Please review our site: www.our-spanish-villa.co.uk

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.
johntaylor
Posts: 15
Joined: Mon Sep 20, 2004 11:14 am
Location: Pedreguer, Costa Blanca, Spain
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Please review our site: www.our-spanish-villa.co.uk

Post by johntaylor »

Please try and find some time for a review of our site. We hope to appeal to families with children who are looking for a peaceful holiday in our secluded villa in the Costa Blanca, Spain
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paolo
Posts: 3885
Joined: Thu Jun 17, 2004 1:18 pm
Location: Provence, France
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Post by paolo »

This is an interesting site, because all the information is there - good descriptive copy, information on the area, plenty of decent pics, and all properly distributed across several pages.

The problem is....the presentation is not as good. The homepage is unconventional, with its navigation menu beyond the first screen. The colours are very strong and it is hard to read text that alternates in colour.

I think this site would be great if you went for a more conventional layout on the homepage, a white background, and all the text in the same colour (black) except for headings and sub-headings. And underlined words are usually clickable links - if they don't behave as you expect them to that leads to frustration and perhaps departure.

But the thinking behind it is good, in my humble opinion.
Paolo
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johntaylor
Posts: 15
Joined: Mon Sep 20, 2004 11:14 am
Location: Pedreguer, Costa Blanca, Spain
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Post by johntaylor »

Thankyou for your advice Paolo. I am a novice at web page design and don't understand your comment about "navigation".
Could you explain please
John
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paolo
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Joined: Thu Jun 17, 2004 1:18 pm
Location: Provence, France
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Post by paolo »

Hi John,

Navigation means getting around the site by clicking on the links. The navigation menu has each page of the site on it: Homepage/The Villa/The Area/Contact us etc....

You have got a conventional sidebar navigation menu, but it is in the lower half of your homepage so you have to scroll to see it. What is visible on opening the homepage is another navigation menu at the bottom of the screen (halfway down the homepage) which you normally see at the very bottom of a page. So it says to a visitor that this is the bottom of the page, whereas in fact most of the page is sitting 'below the fold' (i.e. you have to scroll to get there).

It's an odd homepage because it happens twice, once in the top half and once in the bottom. I'd scrap the top half, take the design of the bottom half, and merge in your list of selling points.
Paolo
Lay My Hat
j.k.shepherd
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Jan 09, 2005 5:37 pm
Location: Corsica, France
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Spanish villa site review

Post by j.k.shepherd »

The content is good with all the helpful information you need. The links to airlines and car rental companies are well placed. I too am not keen on the aesthetics but it wouldn't put me off renting it as the content sells it well.
James
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vrooje
Posts: 3202
Joined: Thu Dec 09, 2004 2:48 am
Location: Burgundy, France

Post by vrooje »

Hi John,

I fully agree with the reviews above... my monitor is fairly bright and the color contrast on your page actually hurts my eyes. The content itself is very nice, though! For example, I love that your essential information is right at the top of the page.

I think one quick fix you could perform would be to change the background of your main text to a much paler shade of yellow. As a further step, if you made the red text at the top of your page a darker shade of red (more similar to the link color you're using), it would also be easier to read those. Theoretically, that should require only a few changes to your HTML code... and I think it will make the page much more eye-friendly.

Cheers!
-Vrooje
MadDogWoman
Posts: 63
Joined: Sat Dec 11, 2004 2:39 pm

Post by MadDogWoman »

John
I too found the text and colours too strong and it detracted from what you were trying to get across. In short, it would have put me off if I was a "punter". Your bullet points at the top of your home page were great and are probably almost enough for the first page if laid out a bit differently. A more conventional combination of colours may have been better but then I am a boring old fuddy duddy. Mind you, on closer inspection, you place looked fab - nice photos. The links at the bottom of your local area page were not working when I last tried to look.
This website thing is a bit of a minefield for the novice, I know I am one, but keep up the good work. I've had some very helpful feedback from this site and am gradually getting there.
Nicola :D
johntaylor
Posts: 15
Joined: Mon Sep 20, 2004 11:14 am
Location: Pedreguer, Costa Blanca, Spain
Contact:

Post by johntaylor »

Thankyou to all of you who have found a little time to make comments on our site - all very gratefully received. Incidentally Nicola, the links worked if you clicked on the thumbnails but I have now added links to the text as well. We are just self-learning to use Dreamweaver( our site was built using Publisher), so when we have learnt a little bit more we shall take all your advice into account, so watch this space and I'll let you all know when the new site is up and running!! If any of you have villas in the Costa Blanca, you can find pics on my other site www.tuktuktours.co.uk, and you are all most welcome to use any of the photos there to enhance!? your own sites. Please no comments on the Tuk Tuk Tours site yet. I am in the process of changing it all!!!
Happy 2005 to all of you and good lettings!!
John
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