A not so thin site - Lincolnshire.org

mdrussell · Nov 1, 2012

Hi all,

I'd like feedback on www.lincolnshire.org. I've developed this to be a "thick" site with a lot of unique content written, real hotel booking and hopefully the most comprehensive list of accommodation across Lincolnshire.

Some of the content needs to be tweaked for grammar/English levels (in progress).

Any thoughts/feedback on the site?

I wish it would hurry up and get ranked!

Matt

tifosi · Nov 1, 2012

Sausages!

Lincolnshire sausages to be precise. My favourites... Needs a section on things associated with Lincolnshire, places, people, sausages!

mdrussell · Nov 1, 2012

tifosi said:
Sausages!

Lincolnshire sausages to be precise. My favourites... Needs a section on things associated with Lincolnshire, places, people, sausages!

Good idea! Us YellowBellies love a good Lincolnshire sausage.

You just missed the sausage festival (cue up the jokes...) http://thelincolnite.co.uk/2012/10/in-pictures-lincoln-sausage-festival-2012/

And if you're looking to buy, I think you can buy online at thttp://www.odlingbros.com/

boxfish · Nov 1, 2012

The homepage looks great but on further investigation it is lacking slightly

The main things which stick out as negatives to me is lack of decent images within the posts, any internal linking from within the post (from a usability pov rather than SEO), any related articles. It just seems like a series of individual articles trying their best to make me look at hotel rooms.

The 'things to do' section just seems to be a list of places and address, no photos, no descriptions, no reviews.

It's a nice theme and it could be developed into a decent site but between thin and thick it's still certainly at the thin end of the scale but it is a website about a county so making it a decent resource will take a lot of time and effort.

mdrussell · Nov 1, 2012

Good feedback - thank you boxfish.

Murray · Nov 1, 2012

Further to what's been said, SEO wise I think titles need tweaking..

Your homepage title is

A Guide to Lincoln and Lincolnshire. Hotels, Bed & Breakfasts, Restuarants, Things to Do, Skegness, Mablethorpe, Cleethorpes and more.</title>

I would get rid of most of that.. you have stuffed it quite a bit, just let the deeper pages cover stuff like hotels, restaurants.

Maybe use the homepage to target Lincolnshire news.. I would guess that would be the main traffic keyword potentially without checking

Looking at those deeper pages, such as "/bed-breakfasts/" the page title is just "Bed and Breakfasts" no location given.. I don't think you're going to rank well for just bed and breakfasts as a keyword, so obviously you should stick Lincolnshire in there

Other than that, it is a nice neat site, haven't read the content or anything.. as you said you're still working on it so no point going over it.

A local site like this usually a lot of work and upkeep, you should try and get locals to write news pieces and content for you, take some of the burden off.

If you can make a facebook page rolling with it.. usually places have those fb pages people can't actually talk and chat on, so if you could set up one that people can, get your friends & family liking it to get the ball rolling, that could be a great source of traffic to cross over to your site when you post about news and events.

Good luck with it.

mdrussell · Nov 1, 2012

DarrenH said:
Further to what's been said, SEO wise I think titles need tweaking..

Your homepage title is

I would get rid of most of that.. you have stuffed it quite a bit, just let the deeper pages cover stuff like hotels, restaurants.

Maybe use the homepage to target Lincolnshire news.. I would guess that would be the main traffic keyword potentially without checking

Looking at those deeper pages, such as "/bed-breakfasts/" the page title is just "Bed and Breakfasts" no location given.. I don't think you're going to rank well for just bed and breakfasts as a keyword, so obviously you should stick Lincolnshire in there

Other than that, it is a nice neat site, haven't read the content or anything.. as you said you're still working on it so no point going over it.

A local site like this usually a lot of work and upkeep, you should try and get locals to write news pieces and content for you, take some of the burden off.

If you can make a facebook page rolling with it.. usually places have those fb pages people can't actually talk and chat on, so if you could set up one that people can, get your friends & family liking it to get the ball rolling, that could be a great source of traffic to cross over to your site when you post about news and events.

Good luck with it.

Good point on the titles. I'll get that changed.

I've managed to get it featured on TheLincolnite.co.uk and have a few press releases lined up - hopefully get some local syndication. I plan to start taking my own photos and using them (huge project, granted)...

WealdDomains · Nov 1, 2012

mdrussell said:
Hi all,

I'd like feedback on www.lincolnshire.org. I've developed this to be a "thick" site with a lot of unique content written, real hotel booking and hopefully the most comprehensive list of accommodation across Lincolnshire.

Some of the content needs to be tweaked for grammar/English levels (in progress).

Any thoughts/feedback on the site?

I wish it would hurry up and get ranked!

Matt

Hi Matt. It looks good generally, but I do have the following comments :

- it is disconcerting when the font resizes a couple of seconds into the screen painting : the narrow font is fine, but the belated change from normal to narrow is unpleasant (I am using Firefox)
- the use of a fleur-de-lys for the dot is a nice idea, but it is a bit too big : this matters because dot org is not terribly common and so you need to ensure a memorable domain name (including dot and tld) for repeat visitors to avoid leakage to dot com etc for such a generic geographic name
- the homepage slideshow rotates a bit too quickly for my liking
- the "entertainment" section seems to be 99% pubs (not that I am complaining !); the alignment and column usage is rather wasteful; the process for obscured email addresses feel OTT and why bother including them anyway when those pubs have websites (but do keep the phone numbers for people browsing at lunchtime at work wanting to ring to book a meal later); the alphabetical name order is frustrating if looking for clusters by city/town/village name.
- the first page of B&Bs contains none with an actual review; the self-catering accommodation(s !) page has detail for a few then an odd list of others somewhere in the county with no hyperlinks
- the shopping in Lincoln page jars badly as dull, factual, unfulfilling long-distance purchased content (let alone center spelling), but hopefully that is one of the areas you were referring to
- you seem obsessed with the weather throughout the site but, having been caught in the rain once slipping my way down Steep Hill, that is probably no bad thing for Lincoln !
- I haven't gone through the whole site, but I am a bit surprised at the apparent lack of significant historical/tourism coverage for Stamford/Burleigh, Grantham/Thatcher, Boston/US and Market Rasen/horseracing, for example.

Hope that helps,
David

GotLiveChat · Nov 26, 2012

Nice site; though some Google ads showing at the top are somewhat unrelated to the site idea (it was showing RackSpace ad at the time).

Also in the FIND AND BOOK box right-side in FF is showing the numbers running into the drop-down arrow -- needs some spacing between them?

Aegean · Nov 27, 2012

GotLiveChat said:
Nice site; though some Google ads showing at the top are somewhat unrelated to the site idea (it was showing RackSpace ad at the time).

Perhaps from your own browsing history, as Google ads also utilise that.

mdrussell · Nov 27, 2012

Aegean said:
Perhaps from your own browsing history, as Google ads also utilise that.

Yep. Those will be remarketing ads at work.

Thanks for all of the comments and feedback so far.

Blossom · Nov 27, 2012

Looks good, you'd be better off having text rather than images for SEO though!

jj1 · Dec 18, 2012

In many ways, I liked the design. However:
1 I foudn the top ad with text constantly being written very distracting - and it drew attention away from your rotating pics and - imo - devalued your site
2 You're selling Lincolnshire as a tourist destination but - in your Lincolnshire news - the top news item is "Lincolnshire man given jail term after stabbing friend" and item no 3 = "lincolnshire Christmas market stall holder proscuted over hygiene" - neither of these tempt me to visit Lincolnshire!! IMO you need to be WAY more selective about news items.
3 Lincolnshire weather - assuming your target market is mainly Uk residents, you're wasting valuable selling space (list virtues of Lincolnshire, x castles, y restaurants, z museums etc etc instead) telling me something that's not much different to my own county and that I could easily find out.

Hope this helps.

cmrule · Jan 2, 2013

Looks great!
The only minor thing from me is that the banner photos rotate too quickly... I just about to get to the end of hte sentance when the picture changes so I dont get much time to admire the photo!
Nice clean site though - good work!