Wanted: Website Review Jumped on the hotel bandwagon

[AssetDomains]

Hi All

Noticed quite a few people seem to be getting into hotel sites at the moment so I thought I'd have a go myself with wordpress.

http://www.hotelsinchester.org/

It uses a premium theme so I cant take credit for the styling but what do you think of the implementation.

I've made quite a few theme modifications to the backend populate the site automatically from the csv file.

To pull the images from late rooms and save them locally at my web-host also to grab the extra thumbnails from the csv.

 

[Alien]

Looks good, nice use of that theme too (it's an Elegant Themes isn't it?).

I wanted to keep my first hotel site away from Wordpress, find it easier to create what I want and add stuff, etc.

Good luck with it!

 

[mat]

The trouble is that as time goes on Google are muscling in on the hotel comparison industry and im sure serps will change to reflect this.

The local listings allready make it hard enough for affiliates.

http://searchengineland.com/search-for-hotels-with-google-hotel-finder-87529

 

[Alien]

That's why you need good, related content to the hotel area you're providing for in my opinion and plenty of original stuff for sure. Hotel listings on their own are ten a penny.

Well, that's my theory anyway, we'll see, lol.

 

[Aiden Roberts]

Looks great to me, you make it sound so simple

Rgds

Aiden

 

[AssetDomains]

Thanks for the comments guys yes it is an elegant themes template.

Not sure if I'll spend anytime seriously getting into this niche was more of a coding exercises really. seems I have far to much time on my hands during the summer break. Wordpress does give me the option of rewriting all the descriptions easily and take advantage of seo plugin's

Need to get down to writing fresh content for my existing sites though rather than messing about coding stuff I probably wont use much. Only problem is I prefer messing about with code snippets than writing content.

 

[Admin]

Thanks for the comments guys yes it is an elegant themes template.

Not sure if I'll spend anytime seriously getting into this niche was more of a coding exercises really. seems I have far to much time on my hands during the summer break. Wordpress does give me the option of rewriting all the descriptions easily and take advantage of seo plugin's

Need to get down to writing fresh content for my existing sites though rather than messing about coding stuff I probably wont use much. Only problem is I prefer messing about with code snippets than writing content.

Nice job, why don't you offer your code to others for a small fee, will give you some immediate payback.. and give Admin a free copy for the advertising

 

[Alien]

Nice job, why don't you offer your code to others for a small fee, will give you some immediate payback.. and give Admin a free copy for the advertising

LOL, I can tell you're the shy type, hesitant in coming forward to be assertive, lol.

 

[AssetDomains]

Nice job, why don't you offer your code to others for a small fee, will give you some immediate payback.. and give Admin a free copy for the advertising

Not a bad idea that would probably have to play with the image download script as the works but isn't to elegant either that or I could be hired to just complete the install.

What do you think it a fair price would be I'd also have to have enough interest to cover the elegant themes developers license to cover me distributing there theme.

 

[AuthorityDomain]

Nice job and that theme works well. Couple of points would be link images to take visitor to the specific hotel landing page rather than popup image. Instead put view images to do this. Just my view.

Also maybe put the laterooms banner search box high up on sidebar

If you're not keen on content writing outsource it

I started a similar site not as nice a while ago discountholidayparks.co.uk but gave up as wasn't converting. Loads of clicks as was using adwords but wasn't convinced in the reliability of the merchant.

Cheers
Gary

 

[golddiggerguy]

Would maybe be interested inseeing what the back end to the theme is like as a lot show you a theme looking FAB and when you install it it takes a lot to get it to the demo stage

I have a batch of .CO.UK Hotels in ........ and maybe worth a punt IF the price is budget enough or swap for back links from them!

• HotelsinBlackburn
• HotelsinFalkirk
• HotelsinMerseyside
• HotelsinPortTalbot
• HotelsinRedcar.co.uk
• HotelsinTyneandWear
• HotelsinWarrington

 

[AssetDomains]

After getting a bit of interest in the last theme decided to build one up from a blank template. http://www.bristolhotels.org/

Would love to hear your comparisons to the last one I still need to sort/style a few more features but you can get the general idea.

Style wise its quite similar to the last but works differently at the back end this is much more efficient to setup

You can go from a slightly modified laterooms csv and a blank wordpress blog to the site as appears in about 10 - 15 minutes.

I'm also happy to sell copy's of this if anybody's interested I'll take your opinions on here on what it may be worth.

Admin once its complete finished I'll send you over a free copy to test.

 

[wb]

First thoughts are that it looks good, although could do with just a few little tweaks.

1. Remove the slider and extra search box from the homepage. I didn't even bother reading those sliding descriptions as I wouldn't know if the hotel would be suitable.

2. Perhaps list the category names under the hotel titles to give more details at a glance (as it stands, looking at the hotels in your homepage it can't be seen whether they are budget, 3 star etc). Should be simple to do with one of WordPress' include functions.

3. Add a 'book now' button or words to similar effect on the post excerpts and post page (should grab attention more than just viewing the search box on the right hand side).

4. Hotel directions below the map may look better.

5. Page titles and permalinks. Having words such as 'Archive' visible on the category pages isn't very user friendly and won't help with the CTR on search engines. I've put this last as you may not have finished setting it all up yet.

Think that's all for now. These are of course just my personal thoughts on the functionality/layout rather than design/colours etc. Others may disagree.

 

[AssetDomains]

Cheers wb great feedback your the second person to make them comments on the cut down descriptions so I'm going to have a play with something else.
I'm still to add styling to the general blog pages your right they do need cleaning up how did you get to them from the site as is.

First thoughts are that it looks good, although could do with just a few little tweaks.

1. Remove the slider and extra search box from the homepage. I didn't even bother reading those sliding descriptions as I wouldn't know if the hotel would be suitable.

2. Perhaps list the category names under the hotel titles to give more details at a glance (as it stands, looking at the hotels in your homepage it can't be seen whether they are budget, 3 star etc). Should be simple to do with one of WordPress' include functions.

3. Add a 'book now' button or words to similar effect on the post excerpts and post page (should grab attention more than just viewing the search box on the right hand side).

4. Hotel directions below the map may look better.

5. Page titles and permalinks. Having words such as 'Archive' visible on the category pages isn't very user friendly and won't help with the CTR on search engines. I've put this last as you may not have finished setting it all up yet.

Think that's all for now. These are of course just my personal thoughts on the functionality/layout rather than design/colours etc. Others may disagree.

 

[wb]

Cheers wb great feedback

No problem.

how did you get to them from the site as is.

I used the top navigation links rather than the ones on the side bar which were overlooked as attention is drawn more to the search box.

One final point to consider would be to perhaps have a redirect page for visitors after searching for a hotel and being taken to LateRooms.com.

Although it does say about LateRooms.com below the search button, it doesn't stand out and without seeing a logo or similar people may still be surprised to be transferred somewhere else.

 

[AssetDomains]

No problem.
I used the top navigation links rather than the ones on the side bar which were overlooked as attention is drawn more to the search box.

Sorry to be a pain were exactly they should all point to the same places as the links on the side

 

[accelerator]

You need to use some colour to help scannability / usability, e.g. use orange search buttons.

Rgds

 

[AssetDomains]

For those who showed interest in getting a copy of theme the latest incarnation is available here