I'm a new member. How does my website compare with others?

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.
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christinedavid
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I'm a new member. How does my website compare with others?

Post by christinedavid »

Hi
I have just joined this forum, but have had my own website for a couple of years now. I used Freewebs (recently changed its name to Webs) to produce it. It is quite frustrating to use, in particular the pages don't look the same as they do when you're writing them. Especially the photos - it's almost impossible to arrange them sensibly on the page. I have put a lot of thought and effort into my website and am really quite pleased with the result. I'm forever trying to improve it and and am always updating it. I would be pleased to hear what the forum members think of it
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CSE
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Location: Galicia

Post by CSE »

Welcome to the forum…..
I liked the font and the basic layout everything is quite clear. I have not taken much time to read all of the text and therefore I will not comment on this side at present.
First thing to suggest is to make a web site for each property. Find it confusing on the first plage when you talk about the 3. Plus on the first page maybe drop the welcome message, as it is not relevant to the houses. I personally do not want to know why you are renting them out. That sounds a bit harsh I know.
Whilst I appreciate the dream connection can I ask what has the surfing header to do with your properties?
You can arrange your photos either by using some tables inside the web page or maybe they can be rearranged using the borders tag for the photo. shown in bold below. You should be able to add vertical and horizontal.another way is to use the align default.
<IMG src="http://www.sharingadream.co.uk/Chalet%2 ... chalet.jpg" border=0></FONT>
and not use the &nbsp.
On the Elizabeth page the section on ski packs is not very good; the colours of the font blend into the background.
On the Ducks pond page the calendar is not working and I get an error.
The link at the top “ owners – advertise here” take me away from your web site.
I cannot find the booking form.
So to round up maybe make three web sites based upon this layout and style you should do ok.
Never try to out-stubborn your guests.
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christinedavid
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My website

Post by christinedavid »

Hello Ian and Irene
Thank you very much for taking the time to look at my website, and your helpful comments. I will take them on board to improve things. Thanks again.
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MikeP
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Location: Port-Vendres, Sth France

Post by MikeP »

Hi Christine,

Here are my thoughts, for what they are worth!

On the front page, perhaps a small map of Europe to indicate where each property is situated? You could even use the map to click through to the property that you were interested in (but keep the property links in the left hand side menu too)

Certainly each property requires a further set of sections for Chalet Pictures, Facilities & Services, Surrounding Area, Pricing, Availability & Booking, Travel and Special Offers. This would then avoid it all being on the one page which results in too much scrolling.

A plan of each property would be useful too (see what I could offer here).

You might even consider making your page a little wider, up to 1000 pixels, since most screen resolutions are now this size or bigger.

It's a nice site - there is nothing seriously wrong with it. But it all comes down to how much time you are willing to spend to get it just that little bit better.

Best wishes

Mike
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christinedavid
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My website

Post by christinedavid »

Hello Mike
Thank you for your helpful comments.I need to look at the possibilities within the software for making the changes you suggest. Particularly regarding the "scrolling problem".
Thanks again.
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Ju
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Post by Ju »

I would strongly suggest that you split the 3 properties on to their own websites, rather than just separate pages. You could then keep the "sharingadream" site to link the three, but you could have a more relavent web name for each of the properties.

I found it very confusing looking at a proeprty in bulgaria, then all of a sudden we were in Burnham market.

If you want to keep the personal side of the "sharingadream" site you could make the other sides more "professional"

Ju
sophiashouse
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Location: Almerida, Crete
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Post by sophiashouse »

Hi Christine,

We've also just joined this forum and have also just put our website up for comments (please add yours).I was drawn to your website because of the name, ( our villa is called Sophia's House after our first grandaughter).

After looking at your website would agree with previous comments ref text on Sophia's villa page hard to read for us old ones, page could be wider, would probably be better with a different website for each property with several pages on each that could be optimised accordingly.

could then possibly look at the title to reflect search terms that your potential customers may type into search engines,
apparently google sees your title as highly relevant (as long as the content also reflects the title)

title eg Sophiashouse website is "almirida, villa accommodation in crete, sophia's house" (Put most important phrase first must have precise spelling).

if you type each phrase into google should find us on first page.

We used dreamweaver to build our website which was a bit scary at first but being very popular there are many excellant tutorials available. Its also unlikely that the investment in time learning is going
to be wasted through outgrowing the software.
This software gives total flexibility ref layout etc but depends on how much time you want to spend on a computer.

Hope you dont mind me adding these comments, still learning myself, could hardly send an e-mail two years ago and still struggle with text messages. :?

Good luck

John

www.sophiashouse.co.uk
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christinedavid
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Post by christinedavid »

Hi John
Thank you for your helpful advice. Our Villa Sophia is named after my stepdaughter and our Chalet Elizabeth after my daughter :-)
I am in the throes of updating my website, following all the advice I've been given on here. The same comments keep coming up, and I'm looking into altering it along those lines.I'll have a look at Dreamweaver as well.
I've had a look at your website.I liked the video. It's nice to be able to see the villa properly, rather than just from photos. I did feel that there's too much detail about Thistle Property Services. Some sort of availability calendar on the website would be useful. I personally wouldn't contact a property to "ask" if it was available for my dates, from a single property website. I might from a larger website, where I could send off enquiries to several properties at once. It doesn't say whether it's a smoking property, or any other sort of terms and conditions, but perhaps you give people that information when they enquire.Although there's lots of photos and information about the area and Crete, it doesn't really tell you where the villa is and whether or not it is necessary to hire a car. It's hard to know really what other people are aiming at with their website. I aim to put as much information on my website as I can, in the hope that I can provide answers to people's questions, so they can make a decision abvout my property without having to contact me first.I do, of course, answer any queries I get! I often find people asking me things that are already answered on my website. I don't know if it's because they can't be bothered to look or whether I'm overloading them with information!
I hope I haven't offended you with my comments.
Best wishes,
sophiashouse
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Location: Almerida, Crete
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Post by sophiashouse »

Hi Christine,

Thanks for the comments its a great help to get other opinions.I think maybe your right and we did overdo the content regards the management and maintenance company, we were scared that there would be a move away from independant travel and back towards travel agents/ package deals with regards to airline problems. We thought it was important to reasure people that they had a team of professionals locally on hand to help with any eventuality.
Will work through the website regards other comments. We are currently using an excellent management company that handles the actual bookings. The websites main function is to get the original enquiries, this worked so well last year that we passed an enormous amount of bookings onto the villa management company who reduced their fees to us accordingly. This was the reason that we left the availability calendar off the website, this year looks like we are going to have to work harder to fill our own propery and shall have to put that priority above worrying about getting overspill to offset against management costs.

Thanks again

John

http://www.sophiashouse.co.uk
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DrRichard
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Post by DrRichard »

Hi Christine

Welcome to LMH - you're definitely going to get some great help here!

I looked at the site and it seemed OK (ish!) but got pretty confused by the home page. It feels like going on a magical mystery tour across Europe in one page! I'm not trying to be funny.

I'd suggest either splitting out into several sites (as recommended above) or provide a home page which explains things at a higher, clearer level.

Good luck,
Dr Richard
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Windy
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Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2007 8:21 am
Location: Windermere UK

Post by Windy »

Hi Christine

I'd echo those comments about splitting it up - I was really confused by the three locations on one page.

Also I think your header needs more of a graphic - too much blank purple there (for me at least and I LIKE purple :lol: )

The text spanning all the way across is not too easy a read. There's no rules here but my own feeling is that you don't want more than about 2/3 of your current line length - think of how newspapers break lines up. I'm sure someone like Garri will have some research data that will explain this better. (or maybe even contradict it :wink: )

Love the site name. Whilst I see the relevance of the "We have always dreamed..." text to the name I'm not sure about the effect - it made me feel a bit "and your point is?" which is interesting as I have some similar text on my Kingfisher Lodge site about it being our own holiday home blah blah. I am just off to remove it as I realise that I've done the same thing. :oops:
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Gite Guru
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Post by Gite Guru »

Hey, welcome to the forum. I've never used the web tool you mentioned to build a site, but it seems to have done an ok job in terms of code and has obviously given you the flexibility to add keywords, meta description etc.

Out of interest, have you changed your meta description recently, as the one in Google is showing different to the one on your site? If it's a recent change, fine, if it's an old change, you might want to try adding some new content to the site as google clearly hasn't re-indexed your pages in a while. check your listings by searching for site:yourdomainnamehere.com in google to see which pages are indexed and what description is showing.

Apart from the other comments, the only thing I'd add is that I'm not a great fan of the font, it makes the site feel a bit amateur / childish which might reflect badly on the properties. Just my personal taste though.

hth,

Dave
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christinedavid
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Post by christinedavid »

Dear all
Thank you for all your comments. I have now updated my website and addressed most of the problems you mentioned. I have yet to "tidyup" the layout of the individual pages and change the font. I also need to improve the quality of the pictures for the slideshows.
I have not, as yet, set up separate websites for each property, but each one effectively has it's own site only with links to information about that property. I have left the links to the front pages of all the properties at the top of each page, as a quick means of getting back to the front page of a property, rather than keeping clicking the back button. A couple of questions: should I remove those links to the other properties? Should I put links on each of a property's pages to all its other pages eg from booking conditions to booking?
Thanks
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DrRichard
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Post by DrRichard »

Hi Christine

It's getting there! You know this already but you need to pick a less crowded font and line spacing - the villa descriptions are a little bit crowded.

Links back to the home page are good - it makes it easier for your visitors to browse around and it will help in getting your home page ranked by search engines.

On your other links questions, it depends whether you think these links are useful to your visitors.

Generally you want to make it easy for visitors to jump around the pages for a particular house so yes, you probably want to have all the pages for each house linked together.

It's possibly not quite so useful having links from one property direct to another. If I'm looking for a place in Bodrum then I'm probably not going to click on a link to properties in Burnham Market.

Does that make sense? Sensible usually works best here!!

Keep up the great work,
Dr Richard
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christinedavid
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Post by christinedavid »

Richard,thank you for your comments. I had thought exactly the same about the links. I have now put in all the extra links.
Gite. Yes, I have changed my tags.description, in the last few days. So it should filter through soon. Thank you.
Windy. I've removed the "sentimental" comments. I had originally thought that it made it look more friendly, but perhaps not! Thanks.
And now for the font/spacing etc.....
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