www.crocnaraw.co.uk
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Dublin Domainer
New Member
It looks okay to me in terms of colour and so on. The home page looks a little crowded, though, especially with praise, which I think should be on a separate page. Most significant of all for me, though, is the co.uk address. I just don't get this for an Irish guesthouse, and I would imagine that Irish people and Irish/Americans would find it off-putting.
thanks for that
Yes I did wonder about the co.uk address but it was a bit cheaper at the time and also less hassle as they were looking for documentation for the ie sites -company names etc.
I didn't imagine most people paid a lot of attention to the actual domain name endings though although co.uk doesn't trip off the tongue
I will think about cutting out some of those comments from the home page.
Yes I did wonder about the co.uk address but it was a bit cheaper at the time and also less hassle as they were looking for documentation for the ie sites -company names etc.
I didn't imagine most people paid a lot of attention to the actual domain name endings though although co.uk doesn't trip off the tongue
I will think about cutting out some of those comments from the home page.
Dublin Domainer
New Member
Oh, no, it's not just that it doesn't 'trip off the tongue,' but that it's completely inaccurate. Anyone looking for it isn't going to look on co.uk because they would expect to find only places in the UK on such websites. And that's not even mentioning the consideration that offence can be caused to patriotic people by using the co.uk tld for an Irish website. Presumably I don't have to tell you that there's a bit of history between Ireland and the UK? I don't understand why you don't simply take the dotcom, which seems to be available even as of now. That's absolutely the best, anyway, imo.
Satanta
New Member
Due to the steps that must be taken to gain a '.ie' domain, it tends to carry a little more credibility for Irish businesses than other TLD's. So an additional factor to consider when deciding on your domain name. At best the .co.uk is hurting your marketing efforts (from an SEO pov where the ccTLD is a factor) and at worst it's actively going to cost you sales/leads as people ignore the listing due to the (in some eyes) 'non relevant' TLD.
If, despite the suggestions otherwise, you retain the .co.uk, be sure to at least update your meta description so that your SE snippet shows a searcher that the accommodation is Irish. "Country House Accommodation Connemara nr Letterfrack Galway." might not be enough to make that clear to someone not familiar with Irish counties/locations.
(As a brief aside, the descriptions given [when searching for 'crocnaraw country house'] on both the discoverireland and eircom listings are far more attractive than the description given for your home page [that's not an insult, it's actually a compliment of how attractive the other snippets are], so will cost you some direct clicks to your own site)
The block of text on the home page is a bit too large (not really the length of text, simply that it's all presented in one single chunk). Personally, I'd rework that paragraph entirely*. It's starting by giving a very detailed description of where the house is located in a very factual manner. Good information to provide, but not as an opening line. I'd shift the benefits of the house and the 'award winning' front and centre, with the 'location details' following on later. I'd also seek to focus more on the 'you' and far less on the 'we' (it's not about what you do, it's about how what you do helps your guests - that's a general comment for all of the site, not just the opening paragraph).
On the photos section, which should be a major selling point for the property, the main photos of the house look very hazy/smokey/low quality. I'm not sure if the quality has been dropped to reduce the file size or if they were taken with a low quality camera, but they're really not doing the house justice. I'd suggest taking a few new photos (on a nice sunny day) using the best possible camera you can get your hands on (and at the highest setting). Keep the 'normal' images to a low enough level to keep the site loading fast, but when a guest is choosing to view the full size image, provide it to them at the best possible quality and really sell the house and the surroundings in a breathtaking manner (if you could get a professional photographer, even better and I'd assume the results would be far superior).
The image on the home page, I can't see what the 'window' is adding to it. I'd look to rework that so that it's a more prominent image of the house itself as it's already a relatively small area to work with.
The logo on the homepage is linking to a rather strange page. It seems to be providing travel cost information, but it's either there in error or else needs to be explained far more clearly. If that is for public information (I assume it's not to be honest), give details on which flights those costs refer to etc. and make it consistent with the rest of the site. If it's there in error, remove it.
The logo on the 'activities' page doesn't link back to the home page, yet it does on all the other pages. Best to be consistent with those things (I spotted it as I went to click the link to return Home, so I'd suggest keeping the standard 'logo links home' throughout).
You have some canonicalization issues with you home page (you've got numerous versions of the same page, they should all resolve back to a single 'url'). A 'technical' thing, but one worth tidying up for SEO reasons. (e.g. redirect Country Guest House Accommodation Connemara Letterfrack County Galway Ireland & Country Guest House Accommodation Connemara Letterfrack County Galway Ireland & Country Guest House Accommodation Connemara Letterfrack County Galway Ireland to all end up at Country Guest House Accommodation Connemara Letterfrack County Galway Ireland)
Making an assumption here, I'd guess the majority of your guests are in the slightly older age bracket? (going for a quiet country break rather than a city trip) If that's the case, I'd ensure that you tailor the site to them as much as possible. Removing the blue background for a white one and increasing the text size a little would make the site far easier for some guests to navigate (I personally feel the site looks a little dated, I'd go for a cleaner/more minimal look, but that's totally subjective so 100% down to how your guests find it. Don't be afraid to ask them and use their comments to tweak/improve it.).
Be careful of material that dates your site. One of your links is to "what's on this year" with a "(2004)". That's very off-putting for a guest. Either keep it generic enough that it won't date or else be sure to keep it updated (and remove anything out of date).
You have a contact form on the site, collecting personally identifiable information, so you should have a privacy statement outlining what information is collected and how that information will be used (Home - Data Protection Commissioner - Ireland for more information). I'd also suggest adding in google analytics (to monitor how people find/use/interact with the site) so that you can see what parts of the site sales seem to be breaking down (and then optimise the relevant pages accordingly).
Most of the rest is SEO (search engine optimisation) related, so gets a touch technical... it's basically how well your site is set up to rank well in search engines. It's vital if you intend on getting sales directly through the website without having to undergo advertising campaigns (or even with advertising campaigns, you should be looking to do the two in parallel):
URL: Switch to the .com or, preferably, the .ie. It will help you greatly for localization with the search engines and has impacts far beyond the 'SEO' stuff that make it more than worth the effort/cost in my own opinion.
Title: Some of the pages are missing titles. This is very valuable information to explain to a SE what a page is about (and it also appears as the header link if a page does rank, so be sure to utilise them fully).
Description: Already mentioned, but again, you really want to 'put your best foot forward' here. I'd expand on the text making it a compelling sales pitch for your house to greatly increase conversions (it won't actually help you rank, but once you do rank, it will have impacts on how many clicks you get)
(again, some of the pages are missing descriptions entirely)
Heading tags: (h1, h2, h3, etc.) None are currently used on the site. It's the SEO equivalent of a book with no chapters. It has serious negative SEO consequences for your site. You really need to be using at least a h1 tag on every page with relevant keywords included in the text. Where it makes sense, use h2's and so on to further break up the information.
Alt tags: Most of your images are missing 'alt tags' (alternative text). This hurts you in search engine rankings and makes the site less accessible (e.g. if someone is using a 'screen reader', the image is just lost to them rather than getting the descriptive text they'd hope to get).
If you want to try and use the website to drive sales, there are a lot of changes and improvements you can make (the above is just a quick list of the 'obvious' and a few of the vital ones). In the long term, things like adding a blog (so you can promote upcoming events in the area, discuss local amenities, show new photos, build relationships with future/past guests, etc.) could give great results, but you have to decide if it's the right thing for you to invest your time in.
If any of the above confused you, let me know and I'll try and break it down more. Hopefully it helped a little in getting you started.
Satanta
New Member
* For the intro paragraph...
For example (very quick draft, obviously you know your offerings better than I do and have more time to put into this... so I'd suggest you'll be able to do FAR better than I can. Focus on your guests, what information they should be aware from and how staying with you can make their stay better. Don't just give the facts, explain it to them clearly):
For example (very quick draft, obviously you know your offerings better than I do and have more time to put into this... so I'd suggest you'll be able to do FAR better than I can. Focus on your guests, what information they should be aware from and how staying with you can make their stay better. Don't just give the facts, explain it to them clearly):
thank you very much for that help.
To be honest , when I started the website in 1998 I more or less copied the old printed brochure verbatim.
I think that broke a cardinal rule .....
I think you have given me quite a lot to think about and to work on
thanks again that was very kind
To be honest , when I started the website in 1998 I more or less copied the old printed brochure verbatim.
I think that broke a cardinal rule .....
I think you have given me quite a lot to think about and to work on
thanks again that was very kind
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