thoughts on our revamp

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ourinns
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thoughts on our revamp

Post by ourinns »

We've just completed a revamp of our site for this year and were wondering what you guys thought of it. So far, the customers (not numerous so far) have commented favourably on it but then people are always a bit hesitant to tell you that X or Y "needs improvement" or indeed "is totally ****".

Anyway, we're at www.mascamps.com

And, yes, I know that the Dutch and Portuguese is dreadful at the moment; the Dutch will be improving in the next month or so, the German & Catalan will be becoming a bit more complete over the same time (all being well) and the Spanish will be improving over the course of the year.

Thanks,



Arnold
Fraise
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Re: thoughts on our revamp

Post by Fraise »

[quote="mascamps"]We've just completed a revamp of our site for this year and were wondering what you guys thought of it. So far, the customers (not numerous so far) have commented favourably on it but then people are always a bit hesitant to tell you that X or Y "needs improvement" or indeed "is totally ****".

Hi, here's my 2 €'s worth:
On the front page , the paragraph starting " In our Restaurant...You can choose...",the text is smaller for a few words!
"You can pay in.....cash)",there is no opening bracket.
" We think that.."- hey, you KNOW that -you are trying to sell it, dump the "we think that" and go straight into "There is something for everyone here"

That's it- done!!The restaurant looks pretty,the menu is extremely eclectic!! :lol:



www.thepetitmanoir.com
reddevil
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Post by reddevil »

I had a quick look at your homepage and thought that some of the photos on the right were a bit dark and could be improved.

There is a lot of information on the homepage and of different topics, which makes me think you could have difficulty in ranking well in the search engines? Do you really need Policies and getting In touch on the first page - perhaps you could create additional pages and put a link to these?

Apart from that it is not a bad start - keep on tinkering and you will soon get there.
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eamonn
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Mas camps

Post by eamonn »

Hi arnold
A beautifully put together site, obviously a lot of thought was put into it.
However my thoughts are as follows,while the site is beautifully presented, with many photos and info, the home page takes forever to load even on a cable modem, I found a lot of duplication between the home page and other pages such as festivals, restaurant, and transport. Consider getting your clients through the home page quickly and let them navigate their way to more information by way of your menu bar which speaks for itself.
Still a great site, a little tweaking wouldn't go amiss.
Best of luck
Eamonn
i,ve been everywhere man!
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vrooje
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Post by vrooje »

Arnold,

I think the only reason these pages take time to load is that they're so full of stuff. Your images are well-optimized at less than 10K each, but there are so many of them per page! That's not necessarily a bad thing, but keep in mind that the files do add up in size.

On the continued topic of pictures: some of your (lovely) pictures do have links to larger pictures, but those linked images are huge in size! Even those larger pictures should be no larger than 800x600 and should be optimized for size.

I agree with what others have said relating to the homepage being rather long. You could make several sub-pages from the homepage. If you'd prefer to keep it all on one page, I suggest mirroring your sub-menu using text menus between sections, so that navigating the page will be easy even if the top menu has disappeared in scrolling the page. Typically those types of text menus have all the same links at the top menu, plus a "Top" link that jumps to the top of the page.

Why do some of your pages have Google banner ads? I don't suggest giving your potential clients excuses to leave your page!

From a search engine perspective, your page titles (that appear in the code between <TITLE></TITLE> tags, not the text titles at the top of each page) could be more descriptive, mentioning perhaps the Pyrenees, France, wine, and the name Mas Camps Hotel.

On the same topic, I don't know if this is correct, but I recall reading somewhere that meta tags should always be single-line tags. Yours each have a carriage return between the "name" and "content" attributes, and if my memory is correct, this is bad for some reason. So, for example,
<meta name="description"
content="Mas Camps Hotel in the Pyrenees-Oriental region of southern France offers a selection of wine-themed rooms in Languedoc-Rousillon wine region.">
should be changed to
<meta name="description" content="Mas Camps Hotel in the Pyrenees-Oriental region of southern France offers a selection of wine-themed rooms in Languedoc-Rousillon wine region.">
Again, though, I could be wrong on that one -- just something I remember.

Lastly, I'm not exactly sure why you're using frames, but in any case you've taken care to use the NOFRAMES tag, which is a good thing. I believe Google will actually get something useful out of the page since you've done this, but keep in mind that it will index that content and not whatever content is actually in your frame pages.

Cheers!
Brooke
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Wonkeye
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Re: thoughts on our revamp

Post by Wonkeye »

mascamps wrote: And, yes, I know that the Dutch and Portuguese is dreadful at the moment; the Dutch will be improving in the next month or so, the German & Catalan will be becoming a bit more complete over the same time (all being well) and the Spanish will be improving over the course of the year.
Sorry but the Dutch is still typically/amusingly Google translation style and the Spanish ditto! There's just no substitute for a real-life translator - a much underrated profession, I fear!
ccazes
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Post by ccazes »

I have difficulty reading the text even with my glasses on :o

I would like to see larger "feature" photos to show off the best aspects of the home.
Also larger text throughout, with again maybe larger titles to lead into information paragraphs.
The menu tabs are too small too.
Reading through the information etc it seems to have everything you would want to know just written very small.

Is it just me - should I be returning to see my optician :D
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Nemo
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Post by Nemo »

Is it just me, but this appears to be a thread that's nearly seven years old.......?
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Wonkeye
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thoughts on our revamp

Post by Wonkeye »

Yes, but the Dutch was still worrying me!
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Giddy Goat
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Post by Giddy Goat »

Nemo wrote:Is it just me, but this appears to be a thread that's nearly seven years old.......?
And the last post by Mascamps was in April 2009. Hope he's OK but if he's still lurking, I am sure he will post after this.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be
ccazes
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Post by ccazes »

Confirmation that I DO need a trip to the opticians.

This much said the link to the website still works so maybe comments are always welcome...
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Giddy Goat
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Post by Giddy Goat »

Yup, nothing much seems to have changed ...
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be
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Nemo
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Re: thoughts on our revamp

Post by Nemo »

Wonkeye wrote:Yes, but the Dutch was still worrying me!
:lol: :lol:
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Giddy Goat
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Post by Giddy Goat »

... as long as you haven't been losing sleep over it these past seven years Wonkeye!
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be
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Wonkeye
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thoughts on our revamp

Post by Wonkeye »

Giddy Goat wrote:... as long as you haven't been losing sleep over it these past seven years Wonkeye!
No no! I think I must wake up every seven years. So I think it's now time to lay this to rest for another seven years!
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