Lay My Hat

Please take a look at our website for our new seaside villa in SW France. Any constructive comments would be useful.

Website: www.sainte-marie-la-mer-villa.com

Many thanks.

SJ Beale wrote:Please take a look at our website for our new seaside villa in SW France. Any constructive comments would be useful.

On a PC the pages render correctly using Netscape 8.1.3 and Firefox 2.0.0.8 but using Internet Explorer 7 the right hand side of each page is lost. There is no horizontal scroll bar; the text is simply not there.

A little "tweaking" required?

Alan

I'm viewing the website on Safari and I can't see the far right of the villa page either.

I like the colour scheme and it's very clear and easy to navigate, but I can't say the photos are particularly appealing. The closed shutters make the villa look like it's shut up for the season and the bottom pic on the villa page just looks like a big car park. Perhaps you could put some nice pics of the beach etc on the first page?

cheers
Sonia

I agree that you need to dress the photos more - they are just not selling your place to me at the moment. A personal thing perhaps but I find the blue a bit harsh - and I always prefer black text. I am sure that if you matched your photo to your text you would make a bigger impact.

Thanks for the comments - obviously need to sort out the techie bit!

I agree the photos need to be improved and I need to take some better ones now that we own the property and have furnished it.

It's always hard in the early days to get the photos that really reflect your property - another photo shoot when you have added your personal touches will do the trick. good luck

It is brave of you do ask the question. One day we will be brave enough to put our web site to the test here.

On the first page you have a link to another web site. That takes you away from your site. Maybe this should be changed so that it opens a new window.
The photos do need some work.
The one on the first page, maybe open the shutters and gates?
The Area page, some of the photos lack life, we mean that they need some people around.
What are the discounts…it is always good to know them.
The E-mail link does not work on the contact page. You can find codes on the internet that stop spammers from harvesting the email address it that is what you are worried about.


PS are they moblie phone numbers?

Before we bought our gite property, we stayed as guests for a week - partly to see the complex in action and partly to shoot pix to replace the previous owner's output which didn't (we thought) do justice to the property.

Interiors can be re-shot at any time (indeed, bright sunshine streaming through the windows is often undesireable) but you can't fake exteriors of your property and shots of the attractions of your local area which must be taken at the proper time. To fill this gap, you might consider licencing some generic scenery pix of your locality from a stock library and using these until you can shoot your own stuff. One booking would probably cover the stock pix. It's also important, I think, that your pix can open to a bigger size.

www.alamy.com is usually a good starting place.

I was in your region only the other day and must have passed closeby your property. How can anybody not love the Med!

Jim

Hi, I am more of a reader than poster, but having read thoughts on those like me. I thought I'd be brave and post too.

Overall, I liked the use of blue except for the text, It's evening and maybe I'm tired but I found it hard to absorb the words and had to re-read it.

Because the pics are 'empty' of life I found it hard to imagine a holiday there: how about open shutters, a table laid for a bbq.
some views from inside of the outside can help to generate a feel for a property.

Hope you get lots of bookings


I've not been confident enough to do a web site, maybe soon I'll take the plunge!

I think the "more about the area" link should have much more prominence !

Peter

For me, 'seaside villa' - your first page doesn't do anything

not much info on your first page (i didnt go further) so narrow it down, text below a picture, your best picture be it the lounge, bedroom, the village or the beach, probably the beach

with a seaside place i'd plug the beach and seaside area rather than your property - as its not the traditional 'villa' with pool i'd go for the golden sand and blue sea kind of site, the outside house pic doesn't do it i'm afraid

sand and sea will do the trick

Agree with all previous comments SJ, though speaking as one who is still in shock from having successfully created some business cards with Vistaprint on line, I'm lost in admiration for anyone who is able to build their own website: to do so would have given me a terrific sense of achievement. When you've re-taken the photos, it would be great to see it again on this thread for members to offer more feedback.

Just two extra comments:

1. If you have plans to include more images on the home page then the following is redundant: there is presently much too much white space between the text and the image - the two need to be closer together.

2. On the villa page, a shot of the terrace, suitably staged, would also help to 'sell' the property, plus maybe a (zoomed) image of the view of Mt Canigou from there. And I guess you've already thought of including one of the living area when you're ready.

3. The blue text - I feel blue is fine, but maybe go for something just one or two tones darker, which will be easier on the eye. This is particularly needed on the supplementary pages, where the blue is currently even lighter than on the home page.

Alternatively, here is another way of using blue; e-Richard won't mind my taking a bit of a liberty and holding his website up as an example I hope! I particularly like his use of grey for the main text - it's softer than black. There is still plenty of colour on each of the pages, including blue.

http://www.ourcarvoeiro.com/

I agree that the light blue text is a little hard to on the eye

J