Could you take a look at my website, Please!

Get some feedback on your site or ad from other rental owners and techies. Also a library of online resources so you can make DIY improvements to your web presence.
Giuliana
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Could you take a look at my website, Please!

Post by Giuliana »

Hello all,
We are new to the forum and I must say it's great. Lots of questions I had regarding rental have been answered in previous posts ( yesterday spent all day reading them :roll: ) We started renting this year and after all the expense of furnishing the Villa decided to build our own free web site. Getting the viewings but not the bookings :( . All our guests up to now have left us a glowing review .( I'm on site so I follow them throughout the holiday) Please experts of the rental sector, tell me if I am doing something wrong :? Grazie!
goosie
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Location: Cotswolds

Post by goosie »

Giuliana - welcome to the site. We too are new to this this year and it has proved invaluable - even people's honest (!) views about websites!

I've had a quick look at yours and these are my first impressions which I hope that you will find constructive:

1. It took a long time to load on my computer and, I think if I were looking for a holiday home, I wouldn't have bothered waiting.

2. The reason for this is that your front page has far too much on it, too many photos, too much information to scroll down and as a result all that has to be uploaded to be seen. I would strongly recommend you have a relatively short front page with two or three key photos enticing people in - with enough information about the house and area to make them want to find out more but that is it.

3. I wonder whether the Italian at the start is putting off British/English speaking renters as it is not obvious that the next section is English. A lot of other people's websites here have a click to a separate webpage in other languages. I have to confess I haven't quite mastered this for mine so I'm making a suggestion which is beyond my technical capabilities!!

4. I know this is a matter of opinion, and its been debated many times here, but personally I'm not that interested in what a house looked like before it was done up. In fact, I'd go further than that with yours which is the grey, rather dull building in the `before` photos immediately makes me wonder whether the other buildings in the road would look like the before photos and would the view be rather like being on a building site or derilict land. As I said, it is just my personal opinion!

5. You may be getting lots of hits because you have so much information on your first page - that is good if you think you have something of interest to them, but if they are finding it with a search engine for words irrelevant to your holiday home then you may well get a high hit rate but very few of them may be actually looking for somewhere to rent.

I hope that helps!
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Mountain Goat
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Post by Mountain Goat »

Giuliana, welcome to LMH - ravishing property - a great renovation!

I notice you mention on your ad that smokers are welcome.

I'm curious to know how many non-smoking LMHers woiuld be turned off by that. I dread staying in an hotel room which allows smoking, and spending a holiday week or two would not be attractive.

Does it halve your potential market? You could say it increases it.

What do smokers think? Just curious.

MG
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cambalala
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Post by cambalala »

As an ex smoker. I hate the smell of a smoked in room. As the saying goes: "an ex smoker is the worst non snoker"

However: that being said, when I was a smoker I would have jumped at the oppurtunity to rent a smoking place. There's not many of them around.

However, when I and many others I know did smoke; booking a non-smoking residence was no put off at all because smoking outside is easy. ;-)

I'd rather advertise as: "non smoking" and say that smoking is allowed on the patio or whatever.

As a non-smoker, I'd steer clear of a place that welcomes smokers ;-) - just my 2 cents.
www.cambalala.com - 3D Virtual Tour
Website On: Wordpress.
Booking Software: PIMS) - Yay!
Giuliana
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Thank you!!!

Post by Giuliana »

Dear Goosie and Mountain goat,
Thank you so much for your advice. I have already changed the website so if you could please have another peek I would be grateful. I agree with Goosie old photo did give the wrong message. Also the fact about smoking in the property was negative. Lets hope that I can get some bookings now. Thank you once again for taking the time to help me :D .
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CSE
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Post by CSE »

Welcome…
Don’t worry about the non-smokers/smokers debate. Everyone will find what they want. Glad to see you state that you allow smoking, rather than just leaving it up to guest to find out upon arrival.
On your web site we have noticed that some of the translations, on the front page, are not done into English. If English speakers are important to your business then make you should undertake a full translation.
It has been said before that dates should be removed from photos.
All the links ( on the first page) to Google, Postepay, maltaitacaonlus.it and the calendar take you away from your website. Personally we think it is better to open up a new window so they don’t loose your website. All the links on your link page do the same. The German flag means nothing. We had to click on it to find out what it means.
The British flag dose not link to anything. We thought it would take you to the English version.
Your guest book comments seem to be in two distinct styles. Is there a reason?
The contact form has no control, so sorry when clicked it sent you an empty form. Our mistake but it was for a test.
Personally the font is not to our liking. But reading the code it seems you have used “Times New Roman, Times, Serif” size 3 but on this PC it shows up differently and smaller. The CCS code shows a different font. Maybe the PC is getting confused. Hopefully others can comment of this.
There are no Meta Tags either. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta_tag
You done a great renovation, but one of you is a Civil Engineer should have helped a lot.
Never try to out-stubborn your guests.
Giuliana
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Dear Ian and Irene

Post by Giuliana »

casasantoestevo wrote:Welcome…
Don’t worry about the non-smokers/smokers debate. Everyone will find what they want. Glad to see you state that you allow smoking, rather than just leaving it up to guest to find out upon arrival.
On your web site we have noticed that some of the translations, on the front page, are not done into English. If English speakers are important to your business then make you should undertake a full translation.
It has been said before that dates should be removed from photos.
All the links ( on the first page) to Google, Postepay, maltaitacaonlus.it and the calendar take you away from your website. Personally we think it is better to open up a new window so they don’t loose your website. All the links on your link page do the same. The German flag means nothing. We had to click on it to find out what it means.
The British flag dose not link to anything. We thought it would take you to the English version.
Your guest book comments seem to be in two distinct styles. Is there a reason?
The contact form has no control, so sorry when clicked it sent you an empty form. Our mistake but it was for a test.
Personally the font is not to our liking. But reading the code it seems you have used “Times New Roman, Times, Serif” size 3 but on this PC it shows up differently and smaller. The CCS code shows a different font. Maybe the PC is getting confused. Hopefully others can comment of this.
There are no Meta Tags either. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta_tag
You done a great renovation, but one of you is a Civil Engineer should have helped a lot.
Thanks for taking the time to visit our website in such detail. I didn't know about the German Flag :oops: . I don't know what Mega Tags are. All your message was too technical for :shock: me . But thanks anyway. We are not very good at this , Thank goodness we are better when it comes to renovations. Did you see Villa Vanessa on our website :?: Thats our next project.
Martha
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Location: Chamonix

Post by Martha »

Hi Giuliana, and welcome!

The house looks really beautiful! No wonder you have so many happy guests. I would look at perhaps splitting the site into an english and an italian version - better for searches, and easier to read...
Chalet la Foret, Chamonix
Giuliana
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Grazie Martha

Post by Giuliana »

Martha wrote:Hi Giuliana, and welcome!

The house looks really beautiful! No wonder you have so many happy guests. I would look at perhaps splitting the site into an english and an italian version - better for searches, and easier to read...
Thanks Martha,
your advice has been really helpful, we have added another page all in English and renovated the site. If you get time could you have another look to see what you think!
PMOUNTNEY72
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Can you take a look at my website please

Post by PMOUNTNEY72 »

Hi,

I have beeb receiving lots of views but am unsure why i am not receiving more bookings. Could somone please take a look at my website and give me some feedback.

Many thanks

Paul
www.golfroda.com
Musetta
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Post by Musetta »

Giuliana,
Benvenuto.
Honestly, I think part of it may be the photo quality - the place really looks beautiful, and the choice of photos (this goes for the HLettings listing too) is nice...but the quality and clarity is not so good...is there a way to re-take with a higher resolution camera (or something - I'm no expert for sure!) (I will look through the rest as well....this was just what struck me first)
Giuliana
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Post by Giuliana »

Hi Musetta,
Thanks for taking a look, I think that the photos were too big and when they are resized they lose some clarity. Will look into it. Let me know what you think about the rest.
Love your property. Do you charge the same price all year through? Giuliana
Musetta
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Post by Musetta »

yes, I do - a bit because I'm still new at this and couldn't figure out my seasons until I had a few seasons renting (we've only had two now)...

that property is in a kind of odd position for a holiday rental - we tend to get people who have or are travelling through Italy a LOT (i.e for months at a time) or have seen much of Italy in the past and want something different...or are interested in my particular Province because of their Italian heritage. Most do not have children, and, obviously, we don't have the beach, so I'm finding that their really aren't specific weeks that book more than others (except for Aug. - and I may raise Aug. rates next year!)

Also...the house has no heat, so running the electric heaters and wood for the fire gets expensive, so I don't want to loose money in the winter...and, I, honestly, don't mind it not being booked in winter because dealing with the firewood and telling people over and over that there is no heat gets difficult! (besides that, I usually go there myself in winter and allow family to visit there ;-) )

(the house near NY I did the same with because it is our first year...but will be changing that this month with high, medium and low seasons since I am finding the popular weeks are booking up)
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Holiday Ray
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Post by Holiday Ray »

Hi Giuliana
My first impressions are that you've done a fab job, creating the website from scratch - well done !
My comments are :-
I too found it somewhat off-putting when I arrived on the homepage and the text was in Italian. The British flag was only just visible at the very bottom of my screen, so I only just saw it before moving off the website altogether. I agree that if you are targetting English speaking guests, then if the homepage is not in English, the British flag at least needs moving further up the page, to make it more easily visible.

Personally I would like to see the gap to the left of the main photo on the homepage filled with either text, or another, smaller photo.

I liked the photos in the gallery. I've been trying (without success) to take a sunset photo of the quality you have taken for 18 months now :( , so well done on that score :) .

I like the bedroom photos, they look very comfortable.

I would definitely re-take the living room photo WITH THE TV SWITCHED OFF !

Another personal thing for me, is that I like to see the availability. I see you have it with the Holidaylettings add, but I couldn't see any on your own site. I am one of those that will search elsewhere rather than email the owner to find out the availability, but I know others are very succesful without an availability calender, so again it's a personal thing.

All in all though Giuliana - an excellent effort

And that next project of yours really looks like being a winner :wink:
Ray
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Fil
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Post by Fil »

The place looks great.
I woud make colors softer as it gets a bit tiring to read.
Would develop text making richer descriptions of the villa and location. The term "tourist" could be replaced (by "visitors" ?) because some can read it negatively.
The text is a bit "touristical brochure style". I would make it more personnal and subjective.
Hope this hepls. Good luck.
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