Do you think my simple design website reflects my product better or worse?
-
Its been suggested my holiday cottage letting website maybe could do with a professional polish up and maybe restructure and navigation and if it would improve bookings I wouldn't hesitate. My only thought pattern is that this particular website is certainly not high-tech (this website was designed by me in Dreamweaver) I have a great guy working for me which is much better web design than me and technically more capable of producing a professional standard website, but with this new sideline I'm presently a small home-based company currently only letting eight old cottages. My thinking was keep the website simple, personal and homely for the moment.
http://www.endeavourcottage.co.uk/
The website tends to be competing against large agencies which have often hundreds of properties on their books and you have to go through their filtering system to find the small number of properties that might be of interest.
I can see that if I was selling large quantities of electrical equipment or something similar you just in a very polished well-designed website.
The feedback I get from customers is that like the website and they like to know they can get hold of the person behind it.
Which direction would you go? polished professional company styled WordPress website or simple design website with lots of pictures and descriptions.
If I ever hit the big time and have hundreds of cottages I would have to join the design and more complicated navigation of the other agencies websites but whilst I’m small maybe not?
Thanks for reading Alan
-
There are sitewide links to http://www.whitby-holiday-cottage.com/ and http://www.northyorkmoorscottages.co.uk/ in the left navigation.
I would not do that. I would have a page on the site that received traffic from those links and then one link on that page to the other domain.
-
Excuse my lack of knowledge EGOL but don't understand what you mean about promoting cottages on other domains?
-
Thank you Dana for your points, and was discussing a few weeks back with a web designer the idea of making the site completely compatible with mobiles and the other small devices, but thanks for reaffirming this idea. The website is working as it is at the moment so there's no rush but I do understand your points about tidying up. I was just asking if other people thought I should make the website look more businesslike and streamlined even at its small stage of representing only several properties. I personally at this moment in time felt I didn't want to make it too cold and impersonal like some of the larger companies website, until I become one of those larger companies
-
Yes I can see the logic of the quick company statement making a first impression but I'm not sure about the side links, I'll think about it.
-
Missing is a strong, short, clear and convincing statement at the top that communicates your value proposition.
Can you come up with a way to promote cottages on other domains without giving them sitewide links?
-
For the most part Alan, I'm with you. I like the "homey" low-tech nature of the site. The only thing I would say you could improve would be making it easier to read (maybe larger fonts on a white background as opposed to light blue)....maybe keep your layout but improve the quality of your header image, fix some spacing issues in your CSS. These are all just little "housekeeping" details that really wouldn't change the overall look and feel, but would just tidy it up a bit.
You might also want to consider an update because a lot of platforms like WP include some nice built-in functionality that make your website easier to read and navigate on mobile devices.
I'd address the housekeeping issues first (for example, you have the Google+ like button twice at the bottom of this page http://www.endeavourcottage.co.uk/endeavour-cottage.html). You might find that alone produces more bookings, simply because it's easier for your visitors to read your information and they'll be more inclined to trust the site if it appears to be well cared for.
Hope that's helpful! The cottages look really cute!
Dana
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
When products are discontinued- best way to handle pinned or googled images
What do you lose by deleting a product and it's images from an e-commerce site? We have many product images with pinterest pins and shares or that show up on google images searches. Our site is an active American craft gallery with jewelry, art and handmade gifts from about 300 different artists. Most products are made in small quantities others are 1 of a kind. So we often have products selling out. Most items are organized by artist. Are there good practices to follow that will best keep our social media presence and links? I'd also like to stop buying extra space for all those images on my server Thanks so much Stephen
Branding | | stephenfishman0 -
Search website bar
I've noticed when you search business such as Pier 1, William Sonoma, they offer a "Search william-sonoma.com" search bar within the organic search. You can see it when you google William Sonoma. So, the question is, how does that get displayed? Is it something a business can include or is it something that Google will provide if they feel the need too? Appreciate any feedback. Thanks.
Branding | | Kdruckenbrod0 -
How to handle knock-off product leveraging your brand keywords?
Hello all, I fear this may be a bit of newcomer question but maybe you can help me out. My business is in a highly competitive market, and when you search for our branded name many of our competitors show up in search results well before us (who don't contain, or even reference, our brand name on their site). We're trying to take a proactive approach to content development and site enhancement, but I am wondering if there's anything on the defense-front that we can do to better own our brand ranking in SERPs. Thoughts? Suggestions? Should I be reading SEO 101? Thanks
Branding | | J-Me0 -
Am I better off buying a .com with a stopword or a .net / .org without?
I'm trying to decide between three domains:
Branding | | Andrew_Mac
mydomain.com
domain.net
domain.org What's the latest word on if there is an actual SEO impact to the stopword or whether it is just ignored entirely? Further, does anyone have any insight into whether any of these domains are seen as more credible (from a searcher's standpoint)? Thanks so much!0 -
Adwords alternative for beauty products
I was wondering if anybody knew of a good display network group for beauty products/anti-aging/wellness Adwords is doing okay but we would like to expand to other networks.
Branding | | Atomicx0 -
Can you recommend a Content Delivery Network for hosting 20 videos across the website?
We want to host multiple videos across our website and are considering which CDN provider to use, with an average of 18.8GB per month for visitors, we are considering the following companies, some offer a free trial. https://www.maxcdn.com/pricing/ http://www.cdn77.com/pricing https://www.cloudflare.com/plans Does anyone have any other recommendations regarding CDNs for video streaming or have experience in this area as any advice would be much appreciated.
Branding | | Muhammad-Isap0 -
New Product. New Brand. Gmail/Authorship Questions. Need Advice.
I'm in the process of developing a new product and brand name and would like to create all the social media accounts (FB, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc), including G+ and want it to have it's own Gmail ID like ABCXYZ@gmail.com, so I can set up all accounts using this Gmail ID and if needed down the road, have someone else help manage the accounts so they have that login and my my main Gmail login. My question is, does Google frown upon setting up new Gmail IDs under the same name "Patrick McCoy" as I have my name tied to my personal Gmail account and my company's Gmail account "whiteboardcreations@gmail" both with G+ pages and URLs of /+PatrickMcCoy1 and /+PatrickMcCoy2 respectively. I'd like to have Authorship associated with the new product website and also want the new product to have it's own G+ Business Page to post updates, info, etc., which is why I'm getting a little confused on how I'd do it the right way, What would you do or does it really matter... can my new Gmail account of ABCXYZ@gmail just be /+PatrickMcCoy3 which is associated to my new product/brand name? Thank you and look forward to the feedback!
Branding | | WhiteboardCreations0 -
Do you think its ethical to use your personal google authorship for outsourced content?
I routinely outsource nicely written content but never use my google authorship for those articles. Should I be adding my google authorship to those articles? Or would that be unethical and violate googles TOS?
Branding | | TShak0