Lay My Hat

Bonjour toute le monde. I am hoping some of you very knowledgeable people can help me to be ruthless with my website! I feel I am in danger of boring prospective guests to death. I feel I need to whittle it down a bit, but when I try it all seems to be relevant. Photos too! Which ones do I not need?

self-catering-gite-in-france.iowners.net

Why do you think there's too much info there? Only spent a couple of seconds but the home page says ".......when we stayed for two nights recently in February 2013." Doesn't give the impression that it's recently been updated......

That's an interesting point, as that is the link to the testimonials page, which lists reviews going back to 2011 and also up to date ones. I am not sure how to change that bit - I need to look into that. I just think there seems to be too much information and perhaps too many photos.

Looks more than good to me & surely more info is far better than not enough?
Personally I much prefer websites that have not only photos but plenty of descriptive text as well - like yours.

limousin-cottage wrote:That's an interesting point, as that is the link to the testimonials page, which lists reviews going back to 2011 and also up to date ones. I am not sure how to change that bit - I need to look into that. I just think there seems to be too much information and perhaps too many photos.

Have you changed it or does it change it automatically? It's now reading September 2015.....

It changes automatically. I don't think I had anything to do with the setting up of this.

COYS wrote:Looks more than good to me & surely more info is far better than not enough?
Personally I much prefer websites that have not only photos but plenty of descriptive text as well - like yours.

Thank you. I worry that it will send people to sleep before they trawl through it all LoL

I don't think your website is too long at all - it's very good. I question whether barn owls hoot, though!

Moonshine wrote:I don't think your website is too long at all - it's very good. I question whether barn owls hoot, though!

How would you describe their call moonshine? Unless it's a different owl. I often see barn owls but I am really no expert on bird species LoL. It's definitely not the toowit toowoo type.

I think its good. Some people will read it all, others just scan through it, so I would not worry about the length of it. It took me a minute to figure out what an 18C house was so maybe you need to add more text!

Moonshine wrote:I don't think your website is too long at all - it's very good. I question whether barn owls hoot, though!

Actually, I have just listened to the sound of a barn owl, and yep - that's the one! So what would you call that sound then Moonshine? Should I say screech?

declanja wrote:I think its good. Some people will read it all, others just scan through it, so I would not worry about the length of it. It took me a minute to figure out what an 18C house was so maybe you need to add more text!

Really? 18th century then, or built in 1750?

I think that people look at a website for 2 purposes. Firstly to choose where to book, but then later, and nearer the holiday time, they look for information to plan their time.

What is really good about your website is that you state the price range on your home page, so people can immediately decide whether is is in their range and to look further, or go elsewhere.
That makes the site very user friendly.

I don't think the website is too long.
Everyone is so busy these days that it is helpful to have information about the local area altogether on your site.

Thank you very much zebedee. I will have my afternoon nap instead then!

I think that the quantity is fine and it would be even better if it was broken up with lots more sub headings styled like 'The biggest market in France' heading is. That would enable people to easily skim read if they want to and give a bit of breathing space.

I noticed a couple of odd things happening - I keep seeing this line in amongst the testimonials "Add new author - e.g. Joe Bloggs, London, England" which makes it look a bit unfinished. Also, the tesimonial from Michelle that was showing on the home page had an email address showing which definitely shouldn't happen - unless it's yours? but even then it's better to use enquiry forms. If you publish an email address on a web site it will be inundated with spam (as I know from bitter experience!).