there any chance of putting a little bit of descriptive text with each photo? I was confused by the pics of the planes immediately after the house. I.e: Are they in the garden? Maybe better to have some general 'Local View' pics first of the seaside etc, then the more detailed ones of local attractions.

No need to apologise for being 'No smoking'! I think most people expect that now. Although perhaps you could make a joke about it being obviously no smoking as it's an ex fire station! (That could make for a lovely, light-hearted but 'get the message across' no-smoking sign in the house itself too. Can you find a pic of a firefighter putting out a cigarette with a hose???)

I was going to suggest moving lots of the text from the front to the second page but see you've already done that

Need to break up the info on the Local Area Information page. Also I found the bit about looking back to Cliffe from France a bit confusing (not knowing the area). It would make more sense if you first say that you can get a ferry over there in x hours (can you do it as a daytrip?)

Overall, it's a great start A clear-looking site and a fab property!

Photos took about 30 secs to load for me!

Thanks Laurel, I've changed the photo load time from 7 to 5 seconds, hopefully that will help, I will be replacing all the photos with my own (these are off the agency site) and will arrange them better and with descriptions. I've changed a bit of text and some of the spacing, hope its better now.

I'll keep an eye on the photo load time, if it is still slow i'll talk to support, maybe make the file size smaller.

The people at PMP are really helpful when it comes to trouble shooting issues so contact them if you need any help. Generally they suggest quite large photo sizes for the best image display.

Do you have your own domain name rigmover? It will present better if your web address doesn't have 'promote my place' appended to it.

Good thinking Casscat, it's now

http://www.theoldfirestation1970.com

So if I want to book or ask a question, how do I do that?

Good point Kev, I've now set up an availability page with a link to the agency, later we will do this ourselves but at the moment we are to busy.

Lovely looking property / project +1 to other comments about availability. Whilst the link to the Skyes advert is a start, i'd make the next change publishing your own availability calendar as a pre-cursor to taking your own bookings.

Thank you Robin, yes that is the way we'll go eventually.

Hi Rigmover,

I would personally change the background color to dark red. I know the existing red is the color of fire station but it's a bit aggressive for me. Everything else - good job!