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costadelvillas - holiday home website

 
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Jun 13, 2009 9:05 AM ET    Quote  Report Abuse
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Hi Everyone,

I hope you don`t mind me jumping in at the deep end asking for critique on my first post but I`d like to gain some feedback on our new holiday home website.

Overview
Costadelvillas.co.uk launched in March and is designed to offer holiday home owners the chance to advertise directly to holiday makers looking to rent villas and apartments in the Costa del Sol on south coast of Spain.

Design and development
The design and development were outsourced and the plan is to add new features and updates every 2-3 months.

Aims and objectives
The long term goal is to become one of the leading websites for Costa del Sol holiday homes. In the short term we want to build up a stream of visitors from natural search engine traffic before going for a full scale launch in Janurary 2010.

I`d be greatful for any feedback and advice for increasing our natural rankings and traffic.

Many thanks.
Costa del Sol Villas

costadelvillas6/13/2009 9:00 AM
CraigL

posts: 9051

Jun 14, 2009 2:10 AM ET    Quote  Report Abuse
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Hi there :-) Welcome to the community.

I took a look at your site, and only 1 thing bothered me. There`s not a lot to highlight that these are rentals. I like that your page title clarifies, but the rest of the main page is more like a plain real-estate site.

One thing that would be very simple would be on your home page, instead of saying "Featured Homes," change the heading to "Featured Rentals."

Another likewise change would be to change your first heading to:
Search for Holiday Villas & Apartments for Rent on the Costa del Sol

These two headings are so immediately visible on the home page that you can use them to re-clarify the function of the site, y`know?

The site seems to load slow, but I tend to see this with real-estate sites in general. Probably a combination of the many photos and the external connections, I don`t know. But it`d be nice if you could make it "pop" a bit faster and more crisply. If not, it`s not that big a deal. I`m just commenting. :-)

I did a search for a bungalow in Marbella, and had to wait over a minute just to be told that there weren`t any results. That`s a bit annoying, and speaks to the speed issues.

Then I clicked on the Help/FAQ and had a "connection re-set" error. Not sure what that`s all about. I hit "Try Again" and got the page. However, this is a bit silly:
Looking for help?

Take a look at our frequently asked questions below, if you need further help see our details help page here

:-D Obviously I`m looking for help, or I wouldn`t have clicked the link for "Help." Right? Why not change it slightly: Remove the lead-in heading, and just use the content:

Please take a moment to look at our most frequently asked questions. If you still need assistance, feel free to contact us.

Make the "contact us" a link to your Contact page. I`m assuming the types of people you`re reaching out to are fairly wealthy. They`re likely not stupid, so it`s the minor details of language that sometimes can come across patronizing. I know it`s not intentional, but I noticed.

Since you`re a realty company, I`d also suggest that on your Contact page you have some hard phone numbers and address information. To only see things via email seems a bit suspicious at first glance.

After perusing the left index, I found another "Help" button. But that was about how to get started registering. Very confusing. Why not just use the content on that page as your main content for the "Register" page? And leave the "Help/FAQ" page for getting assistance from customer service?

All in all, a pretty decent site. I don`t know where any of these properties are located, but I did certainly get the feeling that they`re in Europe somewhere, and on a beach kind of place. :-)

Jun 14, 2009 2:52 PM ET    Quote  Report Abuse
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Hi Craig,

Thanks for your fantastic feedback. You are in indeed right, the properties are located on the Costa del Sol (southern Spain). We will be looking to get a lot more properties on board in several stages, at the moment we`re looking to get more site visitors, but it`s a bit of a chicken and egg situation.

Anyway, we`ve made some initial changes based on your suggestion by changing those two headers on the homepage. We are planning to change the homepage layout a bit in the next month to make it feel a little more user friendly.

I agree that the FAQ page needs looking at so I think we`ll redesign that and make it clearer and prettier to use, rather than just plain text.

Thanks again for your feedback it`s very valuable for us!

costadelvillas6/14/2009 2:47 PM
asEZasABnC

posts: 64

Jun 14, 2009 6:07 PM ET    Quote  Report Abuse
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I like the site!

From an SEO point of view....

When you want to place a hyperlink in the body add "http://www" to the complete your address.

Also, check with your designer...my report says you missed AltTags on four photos on your landing page.



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Jarrod1937

posts: 85

Jun 14, 2009 8:56 PM ET    Quote  Report Abuse
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[quote]
Also, check with your designer...my report says you missed AltTags on four photos on your landing page.
[/QUOTE]
There are times when you don`t want alt tags. From an SEO perspective you may not alt tags for some items due to them possibily messing with your keyword desnity you`re going for. For example, on one of my sites we have an image for the bbb, however it would not be beneficial to place an alt tag on the image.
For a worst case example, i`ve seen some sites that get their keyword density screwed because they have a button that is repeated multiple times on a  page that simply had the alt tag "ADD". So, no matter what rewording they did of the page`s content, the keyword density for all of the top keywords was high for the word "ADD". However, there are reasons for possibly wanting an alt for an "ADD" button from a usability standpoint. But i`ve seen very similar things happen with generic spacer gif`s and so on.
And finally, search engines really only care about alt tags for images that are links. That is unless you are targeting picture search engien rankings... but then it is up to you to decide is that will bring targeted traffic to your site or not.
But, if the image is a link, and is part of the major content of your site, then it is very important to give it a descriptive alt tag, this takes the place of anchor text when using image links.
But this shows you should take some generated report`s with a grain of salt.
Jarrod19376/14/2009 10:15 PM
asEZasABnC

posts: 64

Jun 16, 2009 7:58 AM ET    Quote  Report Abuse
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Jarrod1937 -

The AltTag missing reminder was merely an alert to see if there was merit to it or an oversight.

I agree wholeheartedly that it becomes important when photos and images are important content on your site and you want (i.e.) Google Image Search to index them.




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Jarrod1937

posts: 85

Jun 16, 2009 10:39 AM ET    Quote  Report Abuse
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Jarrod1937 -

The AltTag missing reminder was merely an alert to see if there was merit to it or an oversight.

I agree wholeheartedly that it becomes important when photos and images are important content on your site and you want (i.e.) Google Image Search to index them.

Yeah, i`m with you, that mostly was directed at the original poster to help them decide if those images truly need alt tags, and common pitfalls to watch out for. I apologize if it seemed directed toward you.
Jarrod19376/16/2009 10:34 AM
asEZasABnC

posts: 64

Jun 16, 2009 3:23 PM ET    Quote  Report Abuse
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Thanks...nice site Jarrod!


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Jarrod1937

posts: 85

Jun 17, 2009 8:42 PM ET    Quote  Report Abuse
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Thanks! I`m assuming you mean my personal site? Yeah, i just got done redesigning it, though i have not had much time to do any seo work on it, though i may do that tonight.
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