Wanted: Website Review My latest effort - tenerifeholidays.co.uk

[crazihos]

Hi Guys,

Finally, after a good few months i've been able to to let Tenerife Holidays go live.

I think it looks good and has turned out well but its always nice to hear feedback when you go live.

There are a few features been tweeked still and I still need to add about 400 unique hotel pages and lots of nice juicy content.

Once thats done and traffic picks up i'll monotise it as much as possible but that can wait for now.

I've got a few sites but I think i'm proudest of this one because i've worked hard on it from start to finish...

Would love to hear if you like it or not?

Cheers loads

Russ

Ps..The holiday search is still in beta and whats there currently doesnt work so please ignore that bit.

 

[Ashton]

Really well done, very nice and best of luck!

 

[GreyWing]

Wow mate that looks much better than when I first seen it, that has come a long way.

I think it is going to de really well for you, especially if it keeps snowing over here.

 

[denchomsky]

Looks very nice, believable and trustworthy to book a holiday through, how a site looks has a direct correlation to coversion rates.

If I were to be really picky, design wise, I would say that the gradient in the footer (where it joins the mountain terrain) could be better, and the list of travel companies on the flights page could be laid out a bit better,and actually be links to the associated companies, (maybe affiliate lnks?).

Also the tennerife pics are a bit small, should also be a uniform size IMO, really bugs me on sites when the actual image is only 10% bigger than the thumbnail.

Good job.

 

[wb]

Looks nice Russ, I like it. Not keen on the footer either though, there is too much blank space in there which could be cut down by a fair bit (unless you're planning to list more category links there).

Gran Canaria next on the development list?

 

[ScottJ]

Looks very nice Russ, great work, I can see it doing very well for you.

 

[retired_member16]

Looks great! However I went to look here -

http://www.tenerifeholidays.co.uk/hotels/barcelo-varadero/

and there is no button to book? In fact here is no button to book anything?

 

[AssetDomains]

Very professional looking site wouldn't hesitate booking from it I agree with the comments on the footer though needs a little tweaking.
How long has it taken you to get this far its inspiring me to sort a site for one of the many domains I've collected this year.

 

[crazihos]

Thank you all for the comments,

Its great to hear that people like it and I really appreciate you taking the time to have a look.

Its quite scary when you let people see the work for the first time (especially people who work online all day) as you know the pople your asking know the web inside out and your not sure what to expect...

@denchomsky & wb

The flights page is a filler at the moment while detailed content is being written for each flight route to Tenerife.

The galley is a pain actually as the holiday images you can "borrow" from agent sites are pretty rubbish. Its a very good point though as people want good pics of where their going. Once I get further with it i'll buy a job lot from istock to improve that section I think.

The footer is definately missing something, I'll check the psd but I think its my other holiday sites logos...I have grancanariaholidays.co.uk (courtesy of WB coming soon using the same format and a couple of others.

@lee

Your 100% right mate - its annoying but there is no way to book at all yet. I'm told the search facility should be ready for a soft pr launch on the 3rd of Jan though. You also picked one that has a broken picture so I need to fix that

Then once the 400 unique hotel pages are added and spidered i'll be adding a "book with" table on each hotel page showing which merchant's you can book each hotel with and giving an average price per person.

I think that will be really useful for customers and will eventually be where the majority of the money comes from.

As always - great to hear opinions and thoughts and any ideas for features and additions,

Please do keep them coming

Russ

 

[neeorg]

Site looks fantastic, the colours all work really well together.

Maybe add a gallery instead of the static postcard, something along the lines of the latest deals or special offers. Thats me looking for a change to the site, but other than that I can't fault it at all.

 

[Sussexite]

Looks really good - well done. Nice logo too.

Do you have any hints and tips from how you've done the site you'd like to pass on?

I reckon lots of AD members have got undeveloped hotel and holiday domains - maybe this could be something of a case study (that's a compliment). Would you consider sharing how your progress with site goes from time to time.

 

[seanc]

nice.

could do with a site like that myself ;-)

 

[fish]

Good work fella, excellent use of WP, show's how flexible it can be in terms of design and functionality. Good luck with future sales.

 

[peacock]

Lovely looking site Russ,

Well done and very best of luck with it.
Could be a great earner with all the year round capacity to Tenerife.

 

[esso]

Cracking site!! as soon as you see it, it makes you get in the holiday mood!!

Great choice of colours and excellent layout : )

Im sure you will do very nicely out of it.

 

[robertsone]

Great site, very professional looking!

Just one little thing - in Chrome on a Mac the images at the bottom are a little off. I am sure its a tiny CSS fix.

 

[JMOT]

need to sort your meta tags out mate... on page 3 goog for ur main term which is a nice place to kickoff

 

[crazihos]

Thanks everyone for the very kind comments,

I'm really pleased that everyone likes it -

I'm back on the case today after a nasty batch of that vomit virus over Chrimbo,

I'll will be promoting fairly heavily as soon as all the content is added and will be linkbuilding over the next few weeks.

As a couple of people have asked i'll be only too happy to update on here to let people know how it goes and give some progress/traffic updates...i'm no expert but that will probably interest people more as it'll show how I bounce along.

@newpbc asked if I have any tips on how I got it to this point.

Well I guess the main tip I can offer is to plan so that you know exactly what you want and then outsource to quality people without trying to cut too many corners on cost. I'm a tech phobe so very little of it is my own work.

My designers actually let me sit in their office for a day or use conference calling to live view as much of the design process as possible.

The above may sound daft but I find that in the long run I'll focus much better on a site that I like design wise so even though its expensive and I look a right nob sitting there watching them my dignity is a price worth paying. Design cost was over two grand but under three.

Then I had a great coder take the psd and turn it into wordpress for me.. (codewise.co.uk). He took a lot longer than originally expected but has done a great job in the backend admin of this site so I cant praise him enough. This cost between one and two grand.

Content wise, I've had some done by different people but for the 400 unique hotel descriptions i'm trying that.co.uk and have to say i'm really happy with them. Cost - is ongoing but under a grand so far.

Seo wise - i've not done any yet but i'll do much of this myself. Cost n/a so far (but the domain wasnt cheap and I guess that would be a seo cost).

So thats about it.

It's cost a small fortune so far and thats only going to rise but with luck it'll start to recoup that this year as tenerife is a very popular destination. Plus the cost is relative as I have a few travel sites I can skin with this theme now - time will tell if it will make money

@robertsone

thanks for that mate - i'll get the developer to take a look.

@JMOT

I noticed that but cant find the fix as the source looks ok, I thought it would fix itself but G's had a recent look and it didnt change.

You wouldnt have any idea whats wrong with it would you?

 

[Blossom]

Re the meta description, do you have the All in One SEO pack plugin installed & configured correctly?

Ouch, that's a lot of money. How long do you think it will take to make it back? You've braver than me, there's no way I'd be dabbling if I didn't know about design & coding.

 

[crazihos]

I'll have a look at the All in One SEO again.

It is on there and I think its on, looking at the home page source code it looks ok to me?

Re- brave

I'm either brave or stupid lol

I know it sounds a lot to outlay but compared the bricks and mortor retail world its chicken feed (I used to be a retailer).

Give me hosting and content over rent, rates, diminishing footfalls and staff any day!

Cost wise I'll split that design and development outlay over at least 3 domains so my cost per site will be much lower overall.

I wouldnt want to jinx this one buy saying it'll make a profit..it may bomb, but i'm my experience most of my developed sites have somehow managed to wing their way back into profit within 12 months (that includes domain, design and development cost). This project i'll be pushing much harder though so fingers crossed i'll see an income within 6 months.

Tech wise, I do think a lot of people get too hung up on doing everything themselves which is very limiting. If you can find good people its better to let them do the stuff you struggle with while you do the stuff you like or are good at.

Our very own Doug Scott is a great example (I hope he doesnt mind the mention).

He delegates as much as possible and in doing so started probably the UK's biggest car hire site (carrentals.co.uk) and one of the top voucher sites!