Another website review please!!

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.
cpelwood
Posts: 27
Joined: Tue Nov 04, 2014 5:21 pm
Location: Dorset
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Another website review please!!

Post by cpelwood »

I have just re-designed my website and as always would really appreciate your feedback - the good, the bad and the ugly!!
I am finally going to attempt to "blog" more - this will be added in a few days time.
This is such an excellent forum for a subject that I feel is becoming more and more complex - and demands a lot more time and effort to do it properly. There is such a lot of excellent guidance contained on this forum which I have found hugely useful. Thanks to all who take time to share advice.
Jake
Character Farm Cottages
oldpolicehouse
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Location: Inverness
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I like it

Post by oldpolicehouse »

Hi I think it is simple, understandable and clear....how do you take payments with no other charges?
cpelwood
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Joined: Tue Nov 04, 2014 5:21 pm
Location: Dorset
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Post by cpelwood »

I made the decision that credit card payments were definitely the way ahead. Freetobook provided great booking software with incorporated card payments at roughly 1.8%. I then just adjusted my prices for the following year to include this increase. Its worked really well - the FTB system is excellent and makes accounting and taking payments a breeze. I think adding a visible charge to take a credit card payment would probably negate any advantage of using cards in the first place.
Jake
Character Farm Cottages
newtimber
Posts: 1945
Joined: Sat Nov 24, 2012 5:57 pm
Location: Brighton
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Post by newtimber »

I like the site - the only thing that I noticed (having a poor internet connection) was that it took a while to load the first photo on each of the property pages.
I don't know why it takes so long - the images aren't huge - but you can see the image being created and slowly filling up the space...
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kevsboredagain
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Post by kevsboredagain »

My first impression was that it was a very old style looking site, perhaps made with some very old design tool. It's completely static and not small tablet or large phone friendly. The mobile version actually looks much more modern and slick.

However, there's nothing actually wrong with the content and it does it's job well. It's easy to navigate and all presented in a simple, clear fashion. Dare I say it, but it's a bit like a Promote My Place website.

The only one comment I could make is why use Gmail as your business contact? You have a domain name and it would look much more professional to use that instead. Keep Gmail for personal email, scammers and logging into Google services.
cpelwood
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Joined: Tue Nov 04, 2014 5:21 pm
Location: Dorset
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Post by cpelwood »

Thanks Kev - I am using Webplus X8 which is their latest offering - however I have read that they are not carrying on producing or improving it so that's it! I am just curious as to why you feel it is old fashioned coding etc- I assume plenty of commercial designers are using it, I do appreciate its not responsive which means you end up looking after 2 sites!
As for the gmail address - I am being a bit lazy as gmail is just so easy to deal with especially across numerous devices- also its pretty good at spam filtering, much better than the 2 domain name emails we use.
I told my wife (boss lady and owner) that this is my last effort - next time I will be calling on you professionals!!
Jake
Character Farm Cottages
Tivoli
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Joined: Thu Feb 19, 2015 2:31 pm
Location: Glossa, Skopelos, Greece
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Post by Tivoli »

Nice! I like it! Well done!
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