Troutbeck Cottage - let us know what you think

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.
Christine Kenyon
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Joined: Sun Sep 19, 2004 10:58 am
Location: Glenridding, Ullswater Valley, Lake District, UK
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Troutbeck Cottage - let us know what you think

Post by Christine Kenyon »

Well, I'm back for a second bit of constructive criticism - hope that's allowed :D . The feedback first-time round was extremely helpful - thank you to everyone. In fact, it was that good, I'm back again!

Our cottage is www.troutbeckcottage.co.uk. It is a traditional Lakeland cottage which sleeps up to 4 people. We have two target markets: couples and small families (usually a couple with a toddler).

We have designed the site using dreamweaver and fireworks and have aimed to incorporate the advice from the Forum where possible. We still need some more photos and I've yet to standardise the shadows used on the photos, but we'd like to know what you think about two areas in particular:

1. General design and layout (and thanks to livinginitaly Tony for the design behind the banner :D ).

2. How visible is the site to Search Engines? We've listed the site on a number of free listing sites to increase the number of inbound links. Any other advice, more than welcome!

Look forward to hearing from you.

Christine
www.troutbeckcottage.co.uk

[Please don't click on the www button below as it's a different site!]
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vrooje
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Location: Burgundy, France

Post by vrooje »

Christine:

I had a look at your site before but didn't have time to prepare a post with comments. Now I have a bit more time!

I'm looking at the site now on a different computer with a different monitor and such, so it's sort of like 2 reviews in one, since I'm viewing your page with two different settings.

First off, I think it's well done and it seems it has already been successful for you -- wonderful! The text is easy to read (not too small and high contrast) , your pictures are large enough and appear to have been taken on sunny days, and all the required information is there, including your contact information on every page (yay!).

I also think you've done a great job at making this a very personal website. I really feel like I'll get personal service from you and I can picture myself in that cozy chair by the fire!

Here are some things I can think of to improve the site:
  • First, the picture caption on the home page is very hard to see. On my LCD monitor at home I can barely read it; on my CRT monitor here at work I can barely see that it's there, let alone read it.

    Likewise with some of the other image captions, although the front page is the most striking. The captions for the kitchen/dining area and the lounge are a bit hard to read; the others are fine.

    The other major thing I noticed is that your menus change from page to page. It seems like this is simply that you're not including links to the current page, e.g. there's no "home" link on the home page. There's an argument to be made for this, but I find it a bit confusing -- which pages have I visited and which haven't I? If I go down the whole list in order I wind up skipping pages and getting worried that I've missed something. I recommend using the exact same menu of links on every page. If you want to avoid linking from the homepage to the homepage, just put a text there that has no link at all -- sort of like a placeholder, but also another way of letting the client know which page they're actually on.

    Your image header is a little large to be properly displayed on an 800 x 600 screen. The page shows up very well on my screen, but a lot of people still use 800 x 600 and they'd have to scroll sideways to view your page. Whether you want to optimize for them or not is your call -- but it's also probably a good idea.

    Your local area page has several links to it -- I suggest having them open in new windows so that the potential client still has your site up after they click on them.

    There's a misspelling in your page title -- "hiistory" with two "i"s. I recommend running a spellcheck!

    Also, I'd recommend a meta description tag that will contain a short description of your site. The description is displayed by search engines on their results pages -- so it's important!
Overall, this looks like a beautiful cottage and your testimonials are fabulous!

Cheers! :)
Brooke
Christine Kenyon
Posts: 623
Joined: Sun Sep 19, 2004 10:58 am
Location: Glenridding, Ullswater Valley, Lake District, UK
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Post by Christine Kenyon »

Hello Brooke. Thank you for taking the time to review our site. I'm always impressed that you provide such good advice in a very constructive and positive way - not sure I always manage this!! I'm learning a lot from you :D .

I agree totally with your feedback. I've changed the menu layout so that it's consistent on every page and I'm working on the picture captions. I always have to be in the mood to have a go at fireworks! The mis-spelling has also been dealt with! That was extremely observant of you.

A quesion for you. I have looked at adding a "meta description tag". (And with my techie background, I'm just amazed I could find it!). This came up with three fields: attribute; value; content. A really basic question (sorry for being so dummo!): what should I put here? And should it be on every page?

Thank you again for your help. Hope you have a wonderful season.

Christine
www.troutbeckcottage.co.uk
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vrooje
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Location: Burgundy, France

Post by vrooje »

Christine:

Try something like:

Code: Select all

<meta name="description" content="Holiday rental for up to four people in Lake District National Park, UK. Prices, photos, testimonials for Troutbeck Cottage." />
Even that might be a bit long and would thus get truncated on search engine results pages, but the important information is up front. Mine is considerably longer, but the important part is at the beginning, and the rest is just a way to work in keywords (my opinion -- I don't have evidence that this works, but I also don't believe it hurts, either).

As to whether to put that on every page, I believe I do because of the way my site is set up... it is most important on the index page, and if you want you can customize it for each page, e.g. the index could say the above and the rates page could start with "Rates for our Holiday Rental for up to..." etc.
Brooke
Christine Kenyon
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Location: Glenridding, Ullswater Valley, Lake District, UK
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Post by Christine Kenyon »

Cheers Brooke. I shall be "meta tagging" like mad later on :D .

Christine
Winifred
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Location: Belhaven, Dunbar, Scotland
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Post by Winifred »

My first visit to this forum, though I've been enjoying Paolo's newsletters for a long time.

Hi, Christine - when I first clicked on your url for Troutbeck, it could not be found, so I looked at your profile and had a look at your Stybarrow site; my immediate reaction was "that's the sort of site I like", clean, cool colours, lots of white space, mouth-watering pictures. Well done!
(The Troutbeck url did work later; I found its front page less satisfying, too uniform in appearance so more tiring to read.)

My own website was started in 1997 and has "just growed", so the code is a bit of a mess and I don't see myself ever having time to reconstruct it all, but maybe I'll ask for a review when I've posted more comments.

At the moment I am busy finalising a German language version of the pages which relate most directly to the accommodation - not just because I have a German friend who works as a translator, but also because I have had a surprisingly large proportion of visitors from Germany in the past few years.

Best wishes to you and to the other posters for a successful season.

Winifred
Christine Kenyon
Posts: 623
Joined: Sun Sep 19, 2004 10:58 am
Location: Glenridding, Ullswater Valley, Lake District, UK
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Post by Christine Kenyon »

Hello Winifred and welcome to the Forum. Hope you enjoy it - I certainly do!

Thank you also for your kind feedback about our stybarrowcottage site. Must admit that we've put a lot of work into this (with the help of Forum members) and it seems to be paying off as our bookings for this year and next are superb.

I also agree with your comments about Troutbeck Cottage's website. As of our today (1 July 2005) we have actually sold Troutbeck Cottage - so it's a sad day in some ways, but we have some very happy memories. It also means that I didn't put the effort into upgrading the website! It will be interesting to see what the new owners do. You have also reminded that I need to update my Forum "signature" - thank you!

Hope you're having a superb 2005 season. I was intrigued by the definitions of "cottage" on your website. Some of our Australian visitors must have a shock when they come to our 3 storey cottage!!
Winifred
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Post by Winifred »

Thanks, Christine.

Yes, Australians would be surprised, but so, as a native of Northern Ireland, am I every time I see an English 'cottage'!
Australians are also very amused at Dunbar's appellation of 'Sunny Dunny' - but it really is a sunnier place than much of the British Isles. Not warmer, though.

I had a spectacularly good year for bookings last year, but this year they have been slow. Partly because I was not doing much about it: my beloved husband died in April (we were married in 1947) and had not been at all well for a long time.
Also because there are now many more self-catering places in this area, most of them more spacious (and more expensive) than ours. We try to target our 'niche' market - people who are interested in wildlife and conservation, and who do not want a sophisticated holiday. If they think our bedrooms are too small, then I would rather they did not come!

All the best,
Winifred
Clexane
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Post by Clexane »

Christine,

Nice clean site. I liked it. One point, I don't think your photo on your home page is doing you justice. You have other photos on the site that would do better in this prime real estate.
So you wanted a holiday home in france ...

www.villaemmanuelle.com
Winifred
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Post by Winifred »

Looking again at your home page, Christine -

I found myself tempted to 'click' on the small pictures at the top, in the hope of seeing an enlargement.

Also, I wonder if you should substitute a thumbnail of your dining-room for one of the first two, and re-arrange them so that the third one is first, giving the strong dark tree as a sort of frame for the whole line?

Just a thought.

Winifred
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Chalky
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Post by Chalky »

Hi Christine,

I'm new to "Lay My Hat" and I've just looked at your web site. The content looks fine - and it looks like a lovely location - but my monitor is set to 1280 x 1024 resolution and even on that, your page has horizontal scroll bars, with half the text off the screen on the right hand side - people viewing on 800 x 600 screens will have to do a lot of scrolling to read your page. Much of the problem seems to be with your background, as the width of the banner is fine, but it doesn't appear in the centre of the screen. You might like to experiment with the size of the background image.

As Winifred says - just a thought!

Chalky
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Christine Kenyon
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Joined: Sun Sep 19, 2004 10:58 am
Location: Glenridding, Ullswater Valley, Lake District, UK
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Post by Christine Kenyon »

Hello Chalky and welcome to the forum. Thank you for your "thoughts" (as Winifred would say!). I never cease to be amazed by the superb feedback Forum members give so freely.

I thoroughly agree with your comments about Troutbeck Cottage - and have the same problem myself. But since I entered the initial post on the Forum, we've sold Troutbeck Cottage. The domain name went with the sale but the website is now the work of the new owners! They've made some excellent improvements to the site and are still working on it so I expect the screen size problem will be resolved.
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Chalky
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Post by Chalky »

Sorry Christine - I did notice that the names on the "contact us" page didn't include "Christine", but I just thought you were using a pseudonym - like me!! Now I've seen your signature I realise the mistake. Hopefully the new owners will continue to monitor the forum.

Stybarrow Cottage looks lovely and your web site is very attractive, but I did find some of the pictures overlaying the text, and some of the text overlapping, on my screen resolution.

Do you have a picture of the outside of the cottage - I like the outline sketch with the red door as your logo but I wondered whether you were perhaps trying to hide the fact that you're next door to a slag heap or a fish-n-chip shop!!

Chalky
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Christine Kenyon
Posts: 623
Joined: Sun Sep 19, 2004 10:58 am
Location: Glenridding, Ullswater Valley, Lake District, UK
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Post by Christine Kenyon »

Hi Chalky. Good to hear from you again - sorry for the delay in getting back to you. At the mo we're in the throes of selling (and still running!) our village shop in the Lake District, buying a new business (B&B with holiday cottage - we take over the holiday cottage this Saturday ... with forward bookings and about 6 hours to get everything ready for the next guests) and coping with the height of the season. It's fairly busy :wink: . But we're still smiling.

Anyway, thank you for your feedback about Stybarrow Cottage. Rest assured that our cottage is not next door to a slag heap or chippy but I know what you mean about line drawings rather than the real thing ... what are they hiding? My problem has been getting to the cottage when the sun is in the right place to get a good photo. I've now got our neighbour on the case so I should hopefully be able to get a good external shot. I am also hoping that once things have settled down a bit I should be able to get some better inside shots.

I was a bit concerned to read that about the text/photo overlap as I have already tried to put that right. If you have the time, could you let me know the specific cases where this is happening.

I also took the opportunity to have a quick look at your site - it looks excellent. Not sure I can add anything. The weather report sections didn't load for me but I think that may be linked to my browser setttings.

Anyway, hope you're having an excellent season and getting plenty of bookings for next year.
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Chalky
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Post by Chalky »

Christine,

I've emailed you with some screen shots to show you what I'm seeing.

It sounds as though you have your hands full - good luck with Saturday's arrivals!
Chalky

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