Review please anyone?

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.
Kitty thomas
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Location: Eskdale Cumbria

Review please anyone?

Post by Kitty thomas »

New website in PMP. Would someone please review? Many thanks for your time. Www.toddandgunncottageswasdale.co.uk
If at first you don't succeed, put the kettle on.
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kevsboredagain
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Post by kevsboredagain »

Can I book the week which is £10 please?

I think you've made an error on some of your photos as when you click on the thumbnail a bigger image is displayed but the same resolution as the thumbnail so they are all blurry and pixelated.

Try also using jpeg rather than png for your images. They will be much smaller, so faster to load. png is good for transparency, like logos but not the best for photos.
Last edited by kevsboredagain on Fri Sep 11, 2015 7:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
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CarolineH
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Post by CarolineH »

Hi Kitty

Your cottages are in one of my favourite places in the world - as a child, we used to camp at Wasdale and Great Gable is my favourite mountain.

Your pictures need to be bigger - when you click on them to enlarge, they are really pixelly - try minimum 800 x 600. In the description of the cottages, I'm not sure that the smiley faces work ...

On the guestbook page the words aguestbook are stuck together :could you a copy out a few of these comments and add them yourselves, to give people a taster?

Perhaps in "getting here" to make it a bit less scary you could say that you will send them detailed directions to help ...

Good luck - I wish I could come and stay!
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Nemo
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Post by Nemo »

Great start. :) Ditto comments above and say that you'll send driving directions when they book. It's easy for you to produce once and then send as an attachment.

I have never seen a print your own dog agreement. I don't know how that will work out, as I'm not sure even I know how to do a partial print out of a webpage! Remember lots of people will view and book via their mobile and tablet. If you want something signed or sent back, then as per the directions, send it as an attachment. Realistically though it's not how people expect to do things nowadays. Email or online for everything is what you should be aiming for.
Hells Bells
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Post by Hells Bells »

Instead of requiring guests to print the web page, why not upload the dog agreement as a pdf file onto PMP and link to it. ? Much easier to print it off that way.
Hells Bells
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Post by Hells Bells »

There's a sub section called attachments under the main edit your website contents page.
Soupdragon
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Post by Soupdragon »

A few copy writing thoughts:

You might want to box out the key facts about the cottages (two cottages sleeping 2/3, stunning location for walkers) and bring it up to the top. 'Todd and Gunn' could either be the names of two cottages or a rather cool name for a cottage complex, so don't rely on people to work out how many properties you've got there!

You are very good at scene setting though. Makes me want to dig out my boots.

Structure the writing. Generally it's helpful to people to include some sub headings to break up the text and highlight what each paragraph is about. So in 'local area information' you might want to include sub headings such as 'walks', 'La'al Ratty', 'other days out'. If you choose your subheadings with care they have a (small) positive SEO effect too.

Other thoughts:

I think you need to order the photos on the photo page so they flow more naturally. Ideally put the photos of the properties on the property page

At the moment I see no pricing or availability calendar and terms and conditions aren't very clear. Presume this is going to change?
Soupdragon
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Post by Soupdragon »

Aha! Am idiot, didn't scroll down on property page but found pricing and availability now.

However....there may be other idiots like me? Perhaps it might be a plan to move the details for the cottages to the top and include something of the history and extra information elsewhere in the site?
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Sue Dyer
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Location: Belford, Northumberland

Post by Sue Dyer »

Am I missing the availibility calendar/s?

I use PMP and one of my tabs is "Rates and Availability" http://www.lilycottagebelford.co.uk/rates. If you are using PIMS you can link and it automatically updates your website. I'm not sure how multi properties work with this but I'm sure others will.
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French Cricket
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Post by French Cricket »

Apart from those photos - ahem! - one thing that strikes me is that you've got far to much on one page. For example, on each cottage page you've got prices ... and availability ... and T&C ... and FAQ ... And on a first visit to the page I didn't find any of those things. It would be far better to have separate pages - and navigation tabs - for those.

Some minor proof checking stuff to be sorted: for example, on the main Properties page, lines 3, 4 and half of line 5 are in a different font size to the rest.

Definitely ditch the 'getting here' stuff - or rather, make it much more general. Nobody wants to know at this point that it 'can be a bit hairy', and detailed directions are really only appropriate for booked guests, not idle browsers.

It seems a shame that you're not giving more on 'local information' - you're in a lovely area and you could be doing much more to target walkers, for example. I'd imagine that a lot of your guests will bring dogs so a page about the dog-friendliness of local pubs, restaurants etc, what to do with dogs and all the rest would be useful. You could then put your 'dog rules' onto that page, which makes the whole layout much neater. Don't ask people to print out a bit of the web page - they just won't do it.

You have two lovely cottages and a potentially good website, but you'd help yourself no end if you took a step back and thought about the best way to present your information!
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Sue Dyer
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Post by Sue Dyer »

I hadn't clicked the "further details" button FC. Agreed, it gets too complex from there on. You need to easily see the price and availability.

Why not take a look at other PMP sites for the tabs/structure? Mine is by no means perfect (please no comments :-)) but it does the job. www.lilycottagebelford.co.uk I'm sure others will share examples with you.
jenboyle1959
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Post by jenboyle1959 »

The cottages look lovely, firstly- small but perfectly formed!
I would agree with others about the dog "rules" - I tried to print it out, and if I'd clicked continue, it would have printed out 17 pages- the whole website. A link to a PDf seems the way to go. I'm getting my husband to do the same for my terms and conditions now.
Since joining the " dog friendly " Facebook page, I have realised what a bloomin' minefield "dog friendly" actually is. I currently send out my dog " rules" with people's final balance receipt. I realise this could result in people complaining that they didn't realise that Fido wouldn't be allowed to sleep on the couch/ get in the bed with them/ worry the sheep /and do it's business on the doorstep, but I would gently suggest that some of your rules seem a wee bit draconian on reading them. Don't let them pee on the fence? Brush them daily if they're moulting?
Other rules seem very obvious, about picking up dog poo?
I'm not a dog owner. I have no idea wether people might be put off by reading a big list of rules on the website, but I'd hazard a guess that they might have a sinking feeling on reading them. I wouldn't put my punitive list of recycling rules :) on my website, I leave that to the information sheet.
Just a thought. Please don't think I'm being negative, I'm just trying to see it from a guest view.
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French Cricket
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Post by French Cricket »

jenboyle1959 wrote: I would gently suggest that some of your rules seem a wee bit draconian on reading them.
I do tend to agree there, jen ... I'd be out straight away as there's no way I could stop our dog from peeing on the fence :lol:

I do think though that dog owners need to know the 'dog protocol' before they book. If I've learned one thing from being a member of the dog friendly group on FB is that very many dog owners are what I'd call militant! We're dog friendly - to the right owners and the right dogs - but many people in that group would say we weren't because we don't allow their 'fur babies' (beurk) to sleep on the bed, and we don't have an enclosed garden. If we didn't make that clear before the booking stage we could end up getting all sorts of inappropriate bookings, and the guest could argue that our protocol wasn't part of their contract (and they'd be right).
jenboyle1959
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Post by jenboyle1959 »

French Cricket wrote:
jenboyle1959 wrote: I would gently suggest that some of your rules seem a wee bit draconian on reading them.
I do tend to agree there, jen ... I'd be out straight away as there's no way I could stop our dog from peeing on the fence :lol:

I do think though that dog owners need to know the 'dog protocol' before they book. If I've learned one thing from being a member of the dog friendly group on FB is that very many dog owners are what I'd call militant! We're dog friendly - to the right owners and the right dogs - but many people in that group would say we weren't because we don't allow their 'fur babies' (beurk) to sleep on the bed, and we don't have an enclosed garden. If we didn't make that clear before the booking stage we could end up getting all sorts of inappropriate bookings, and the guest could argue that our protocol wasn't part of their contract (and they'd be right).
I agree ,FC. It's only since I joined the group, that I've realised what I thought would be blindingly obvious "rules" like not allowing them on beds, are deal breakers for some people! I'm wondering myself how best to ensure that I get the right dog owners now.. maybe just a short list in my T and C? ( which is going to be a link on my website just as soon as Mr Millport Breaks stops watching Game Of Thrones and gets onto the job..) :shock:
Kitty thomas
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Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 3:37 pm
Location: Eskdale Cumbria

Post by Kitty thomas »

wow, thanks so much for all the effort everyone's put in to their replies. I already knew about some of the issues, eg photos - I have a photographer booked for October but had to make do with old stuff I could find from the previous owners site and google. Some issues I didn't know about. Will be looking into it all this week. Thanks again
If at first you don't succeed, put the kettle on.
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