My French Site - All Welcome To Use!

[RJP1]

Hi guys,

I'm a 21 year old who lives in the UK, after a holiday to France a few years ago I met some gite owners whom told me that the cost of advertising on gite websites was too costly. As a web designer I set to making a better version of one of the more popular sites.

I am formally inviting you to come along and visit my site, register and add your properties for free. Hopefully, this will gain my website some respect in this niche and become as big as the others! Any help you could offer me regarding the site would be great too, your perspective as actuall French holiday home owners is invaluable.

Please visit it at - www.frenchholidaydirectory.co.uk

If you don't own a home, but a French related site, you could exchange links with me if you wish.

Thanks for listening, I hope to hear from you soon! Rikki Pitt

[Loiseau]

I had a quick look at the site (though I am not in the market for renting out property).

The first thing that struck me was that you cannot search for a property by area/region of France.  For me, this would be the first thing I would want to be able to do.  I would start by thinking "What is there in Normandy?" rather than "Where can I find a farmhouse anywhere in France?".

Angela

[RJP1]

Thanks Angela

That didn't cross my mind! Although you can do an advanced search by area, but just not from the homepage... I'll code that in tomorrow!

Thank you very much for that, very much appreciated.

Rikki

[nimportequoi]

I've had a quick look too - as well as the geographical area choice, you need to have other criteria, the number of bedrooms/how many people can be accommodated, pool, near beach, wifi, etc. Also most people looking appreciate an availability calendar so they don't get lists of properties to go through, many of which are already booked. Good luck!

[Cat]

You might want to add Railway Station, Airport and Shops and Restaurants to your "near to" list. Not everyone will drive down to France, or hire a car at the airport.

Edit: your currency converter doesn't work yet.

[RJP1]

Thanks guys.

Firstly, the currency convertor used to work, but it runs off another site (I think it was Yahoo's) exchange rates - clearly they've stopped it, doh!

Availability calandars exist but not all the people on there use them.

I'll add those other critia you mentioned above Cat, thanks for the tip!

You can do advanced searches by region, beds etc, but I think it's a must that I should put them on the home page too...

Thank you guys, and more feed back is very welcome! Rikki

[RJP1]

OK

I've completely changed the system now. Its ordred by region with more features in the advanced search page.

Currency convertor has no been fixed.

Any more ideas?

Thanks guys!

[dave21478]

Im filling it out just now.

1 regarding the regions, Ive plumped for "south west France", but we are really Midi Pyreneese, which isnt listed.

2 the availability charts - very tedious to fill in. Why not have it set to fully available as default and a single click on each date to change to unavailable.

3, also th availability charts, when filling them out, I cant go back to either of the other forms to modify them(properties, extras, photos etc) it has a minor benny and everything disappears for a second and none of the tabs are clickable.

 

Thats all for now!

thanks.

 

[Caussenarde]

Hi there,

Problem with the regions selection.

The places you name are not actually Regions of France (eg Dordogne), This leads you your Martel house for example appearing in Dordogne region when Dordogne is in fact a Dept. in a different region (Aquitaine) to that of Martel, which is in the Departement of Lot, in the region of Midi-Pyrenées.

So I suggest you address the structure of the site to get the framework right from the off. 

Best too to check spellings of the regions to make sure they are correct. In fact check the spellings everywhere.

Errors and uncertainty on the home page leads to lack of confidence on behalf of users.

Like the layout/colours etc.

PS: why do you price everything in pounds sterling? maybe OK for Brits, but exchange rates vary. Might put off US or Oz users?  why not price in Euros? what currency do the customers pay in?

Hope this helps a bit.  Keep at it. [:)]

[RJP1]

Hi

Caussenarde

I've changed the regions to actual regions! I followed another site which is clearly wrong. What do you think now? More organised I think!

Cheers, Rikki

[Caussenarde]

Much better Rikki.

Why not use accents though, in the spelling of French words such as Pyrenées ?

have a think to about your target market:  is it Brits hiring from Brits and that's it?  not a very big market. Who do you think is your competition?

I'm not suggesting you invest in translations at this stage, but for example the pound sterling thing,  for houses where the owner charges in euros, is a bit of a puzzle for US, European, and Oz visitors to your site. 

cheers