Lay My Hat

Been reading another thread here and found some critical comments of Iowners templates. I recently created a website using Iowners and got plenty of valuable opinion here. I actually feel my site isn't bad, but please feel free to give more contructive criticism!

http://www.niceplace.iowners.net/

It looks a lot better than I remember first time round. The photos on the gallery still take a little long to reload, and all your bullet points are coming up as question marks on my browser (FF). But it looks better overall, but would be even better if you had a non ioners site!

declanja, at least your template doesn't have Google ads. I visit an unbelievable amount of websites and find Iowners templates have a sort of holding page look about them, probably to do with the stock photos. In view they do nothing to 'sell' the properties despite how great the properties are. That's just a personal view.

There will come a time when I will be expected to put my money where my mouth is and show people how I think it should be done, or at least how it could be so much better.

But that's a little way off as I'm waiting for the recent branch of WordPress to settle down and mature before I let loose

Hi,
I'm very much a novice at websites and holiday accommodation marketing and am very interested in the comments expressed about iowners websites, particularly the one that says " it would be even better if it were not an iowners site"

Pardon my ignorance, but why? I developed my website through iowners, never having done anything like this before, and so far am quite pleased with it.

What system did others use; why do you feel it is better and most important, can it be done without any website design experience?

As a novice, I welcome advice and constructive criticism, after all the idea is to generate enquiries, not some sort of ego trip. So far (about 8 weeks) I feel my site has been very productive providing several enquiries and one 3 week booking with deposit paid.
Where would others go from here? Ideas please

www.formenteraapartment.com

Well done! You can never argue against the real test, i.e. bookings. Your's are the questions that I too long for answers to.

Do iowners still insist you use their own custom browser toolbar for uploading information to your site?

The mind boggles at what information on your online activities they could harvest, and a serious turnoff for me if that's still the case.

MG

that was exactly the reason I gave them up!!!

They certainly encourage you to download their toobar but while it is not actually essential it does make life easier. However, I recently had a problem with a trojan infection so downloaded and ran Spyware Detector and among the many things that it threw up was malware attached to the toolbar.

My Avast virus protection also started objecting to the toolbar. I contacted Iowners and they said that the latest Avast update meant that their toolbar was temporarily not compatible with it and "their techies were working on it to restore the situation" Since then I have had the toolbar uninstalled and have logged in as one would if using another computer (eg at the apartment site) It is not as convenient but it works just the same.
regards
www.formenteraapartment.com

Beachcomber...could you explain how you log in?? I can't seem to fathom it at all!

tree-peony wrote:Beachcomber...could you explain how you log in?? I can't seem to fathom it at all!

If you have a website set up with iowners you can log in without the toolbar by going to www.independentowners.com/remotelogin.
then entering your email address and password.
It is a bit more long winded but it takes you to the owners management area to make whatever changes etc you need.

The toolbar has the advantage of instant one click login and also gives warning of any enquiries that you receive by a colour change of an icon on the tool bar. However, if you have opted for email advice also when an enquiry is received, you would know anyway and go the site admin area to collect it.
Hope this is helpful.

www.formenteraapartment.com

nope..that just takes me to the main page telling me to download the toolbar

My apologies, I didn't read it correctly, I'm so used to just clicking on the url from the previous time i used it.
It should have read http://member.independentowners.com/remotelogin

Hope this now works
www.formenteraapartment.com

I'll ask iowners support what information, if any, they reap off our/their toolbar.

A tedious question (reminds me of grown-ups in the distant past) - what would happen if every listing site did this?

MG

Hi Mountaingoat,

Just had a look at your website and am most impressed. Is this your own work or did you have it professionally done and if so what sort of cost?

Regards
www.Formenteraapartment.com

I'm afraid it's a bit of a cheat - freebie WordPress theme from Andreas Viklund, a talented Swedish web designer, and then deblogged (i.e. conventional WP blog features disabled). The only visible extra feature is variable header images.

I was particular keen on his theme as I wanted 2nd and 3rd level menu items, which is a neglected feature on many WP designs. I've used it on stacks of other projects.

I'm keen on WordPress sites as they can be highly visible on Google, within a week or so of publication, but it does need adding content to keep them there. I made the mistake of not changing my page urls to something readable, and although it can be done in retrospect, I'd lose my Google positioning (but eventually gain, as Google picked them up, but I'm too chicken to try).

Cost? Well, nothing for the theme (though Andreas finds contributions more than welcome) and a bit of hosting - a few dollars a month?

MG