Would anyone like to review Updown Cottage 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.
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JC
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Joined: Tue Feb 27, 2007 11:38 am

Would anyone like to review Updown Cottage please!

Post by JC »

We have just finished completely refurbishing Updown Cottage and are beginning to take bookings. Would anyone like to take a look and give me feedback? Thank you! JC
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greenfrog
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Joined: Sun May 21, 2006 9:08 pm
Location: Paris, France

Post by greenfrog »

Hi JC,

Welcome to Lay My Hat!

Your cottage looks gorgeous! I think your website looks wonderful. The photos are very inviting and the bedrooms all look so comfortable.

I like the text too, with the notes on the history of the area.

Overall, I think the site is great.
However, I was a bit surprised to find a photo of a shower under Tariffs. It didn't really make sense to me.
Also, you don't have any photos of the bathroom per se, or none that I found, just the shower under Tariffs and a sink under Accommodation.

But that's all I might change. It looks very professional and the maps are a great idea.

Best of luck!
Elaine
Lounging on the lily pad...
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enid
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Location: Labretonie France
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Post by enid »

What a lovely place - I used to live in Somerset and have friends who live in Dorset so I know Gold Hill.The cottage looks gorgeous and the photos are very good. I like the text content but would have to say that I found the text size a bit too small for me - old age creeping on :cry:
Oh and Ilike the colour scheme too :)
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JC
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Post by JC »

Thanks so much for the kind comments. Re. the bathroom photos - I hadn't really considered that it was odd to have photos of showers and basins on prominent pages such as tariff. I suppose it simply reflected my unconscious love of gorgeous bathrooms with natural colours and materials such as slate and wood but with some quirky fittings such as the copper mirror (from an early C20th cruise ship) and light fitting. It sort of sums up the whole feel of what we wanted to achieve. I'll give some thought to how odd it is!
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greenfrog
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Location: Paris, France

Post by greenfrog »

JC wrote: I hadn't really considered that it was odd to have photos of showers and basins on prominent pages such as tariff. I'll give some thought to how odd it is!
It was more the fact that these were the ONLY photos from your bathroom. I can tell you have beautiful features in it but I don't know what it looks like as a room - I think a photo of the full room might be a good idea.

Elaine
Lounging on the lily pad...
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Eileen2
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Location: Arillas, Corfu
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Post by Eileen2 »

Your cottage is very beautiful. The website is impressive and works so well with your property. It cannot fail to impress. :D


Villa with Private Pool in Arillas Corfu.
www.villalinakis.com

Eileen.
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JC
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Post by JC »

The latest upmarket sites seem to keep a balance between showing enough detail and yet keeping the element of surprise and discovery. The rest of the bathroom doesn't disappoint!
jdabney
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Location: Cisternino, Puglia, Italy
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Post by jdabney »

To add my views are probably rather superfluous after all that lot! Indeed, super place and lovely clean website.

Only slightly jarring comment.....aren't those pics beside the accomodation main photo a bit "pseud's corner" (thanks Private Eye). Straight out of the Fired earth paint colour range no doubt. No matter I'm sure it won't affect your appeal, just a personal quip. Also shame one can't get back to that first splash page once in the site. It's worth checking more than just ther once.
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Big Sis..
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Location: Torrevieja and Norfolk
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Post by Big Sis.. »

Hi..

Lovely site and Lovely cottage...Well Done..I seemed to loose the top and bottoms of most of the pages and some of the detail pages maybe its just my computer though...
I didnt see bedrooms though maybe its me :?:
istrianholidays
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Location: Istria, Croatia
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Post by istrianholidays »

Hi,

As the others have said, a really beautiful site. Only thing from my point of view is the tariff bit - the thumbnails are gorgeous, but is a little impractical - and splitting across the different pages, and bucketing by price makes it a little difficult to find the price in the weeks that you are interested. Perhaps to keep the thumbnail concept, you could change it to seasons (summer, winter, spring) etc rather than price? This would keep the concept / look, but be easier to follow / find?

That said, if someone loved the cottage - as they may well do - they would make the effort to find the prices - but someone who was not 100% comfortable with the internet might not find them and that could be a customer lost.

Rgds,

Jen
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Partridge
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Location: Costa de la Luz
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Post by Partridge »

Tee hee, I'd already taken a peek earlier. It looks absolutely stunning but I want more pics, there's teasing and there's...well...teasing :lol: I'd like to see pics of the village too, although I wouldn't rent to anyone elderly, that hill looks um...interesting :lol:
Don't waste energy on things you can't change.

Costa de la Luz apartment rental
www.ownersdirect.co.uk/spain/S5386.htm
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Hanorah
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Location: Turkey

Post by Hanorah »

Again lovely website and a beautiful property but could be a bit confusing to visitors with a short attention span. The home page shows some of the accomodation such as the living dining areas but then you have a accomodation page that shows just the bedrooms and a view of a bathroom. It might be better to rename the pages so that visitors are not confused and include all the accomdation on one page or spilt into further pages ie living/dining, bedrooms etc. Someone mentioned that they could not find the bedrooms so this would seem to back up this theory.
Always Learning
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Garri
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Post by Garri »

Brilliant cottage in fantastic location. Pic on home page already captured my interest, enough to publicly tag and bookmark your site on del.icio.us (for others to find)

That said, I'm not keen on the mouseover on the thumnails. If your mouse goes off the area the pic changes rapidly and it's disconcerting, and annoying (sorry)
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JC
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Post by JC »

Thanks very much for all your interesting and illuminating comments.
There's a few things there to look at, in particular, whether to make the thumbnails 'clicky' rather than mouse over (thank you Garri and for bookmarking the site - most kind!) and whether the tariff should be split into sections. I take your point about being hard to find a specific date. It can't be split into seasons (which I had already thought would be nice too) because school hols, etc don't fall that neatly. The only alternative is to have the dates simply listed on one page and have to scroll right the way through. As you can see, the one thing we've tried very hard to avoid is pages that go on for ever as that really does lose my attention!
Re. having the accommodation pictures scattered through the site - a page without any pictures loses me before it starts and we were limited with the number of pages we could have so this was the solution.
The main point to realise is that it's not possible to please everyone! Sorry about the pseud corner but you're wrong - the outside paint is very definitely Farrow and Ball!! Might get rid of those thumbnails though - they've stayed from when we had no photos! Lovely place BTW.
Best wishes to all JC
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Overboard
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Post by Overboard »

I loved the index page!! Funny though, when I clicked on the home page I just felt something was missing.. and I believe I've figured it out. Your living room is lovely, the ceiling, the stonework, but theres a big area of carpet there which makes all the furnishings seem like they are pushed against the wall. A coffee table would 'soften' the whole look and bring the room together. I did find the font difficult to read too. Overall though its very nicely planned and will capture those who dont have an eyesight problem :wink:
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