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Hi All,
I have taken on board your comments about re-branding my site to make it more appealing to everyone and not just people who like stained glass, also I found out that there were no key word or tags on the site so we have now asked our son to add some, i hope this makes it more visible. - as you can tell i am not very technical.
Anyway can you have another look and let me have your comments on the new layout.
cheers
Ann.
You must learn from the mistakes of others.
You can't possibly live long enough to make them all yourself.
Just a few comments in passing as I'm in the middle of submitting to Inland Revnue (or trying too, I welcome any distractions!)
Very nice shade of ...brown - just joking, I like it.
On the price page I would add a /per night line (unless it's 55euros per week!) - just for clarity.
The "To reserve your room click here" gave me a 404 error in German.
I would add some description to the pictures and alt/name tags.
On the links page the one for "stainedglassinfrance.com/" also gave me an error.
It's very difficult to see the words "Local Airports" and other headers on the travel page.
Still on the travel page I would open the mappy.com link in a new window as IE refused to go back to your site when I clicked back (had to use the pull down feature on the back button). All externals links should open in new windows anyway to avoid loosing your visitors.
Other than that brilliant - looks very professional.
I like the new site! Did you have a stained-glass logo before? I remember that I liked it -- it seemed like a conversation piece to me.
One very small thing: I'm in Firefox in Linux and the "About La Maison des Vitraux" menu link is overflowing onto a second line, which is causing it to overlap with the "Meals" link below it.
Also, have you run a spell-check on your site? I noticed in particular that "Address" is spelled wrong on your left navigational menu and on the header for that page as well.
I'd like to see more about his meeting with Duke of Edinburgh...was it to do with the Trust/DoE Award scheme or just that he's a jolly good stained glass man?
I did like your jade colour before...but this brown is good to.
First of all, well done for persevering and making the changes, I think you have done the right thing in 're-branding'. This site is much better balanced now, with less emphasis on the stained glass and more on the qualities of your house.
Here are some suggestions for fine-tuning, based on my look around the site:
- I think 2 minutes is too close to the airport, it would put me off booking. As long as you are not under the flight path it would be an idea to blur the edge a little here: ‘close to the airport and attractions of Bergerac, with its medieval quarter…etc’
- On your homepage there is no mention of ‘B&B’ or ‘Bed and Breakfast’. You say you have added keywords – these are your key ones. If you meant you have added Keywords in the html, that is redundant these days.
- The Title tag is important and yours says ‘Bed and Breakfast, Bergerac, Dordogne, France’. I wonder if people don’t search more for ‘B&B’ or ‘B and B’?
- I’d mix up the pics on the right hand side. The first two are of the exterior of the house which I would say is not your strongest selling point. The obvious possibilities are the exterior, the interior, the view, and the local area. So I would put an internal at the top because your rooms look good.
Personally, the pic of the church does not make me want to come to Bergerac. You have pics of the local area elsewhere on your site that do make me want to visit - your more typically Dordogne shots. I guess the church is the one in your village, and if it said as much in a caption that would make it more appealing. Without captions my best guess is that it is the highlight of a trip to Bergerac.
- You have a press release and there is a paragraph that caught my eye:
“I had the Charles Rennie Makintosh room, which, like the other four rooms gave a welcoming glow as you entered, with afternoon sunlight flooding the room through a beautiful stained glass window. This was the secret of 'La Maison des Vitraux.�
I thought if you had descriptive text like this on the homepage, conveying the feel of the rooms and the house, an enthusiasm for the place on an emotive level, you’d get people to sit up and want to find out more. I would put this quote on the homepage as a graphic to stand out from the main text, with ‘Alan Barton, Travel Writer’ under it.
- Meals page: how about, if not sample menus, mentioning a few of the dishes you prepare? Appeal to the stomach, as most people who visit France probably like their food.
- Garden: do you have any sunlounger-type chairs one could lie in or read? All your garden furniture looks very nice, but a bit upright!
- For each room you have quite a lot of text about the artist, movement or object that inspired the room. This is an interesting idea, but I am not convinced that it is a good idea. It will appeal to a narrow section of your target market, but it will be a bit much for the rest. The biography of Klimt is especially hard to get through and it invites the reaction “So what?�
To make people want to read on I think you should try to mix in a little of the inspiration for the room with something about the room itself – aspect, feel, amenities, etc. I’ve said it before but if you write as though you were writing a letter to a good friend explaining the room and why you decorated it as you did, how it marries aspects of art deco or Klimt, etc. you will come up with the right tone of voice to get people hooked into reading more.
Your house will always appeal to those who are interested in the arts and the Dordogne, but you want to appeal to those who are just interested in the Dordogne too. That’s why I would tone down these room pages.
How about your advertising? Don’t rely on a personal website to bring in many enquiries, that’s what the advertising sites are for, and then you can refer or link them to this site.
- just joking, I like it.
