Our apartment website - I would value your opinion

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KerryL
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Location: Cannes, France
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Our apartment website - I would value your opinion

Post by KerryL »

Hi guys

I am new here and so wish I had found this forum 18 months ago when we were buying our first apartment.

I would value your comments on our web site. Most of our bookings come via holiday rentals and Primary Rentals but we have had a few bookings direct from the web site and they are becoming more frequent.

www.apartmentsincannes.com

I built the site using Rapidweaver which is great as I use a Mac (I started learning Dreamweaver once upon a time but 5 years and two babies later I can't get my head round it any more!!) I have only really seen it on a Mac using Firefox or Safari so if there are any IE problems please let me know.

I have two basic problems that I know of:
I get a couple of spam emails a day via my contact form and have no idea how to stop it if anyone can help with that one it would be great.

I think I may need to get on the Rapidweaver forum for this one but someone might be able to help - when I have currency symbols or accents in my text it adds symbols like £150 . This means I can't put my French translation onto my site.

Thank you

Kerry
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vrooje
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Post by vrooje »

Hi Kerry,

I don't have a lot of time right now but I'll post a few comments about my impressions:

My first impression is good, bright colors, easy to read.

I did notice, however, that the words "rent", "rental", or "vacation" (for US searches) do not appear anywhere on your home page. The word "holiday" only appears once. Your page title also doesn't have any information about the fact that this is a short-term rental. I'd recommend adding a few of those keywords in various places.

One other thing as well -- the top banner of the Cannes waterfront looks like it's overcast. As soon as you can replace that with a sunny blue-sky image, I'd do that.

Sorry this is so short; I'm sure others will have suggestions.

On the topic of contact form spam, we have discussed this on LMH in a couple of places -- the most recent, I believe, was here.

For the accented characters, are you typing them in directly or are you using character codes? I'd recommend the latter.
Brooke
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cottageguru
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Post by cottageguru »

I think it is a great looking site and I'm impressed with the quality of your interior photos. They are so professional and convey the feel of style and comfort. Because there are so many good ones, I was wondering why you chose the Leon photo on your home page. There seemed to be others that gave more of a flavour of the quality of the apartment.

I clicked on the Google Map but it didn't show specifically where the apartments were. The map pins were not numbered.

You've put a lot of effort into this and it really shows - well done!
Heather

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Nemo
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Post by Nemo »

Hi Kerry

One error I found was that opening in internet explorer the first 4 pages - home through to about cannes, show some coding at the top of the page "/> (like this) above the photo in the top left hand corner.

Typo's I found on having a quick glance were:Availability is spelt with an 'i' instead of an 'a' a few times on the availability page.

The apartment price/availability pages have an extra 's' in spotlessly.

Otherwise it looks great. I hope I can manage something this good when my time comes!
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KerryL
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Location: Cannes, France
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Post by KerryL »

Hi

Thank you for your comments, I appreciate you taking the time. I have started making alterations including changing the page title & altering the map pins (I hadn't realised I could customise them to make it easier to understand what they were pointing at).

I hadn't noticed how overcast the banner photograph looks I will alter it tomorrow along with the typos (thanks).
cottageguru wrote:I was wondering why you chose the Leon photo on your home page. There seemed to be others that gave more of a flavour of the quality of the apartment.
Maybe I should change it for the main kitchen photo with the view to the living room? which photograph would you chose? I think I chose the 'chair' photo because I had seen something very similar in a home design/decorating magazine & it inspired me to wallpaper the living room.

The character codes & stopping the spam I will have to look into as my limited knowledge of writing html left my brain along with many other things when I became pregnant & unfortunately did not return!!!
The coding "/> at the top of the pages appear in Firefox too and I don't have a clue why they are there, I think they might have appeared when I was adding meta tags/description.

I am relieved you think it is mostly okay as I am constantly trying to improve it when I notice little mistakes here & there.

Thanks again
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Garri
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Post by Garri »

Kerry, the "/> coding at the top appears because you have placed the following code directly after the <body> tag and just before the <script> tag:

Code: Select all

" /> " /> " /> 
Overall the site's below average and although I'm a sucker for the unconventional, I'm not sure about the logo being over on the right. It makes your header look over-crowded. It could easily go over on the left. Plus the 1px white borders on the left and right of the header look like a mistake. Take them out or consider placing a 1px white border along the top of the header photo.

Also, your Location page doesn't have a left nav bar making your nav tabs jump over to the left when viewing that page. Makes your site look inconsistent.

Contact form spam: there's many techniques to counter this from implementing captchas to special scripts but the one I like (and use with great success) is this one:

http://www.modernblue.com/web-design-bl ... -with-css/
Last edited by Garri on Thu Aug 28, 2008 6:12 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Jimbo
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Post by Jimbo »

Christina Aguilera said:
So, where's the Cannes Film Festival being held this year?
Hi Kerry

It's not fair, but when your property is situated in one of the world's glamorous locations, you really need to raise your game with regard to your photographs. Your interiors are fine but I'd recommend a bit more work on the exterior shots to capture the essential atmosphere, vibrancy and colour of Cannes.

Have a look at the Alamy stock site http://tinyurl.com/5fwhoh and see what other photographers have done with 'Cannes'. Remember that many of these contributors aren't professional snappers, so don't feel daunted by the pix. The key to an effective publicity photo is involvement - you feel the sun on your face, you're sitting on that impossibly glamorous beach, eating seafood in that terrific waterfront restaurant, chatting to Michael and Catherine and suddenly - hey - you're there!

Good luck!

Jim
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Rocket Rab
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Re: Our apartment website - I would value your opinion

Post by Rocket Rab »

Kerry & Michael wrote: I think I may need to get on the Rapidweaver forum for this one but someone might be able to help - when I have currency symbols or accents in my text it adds symbols like £150 . This means I can't put my French translation onto my site.

Thank you
Hi Kerry,

You might find these accent codes helpful. Not sure if they will work with Rapidweaver, which I don't know, but fingers crossed.

With thanks to MG for the original link.

Oops, just noticed you provided another helpful link, Brooke, I'll bookmark that!

RR
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KerryL
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Post by KerryL »

It's not fair, but when your property is situated in one of the world's glamorous locations, you really need to raise your game with regard to your photographs. Your interiors are fine but I'd recommend a bit more work on the exterior shots to capture the essential atmosphere, vibrancy and colour of Cannes.
You are right, I was busy selling the apartments & not 'the dream' - I need to get people to imagine they are there & hopefully they fall in love with the area & book with us before looking anywhere else.

I have tweaked the web site a bit including my 'tour of Cannes' (slideshow on About Cannes page). I hope it works okay, see what you think - I have started one of the surrounding area which includes Monaco as it is only 45 mins away and I think I will add one to the apartment info page too.

Thanks,
Kerry
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Garri
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Post by Garri »

The stray code is still there after <body> in top left. Logo covers up a building in the foreground (not good design) - it still looks like it's on the right by mistake as there's a vacant gap on left. Sky looks fake.

When I scroll down each page there's no 'call to action' in the footer to help me make an enquiry. You're not alone in this as 99% of websites I evaluate don't place calls to action at the end.

Not sure why you've placed this in your sidebar on the homepage: apartmentsincannes.com
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Topcat
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Post by Topcat »

I think it's a lovely website. I like the way it's built, with the tabs for greater detail down the left hand side. The interior pics are lovely, but I take Jimbo's point about making the area itself more of a selling point. I saw no stray text, so presumably you've sorted it now.

My only quibble is that I always want to know early on how many the place will sleep. Could you not add that to your home page under the description of each apartment? I know it's in the site, but you have to look for it.

I also got a bit fed up with scrolling - could you put a 'back to top' tab at the bottom of the screen?

Good luck, though. It looks absolutely gorgeous.

TC
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Garri
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Post by Garri »

I agree with TC, the property IS gorgeous (but the website isn't. I said that, she didn't.)

Yeah, a link to get back up to the top is a must but before that consider making a 'call to action' (CTA).

Look at this page:

http://www.newforestliving.co.uk/holida ... etails.htm

What's neat are the bullet points of the features plus the CTA with various of ways of contacting them. Button = check Price and Availability, phone number plus email.

I like that because the bullet points remind me of what I've been reading and the buttons/links make it easy for me to make contact without hunting around the website for a means in which to do so.

Only thing it lacks is a link to get back to the top, plus a couple of thumbnail photos.
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Topcat
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Post by Topcat »

Well, I partly agree with Garri. I still think your site is very attractive.

However, I'm with him about the bullet points. I went for that idea myself when we were building my main site (which is up for considerable revision in the next month or so). But people want information quickly, and in particular, how many people the place will accommodate is absolutely crucial information, as is (in my opinion) what type of sleeping arrangements are possible, and how many bathrooms. Given your current lay-out it wouldn't be too difficult to incorporate some basic info on the home page.

TC
Debut novelist at http://tinyurl.com/or89jle

http://wivenhoewriters.blogspot.co.uk/
Contributor to anthology 'In a Word: Murder'
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KerryL
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Post by KerryL »

Garri wrote: Not sure why you've placed this in your sidebar on the homepage: apartmentsincannes.com
Neither am I! - it's left over from an original version of the web site so I do need to take it off. I might put the logo in the sidebar instead ??

--
The header photo is still not great, it looked drab to begin with & I have gone too far the other way. I was originally going to have a different photo on the top of each section but I went for consistancy. Need to look at that coding again, I haven't managed to get rid of it yet, it will be my job for the weekend.

Most of the pics are mine but a few are stock photos. Good, cheap places for photos by the way are : www.fotolia.co.uk and www.istockphoto.com - they have photographs from 50p

I have bullet points on the apartments pages but good idea to put list of main features on the first page. I like the CTA at the bottom. I didn't think about that before because I guess I expected people to browse through the whole site before wanting to contact me.

Kerry
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greenfrog
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Post by greenfrog »

Hi Kerry,

Your properties look gorgeous. Just a few thoughts on the site to add to what others have said.

Your photos are lovely but the chair photo wouldn't be enough to make me go to Cannes. The one that caught my eye was the terrace shot. I've been to Cannes many times (mostly for work) and a terrace would be a huge selling point for me.

I also don't like the website name logo on the home page strap pic. It looks odd. Perhaps without the background?

On the Apartments page, "french" should have a cap F. And on the home page, there's quite a gap between the end of your content and the end of the page so I found myself scrolling down pointlessly.

I also think you should specify that you're in Le Suquet on your home page - I didn't find that out until I went for the Location shots. Anyone who goes to Cannes for work would be thrilled at the chance to get away from the darn Palais des Festivals on a holiday. :lol: Or even for most of the conferences. Le Suquet is by far the most appealing part of the town and you're not selling the location hard enough.

And for those who really want the beach, you simply stress that it's just a short walk away. You have the best of all worlds where you are.

Are you targetting holidaymakers or working visitors? If the latter, or both, do you not charge more for festivals / conferences? If so, it's not noted anywhere on your rates page. I'd be first in demanding the Film Festival for 400 euros/wk... :wink:

I think the rental property market in Cannes is fairly saturated so well done on having such attractive properties. Best of luck!
GF
Lounging on the lily pad...
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