Website design

[Turners]

We are looking for recommendations for website designers, we have three gites so far. 

I went on a fantastic website for gites with a section on the renovation of their gites in the Limousin (I think this is where they were) they had posts on this Forum, but now I can't find the posts with the link ??

Any recommendations greatly appreciated

 

Many thanks

 

Michelle

[Paolo]

Michelle,

I would recommend looking at Terry Kearns's site: http://tksvacationrental.com/

Even if his designs don't appeal, the site is a good information resource for holiday rental owners. And his prices are very reasonable I think, especially as he is in the States and charges in dollars.

Another way to find a designer you like is to find sites you really like. Sometimes there will be a link to the designer at the bottom of each page. Or you can just email the site and ask who designed it.

I don't know the site you mention about Limousin gites, but you could also try my site for holiday rental owners (yes this is a plug but the site in not commercial) - there are designers there who have answered this question before and you can see what they are offering. Just click on the link under my name and go to the forum.

Paolo

[Turners]

Thanks Paolo, i'll take a look at both.

Michelle

[Russethouse]

A post has been removed from this thread, as it contravened the T & C

Gay
(Moderator)

 

Four posts were deleted this morning, two because again they contravened the T&C's and two because without the others they meant nothing and could confuse people.

Quillan.

[Janjo]

Hi Turners

What department are you in? There are good alternatives to simply having your own website and all the issues of design hosting, maintenance, changing content, search engine visibility.

There are possibilities to have sites where you can (on-line) maintain your own details (words, photos, enquiry forms, newsletters - if you build up lists of potential clients, etc) without having to go to your designer each time and paying for all these changes.

If you send me an e-mail I can give you more details

[Ian Hoare<br>All the best<br>Ian<br>La Souvigne Corrèze<br>http:www.souvigne.com]

Hi,

Can't directly answer your question, as I designed my own! However, if I can give a piece of general advice, when you talk to designers. Work on the KISS principle. The simpler the site is, the better. Java, Javascript, moving gifs, even frames. They all take extra time to load and add nothing whatsoever to the functionality of the site. Tell them their over-riding design criterion is to make the site fast to load and simple to maintain.

To give an example, A linked piece of text to an email address like (mailto:fred@bt.co) takes almost no memory - call it 25 bytes. The same thing CAN be done with a pretty revolving @ symbol which "weighs" 30k. Every time you ask the remote computer user to load another pretty effect, you make the site take longer to load. Not everyone surfs with Broadband, some people use their portables while touring around, for examples. The faster a site is to load the happier the potential client. By the same token, make sure your designer uses highly compressed images.

Finally Before you accept the finished site, surf it using dial up. If ANY of the "earlier" important pages take more than 15 seconds before you can start getting useful information from it, make the designer do it over again.

You want to let out your property, not impress surfers with the cleverness of your website designer. So, proscribe sounds or Flash, unless they are for a VERY specific purpose that can be achieved in no other way.

Sorry if that sounds dull, joyless and dour. It will certainly save you money in website design, if the designr is honest, because it will cut the creation time to 1/4!!

[sam in france]

We use www.webvilla.com you build your own site using their templates and updating is very simple

Hope that is of use to you

Sam

 

[yorks45]

Hi all

I work as a self employed web developer specialising in database driven web design and agree very much with what Ian Hoare wrote earlier. Problem is many web designers are more concerned with showing off their skills and pay little attention to usability or robustness of the website or to your business.

Best advice as Ian wrote is 'keep it simple'. Things like Flash only causes problems and does very little for search engine position (VERY IMPORTANT!)

The number of 'French holiday let' websites I have seen that are difficult to navigate, dont work or take ages to load is enormous.

If any one would like some advice (free) then feel free to contact me. I am happy to chat via email or phone.

If you are curious to know why I am on the Living France forums is that we are looking for property in France and have been for the last 2 years..not found the perfect place yet though Hopefully this year will be the one !

Robert

[Leshirondelles]

Hello Michelle,

From your description the site you found was mine - www.les-hirondelles.net or www.golimousin.com.

Thankyou for the plaudits, I'm glad you liked the websites. As a pure amateur I did them all myself, although I do admit to having a lifetime in computing. Anyway its something to do in the long winter evenings.

There is some very basic rules regarding sites for gites:

1. KEEP IT SIMPLE, you're there to sell not to entertain. The more bells and whistles you put on it then the more likely that it will not be compatible with the major browsers: IE, Netscape, Opera etc.

2. INFORMATION: clear and concise and not too many pictures. Those that you have should be good quality with the smallest file size you can get away with. The pages need to load fast. Not everyone has high speed access. You can have the best site in the world but if it takes too long to load then people will simply give up.

3.PAGE WIDTH Make sure the width of your pages are compatible with at least 800 x 600 resolution - so your page width should be less that 750 pixels.

4. PAGE LENGTH Try to ensure that you keep your page lengths as short as possible, people do not like scrolling down long pages.

5. ON LINE BOOKING AND AVAILABILITY - If you can do this and keep it up to date then its a major selling tool - people are averse to picking up the phone, they like to check out the property, see the price, see its available then book it - all in one visit. Its the reason we virtually fill our gites between February and November each year.

[yorks45]

Hi Michelle

One thing to remember when you have designed your website is content. These days search engines like content so put plenty of text on there preferably with key search terms i.e terms which you think your visitors would use to find your site.

Good luck

Robert

[vrooje<BR>Cheers,<br>-Brooke<BR><br><B><A TARGET=blank HREF="http:www.experienceburgundy.com">http:www.experienceburgundy.com<A><B>]

The KISS principle is absolutely brilliant.

I think I would say, though, that there is one case where the simplest thing is not the best thing: mailto e-mail links. If you use those on your webpage you are just asking to be added to spammers' e-mail lists.

Much better to use a simple javascript e-mail link, which functions the same way as a mailto link but is not harvestable by spammers using auto-collect robots. (I use this type of script all over my gite's website, but you have to view the source to see that it's any different from a mailto link.)

I completely agree that you should ask your designer to stay away from all things Flash and animated-gif.

[Iceni]

If you want the full code and instructions for the JavaScript e-mail code, please send me a private PM.

I used to teach JS and HTML - those were the days

[Turners]

Many thanks for your advice, I will certainly take it on board.  We are not quite ready to get the website up and running, as we are still renovating.

 

Once again many thanks  Michelle

[Mikey]

Turners, when you are ready to have your site made try contacting http://www.ellipsedesign.co.uk
They are making mine and I'm very happy with their service.

I've found them to be very helpful and their advice invaluable.

 

mike

 

 

[Kingdingaling]

Hi

What sort of money are these lot charging for web design, if we was to let out a gite (not right now) I wouldnt mind a site doing but thought this was 100's of £ ? plenty have replied but no money mentioned.

How much then

[Ian Hoare<br>All the best<br>Ian<br>La Souvigne Corrèze<br>http:www.souvigne.com]

[quote]Hi What sort of money are these lot charging for web design, if we was to let out a gite (not right now) I wouldnt mind a site doing but thought this was 100's of £ ? plenty have replied but no money...[/quote]

Hi Scoobydoo.

How much does it cost to buy a bottle of wine?

What I'm trying to say, is that it is impossible to give a sensible price, as it all depends upon what you want in it.

Massaging a couple of pages of text that you've written yourself with a couple of photos of the place, shouldn't cost much at all, I'd have expected to be able to write the code for that in less than a day. But you'd not get all the back up, like search engine introductions etc. Against that, a big site in two or three languages and complex layout, fill in forms and full search engine introduction and maintenance would cost a LOT more. It all comes down to how much time the webmaster spends on it.

But you know, if you can design the sort of page you want in Word, you could very easily convert it into a publishable web site easily as good as half the stuff that's up there at the moment. HTML, which is the language of the web is dead easy to start to learn.

[ChezShells]

Whoever has a site done for their gites or B&B needs to realise that they are not going to generate much if any interest just from the website alone, i think you need to advertise with one of the big sites and with a link let people see your site from there, you may get interest from people searching for a particular area/village.

Its still a good idea to have a site for people to refer to and see more pictures, info on the area and property but dont expect to sit back and let the site generate lots of bookings, it will improve as the website grows.

 

Lee

[Iceni]

I have to say that I tried your website chezshells and it was unavailable. I work with clients who almost only use a website to direct traffic to them and I can improve their 'hits' and so bookings. You get what you pay for and if it was all so easy the sites at No 1 would not stay at No 1 but would continually be replaced by those who were newer or who had found the latest 'trick'.

I cannot remember ever seeing a website built by a site builder at No 1 and as for framed sites - well they will almost guarantee you less hits. This is simply the way the web works.

I have never worked out why folk will pay for other skills but think that any skill involved with the Internet is either so easy that their 10 year old nephew is good enough to do it or they will just ask Joe who has decided that this week he will be a webdesigner. Firstly you need design skills and I mean real 'trained' design skills, then you need HTML, CSS and this is without getting into real coding.

OK, rant over. Back to trolling and building websites. THIS IS NOT AN ADVERT JUST A COMMENT ON THIS THREAD!

[Iceni]

[quote]I can do a starter website for £99 - with yoursite.com* and hosting for a year. (* subj to availability) Whoever has a site done for their gites or B&B needs to realise that they are not going to...[/quote]

At the top of this page it states

"Please note that any unsolicited advertising will be removed from this forum", I suggest you remove this line before Admin do. This is why we do not say 'me me me' or give prices on this forum, it is not allowed.

[Ianhaycox]

Didn't the orginal poster 'solicit' a website designer ?

Or am I being pedantic ?

[Ex Forum Admin]

A post has been edited to remove an ad. No advertising of goods and services are allowed on the forum. Third party recommendations are fine.

 

[epinay]

Just wanted to add another suggestion for a good website designer.  Sonus Media did ours back in 2001 and it was really excellent - our gite was fully booked throughout 2001 - 2003.  You could update the availability yourself or have them do it for you and it was very reasonably priced.

This was the web address: www.sonusmedia.co.uk/sites

Regards,  Diana

 

 

[Turnip]

[quote]Just wanted to add another suggestion for a good website designer. Sonus Media did ours back in 2001 and it was really excellent - our gite was fully booked throughout 2001 - 2003. You could update ...[/quote]

Just tried it:

FAQ page is down and I cannot find any email or contact details !

[Ex Forum Admin]

Another post has been removed due to Advertising....NO ADVERTISING ON THIS FORUM PLEASE.

[Iceni]

Err as Living France pay for and maintain this site they have every right to say who can and cannot do what on the site. If there was no magazine there would be no site. No dual rules, just Living France rules.

If you don't like their rules you can always go to other sites which do allow advertising.

I co-own a web directory (free to everyone) and we have very strict rules on our forum. Everyone obeys the rules as it is in their interest to do so. The co-owners pick up the bills as LF do for this site. He who pays the piper and all that.