Feedback on Recent Website Redesign

[Jcam]

Just a couple little comments.
I also had to look up 'in the heart of Michigan's thumb' as I had never heard of it. That would likely appeal to locals or those who know Michigan. It seems you know where most of your guests come from? Is that a big draw? I saw it all over Michigan's tourism sites. I like your little description here that Michigan is shaped like a mitten and you're in the center of the thumb of the mitten. The thumb print. I didn't know that Michigan looks like a mitten.
I would prefer no people in the hot tub. I see that couple in the header picture of the hot tub under amenities, then it repeats with the scrolling images, then you see them from a little further away. How about a picture of it with bubbles rolling? Maybe towels and wine glasses off to the side. Maybe from inside the game room looking out? I assume the man is looking at the tv in the game room?.

great minds think alike - my first thought was what is that man looking at?

 

[EmptyNest]

Hi,
I would look at some performance optimization, as this theme loads quite a lot of resources on the homepage
Here's a link to help you out: https://gtmetrix.com/reports/www.himelhochbb.com/bgGlubEx.

Thanks for this report, lots of good info! I'm using some optimization plugins to try to get my PageSpeed as high as possible and it looks like it's not too horrible compared to some other B&B sites because it scored significantly higher than EmpyNest's recently completed riverdellbb.com site with a score of 72% vs an F 26%.
https://gtmetrix.com/reports/riverdellbb.com/ICMA5pKV
There's always room for improvement of course so I'm going to keep working on getting it higher!
.

Wish you would have brought this to my attention when I first asked for comments about the site

Got it fixed now A score. Loads in 3 seconds...am trying to get it to 1 but have pretty much exhausted what I know to do

 

[himelhochbb]

Hi,
I would look at some performance optimization, as this theme loads quite a lot of resources on the homepage
Here's a link to help you out: https://gtmetrix.com/reports/www.himelhochbb.com/bgGlubEx.

Thanks for this report, lots of good info! I'm using some optimization plugins to try to get my PageSpeed as high as possible and it looks like it's not too horrible compared to some other B&B sites because it scored significantly higher than EmpyNest's recently completed riverdellbb.com site with a score of 72% vs an F 26%.
https://gtmetrix.com/reports/riverdellbb.com/ICMA5pKV
There's always room for improvement of course so I'm going to keep working on getting it higher!
.

Wish you would have brought this to my attention when I first asked for comments about the site

Got it fixed now A score. Loads in 3 seconds...am trying to get it to 1 but have pretty much exhausted what I know to do
.

Nice! I did notice that it looks like a couple of the images on your homepage are broken now though, not sure if it's on my end or related to the image optimization but thought I'd let you know so you can take a look at it.

 

[himelhochbb]

Of all the pages this is probably my favorite and what I feel a lot of Inns don't always do as good of a job promoting, their great reviews:
https://www.himelhochbb.com/reviews/

 

[JBloggs]

I am coming in late, so just wanted to say nice job.
But re the mattress thing, the only time the mattresses will be NEW mattresses are for the first person who sleep on them, after that they are not new mattresses.
I like it, I would choose you!

 

[JBloggs]

Of all the pages this is probably my favorite and what I feel a lot of Inns don't always do as good of a job promoting, their great reviews:
https://www.himelhochbb.com/reviews/.

Of all the pages this is probably my favorite and what I feel a lot of Inns don't always do as good of a job promoting, their great reviews:
https://www.himelhochbb.com/reviews/

Excellent!

 

[EmptyNest]

Hi,
I would look at some performance optimization, as this theme loads quite a lot of resources on the homepage
Here's a link to help you out: https://gtmetrix.com/reports/www.himelhochbb.com/bgGlubEx.

Thanks for this report, lots of good info! I'm using some optimization plugins to try to get my PageSpeed as high as possible and it looks like it's not too horrible compared to some other B&B sites because it scored significantly higher than EmpyNest's recently completed riverdellbb.com site with a score of 72% vs an F 26%.
https://gtmetrix.com/reports/riverdellbb.com/ICMA5pKV
There's always room for improvement of course so I'm going to keep working on getting it higher!
.

Wish you would have brought this to my attention when I first asked for comments about the site

Got it fixed now A score. Loads in 3 seconds...am trying to get it to 1 but have pretty much exhausted what I know to do
.

Nice! I did notice that it looks like a couple of the images on your homepage are broken now though, not sure if it's on my end or related to the image optimization but thought I'd let you know so you can take a look at it.

.

You can delete this I am fixing

 

[user 26]

I want to say something about broken links and website performance.
I'm not a wordpress expert ... could not build my own wp site but I update it constantly. We pay someone to keep things humming but I visit the site often just to check. Sometimes (and I don't know why) something goes weird with one of the plugins. Or a link stops working or whatever. And then I get in touch with the tech people for help.
I maintain another website that is not wordpress. And sometimes that develops issues as well. One day I was glad to receive an email telling me something on a site was not working as I had no idea.
Everyone who has a website has to regularly check that all is working properly. Time consuming, I know, but so important. It's the face of your business.

 

[EmptyNest]

I want to say something about broken links and website performance.
I'm not a wordpress expert ... could not build my own wp site but I update it constantly. We pay someone to keep things humming but I visit the site often just to check. Sometimes (and I don't know why) something goes weird with one of the plugins. Or a link stops working or whatever. And then I get in touch with the tech people for help.
I maintain another website that is not wordpress. And sometimes that develops issues as well. One day I was glad to receive an email telling me something on a site was not working as I had no idea.
Everyone who has a website has to regularly check that all is working properly. Time consuming, I know, but so important. It's the face of your business..

I just have to say, I have to depend on clients to do this. Broken links are usually because a sit you linked to goes down or changes. That is not the web masters job to check or fix them unless they are paid. Assuming it was correct when originally done.
I am not paid to monitor hundreds of sites. When there are updates required with plugins and themes, with one I know there are 100 I have to update and I do it freely.

 

[user 26]

yes. I don't even know who built the wordpress site I use ... it was built five years ago. And so we have this tech team on retainer for when we need help with something. They let us know when something has been updated and will fix what needs fixing, but they don't monitor the site. And they charge by the hour if we want changes made.

 

[JBloggs]

I want to say something about broken links and website performance.
I'm not a wordpress expert ... could not build my own wp site but I update it constantly. We pay someone to keep things humming but I visit the site often just to check. Sometimes (and I don't know why) something goes weird with one of the plugins. Or a link stops working or whatever. And then I get in touch with the tech people for help.
I maintain another website that is not wordpress. And sometimes that develops issues as well. One day I was glad to receive an email telling me something on a site was not working as I had no idea.
Everyone who has a website has to regularly check that all is working properly. Time consuming, I know, but so important. It's the face of your business..

I just have to say, I have to depend on clients to do this. Broken links are usually because a sit you linked to goes down or changes. That is not the web masters job to check or fix them unless they are paid. Assuming it was correct when originally done.
I am not paid to monitor hundreds of sites. When there are updates required with plugins and themes, with one I know there are 100 I have to update and I do it freely.
.

I just have to say, I have to depend on clients to do this. Broken links are usually because a sit you linked to goes down or changes. That is not the web masters job to check or fix them unless they are paid. Assuming it was correct when originally done.
I am not paid to monitor hundreds of sites. When there are updates required with plugins and themes, with one I know there are 100 I have to update and I do it freely.

Agreed.
I can't even keep my restaurant list up to date. Literally they open and close before your eyes. I hear you on this, in the slow season I work the links on our website, forget the blog, there is no way to maintain past links now.
For anyone reading this, worst than broken links is outdated info. There are B&B sites that have Valentines Packages on their homepages from last year! There is a lot more to being an innkeeper than makin' muffins, that is for sure.
THANK YOU FOR THE REMINDER
There is a program you can run looking for broken links http://www.deadlinkchecker.com/website-dead-link-checker.asp
If you do this link check above, report back with HOW MANY hyperlinks you have on your website
Just found a 404 on a pet boarding I refer people to
Here is mine:100% scanned - 1277/1277 URLs checked (an yes there were some broken links) click on report and it will tell you what page. The link above was on our reservations/policies page (where we mention no pets here)

 

[user 26]

OH! Thank you for that link! On one site there are 161 links (many to pages within the site) Just found one broken to a school within the same building that has changed from a .net to a .org FIXED
The other site, I'm afraid to look! We have so many links to events

One funny thing, not so funny, is when people ask you to share about their event or whatever and the link they provide doesn't work.

 

[gillumhouse]

I want to say something about broken links and website performance.
I'm not a wordpress expert ... could not build my own wp site but I update it constantly. We pay someone to keep things humming but I visit the site often just to check. Sometimes (and I don't know why) something goes weird with one of the plugins. Or a link stops working or whatever. And then I get in touch with the tech people for help.
I maintain another website that is not wordpress. And sometimes that develops issues as well. One day I was glad to receive an email telling me something on a site was not working as I had no idea.
Everyone who has a website has to regularly check that all is working properly. Time consuming, I know, but so important. It's the face of your business..

I just have to say, I have to depend on clients to do this. Broken links are usually because a sit you linked to goes down or changes. That is not the web masters job to check or fix them unless they are paid. Assuming it was correct when originally done.
I am not paid to monitor hundreds of sites. When there are updates required with plugins and themes, with one I know there are 100 I have to update and I do it freely.
.

I just have to say, I have to depend on clients to do this. Broken links are usually because a sit you linked to goes down or changes. That is not the web masters job to check or fix them unless they are paid. Assuming it was correct when originally done.
I am not paid to monitor hundreds of sites. When there are updates required with plugins and themes, with one I know there are 100 I have to update and I do it freely.

Agreed.
I can't even keep my restaurant list up to date. Literally they open and close before your eyes. I hear you on this, in the slow season I work the links on our website, forget the blog, there is no way to maintain past links now.
For anyone reading this, worst than broken links is outdated info. There are B&B sites that have Valentines Packages on their homepages from last year! There is a lot more to being an innkeeper than makin' muffins, that is for sure.
THANK YOU FOR THE REMINDER
There is a program you can run looking for broken links http://www.deadlinkchecker.com/website-dead-link-checker.asp
If you do this link check above, report back with HOW MANY hyperlinks you have on your website
Just found a 404 on a pet boarding I refer people to
Here is mine:100% scanned - 1277/1277 URLs checked (an yes there were some broken links) click on report and it will tell you what page. The link above was on our reservations/policies page (where we mention no pets here)
.

This is what I got:
100% scanned - 2000/2000 URLs checked, 1735 OK, 265 failed
This free service checks the first 2000 links on any website. For larger websites please subscribe to our Auto-check service - options.
Scan completed with 265 errors. Full report Retry dead links
Check multiple sites at the same time - free - login or sign up for a free account.
Check sites automatically on a regular basis with the Auto-Checker - see options.

Status URL Source link text
404 Not Found http://www.gillumhouse.com/openpopup.js script/src
404 Not Found http://www.gillumhouse.com/images-uploaded/2cards.gif img/src
404 Not Found http://www.gillumhouse.com/0-nav/emailimag.gif img/src
-1 Timeout : Unknown error http://www.wvrtc.org/trails/ West Virginia Rail Trails
503 Service Unavailable http://www.gillumhouse.com/blog/category/shinnston-community-band/ Shinnston Community Band
503 Service Unavailable http://www.gillumhouse.com/blog/painting-photographed/ Painting Photographed
503 Service Unavailable http://www.gillumhouse.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/eBestTriumph-gillumhouse.jpg <No Text>
503 Service Unavailable http://www.gillumhouse.com/blog/tag/motorcycle-art/
Most of it is on the blog and many of them are photos and tags. How are tags links?

 

[Lee2014]

Very nice! I would echo the part with the people in the hot tub.
You certainly are a salesperson! I saw the time ticking on the special, the "guests lucky enough to book this room", and my first thought was, "Yikes, I'd better snatch this before its gone!"… Wait a minute…!

 

[himelhochbb]

Hi,
I would look at some performance optimization, as this theme loads quite a lot of resources on the homepage
Here's a link to help you out: https://gtmetrix.com/reports/www.himelhochbb.com/bgGlubEx.

Thanks for this report, lots of good info! I'm using some optimization plugins to try to get my PageSpeed as high as possible and it looks like it's not too horrible compared to some other B&B sites because it scored significantly higher than EmpyNest's recently completed riverdellbb.com site with a score of 72% vs an F 26%.
https://gtmetrix.com/reports/riverdellbb.com/ICMA5pKV
There's always room for improvement of course so I'm going to keep working on getting it higher!
.

Wish you would have brought this to my attention when I first asked for comments about the site

Got it fixed now A score. Loads in 3 seconds...am trying to get it to 1 but have pretty much exhausted what I know to do
.

Nice! I did notice that it looks like a couple of the images on your homepage are broken now though, not sure if it's on my end or related to the image optimization but thought I'd let you know so you can take a look at it.

.

You can delete this I am fixing
.

Awesome, glad to hear you got it fixed! I posted a few other suggestions on your original thread to lend you the same courtesy and help you offered me

 

[himelhochbb]

Very nice! I would echo the part with the people in the hot tub.
You certainly are a salesperson! I saw the time ticking on the special, the "guests lucky enough to book this room", and my first thought was, "Yikes, I'd better snatch this before its gone!"… Wait a minute…!.

Thank you! Yes, I'm hoping to get the hot tub picture replaced in the next week or so before the first snowfall hits

Yeah I created the countdown timer to try to give guests the extra nudge to place their booking right then, rather than have them plan on coming back later to decide and then just forget about us. Should hopefully boost our conversion rate on our site and increase our occupancy!

 

[Lee2014]

Very nice! I would echo the part with the people in the hot tub.
You certainly are a salesperson! I saw the time ticking on the special, the "guests lucky enough to book this room", and my first thought was, "Yikes, I'd better snatch this before its gone!"… Wait a minute…!.

Thank you! Yes, I'm hoping to get the hot tub picture replaced in the next week or so before the first snowfall hits

Yeah I created the countdown timer to try to give guests the extra nudge to place their booking right then, rather than have them plan on coming back later to decide and then just forget about us. Should hopefully boost our conversion rate on our site and increase our occupancy!
.

If the hot tub is open during the winter, a picture of steam coming off it with snow piled on the railing as snowflakes fall would be a cute picture! One of my aunts talk about going to an hot spring in Iceland and soaking in the hot water while snow was falling and what a great experience. (They did it twice so it must have been good.) I don't know if it is feasible with an outside hot tub or not. I would be worried about broken system and freezing, but I don't know enough about it. I just thought of the picture it would make!

 

[JBloggs]

yes. I don't even know who built the wordpress site I use ... it was built five years ago. And so we have this tech team on retainer for when we need help with something. They let us know when something has been updated and will fix what needs fixing, but they don't monitor the site. And they charge by the hour if we want changes made..

yes. I don't even know who built the wordpress site I use ... it was built five years ago. And so we have this tech team on retainer for when we need help with something. They let us know when something has been updated and will fix what needs fixing, but they don't monitor the site. And they charge by the hour if we want changes made.

I was at a class and the person shared NEW ideas for marketing and had a slide of a tweet dated 2012. So much has changed in so little time, there is a lot to learn, and then learn it again. I was there to learn and was sad they had something so old.

 

[gillumhouse]

I want to say something about broken links and website performance.
I'm not a wordpress expert ... could not build my own wp site but I update it constantly. We pay someone to keep things humming but I visit the site often just to check. Sometimes (and I don't know why) something goes weird with one of the plugins. Or a link stops working or whatever. And then I get in touch with the tech people for help.
I maintain another website that is not wordpress. And sometimes that develops issues as well. One day I was glad to receive an email telling me something on a site was not working as I had no idea.
Everyone who has a website has to regularly check that all is working properly. Time consuming, I know, but so important. It's the face of your business..

I just have to say, I have to depend on clients to do this. Broken links are usually because a sit you linked to goes down or changes. That is not the web masters job to check or fix them unless they are paid. Assuming it was correct when originally done.
I am not paid to monitor hundreds of sites. When there are updates required with plugins and themes, with one I know there are 100 I have to update and I do it freely.
.

I just have to say, I have to depend on clients to do this. Broken links are usually because a sit you linked to goes down or changes. That is not the web masters job to check or fix them unless they are paid. Assuming it was correct when originally done.
I am not paid to monitor hundreds of sites. When there are updates required with plugins and themes, with one I know there are 100 I have to update and I do it freely.

Agreed.
I can't even keep my restaurant list up to date. Literally they open and close before your eyes. I hear you on this, in the slow season I work the links on our website, forget the blog, there is no way to maintain past links now.
For anyone reading this, worst than broken links is outdated info. There are B&B sites that have Valentines Packages on their homepages from last year! There is a lot more to being an innkeeper than makin' muffins, that is for sure.
THANK YOU FOR THE REMINDER
There is a program you can run looking for broken links http://www.deadlinkchecker.com/website-dead-link-checker.asp
If you do this link check above, report back with HOW MANY hyperlinks you have on your website
Just found a 404 on a pet boarding I refer people to
Here is mine:100% scanned - 1277/1277 URLs checked (an yes there were some broken links) click on report and it will tell you what page. The link above was on our reservations/policies page (where we mention no pets here)
.

JB - is my result terrible or something that should be of concern?

 

[EmptyNest]

I want to say something about broken links and website performance.
I'm not a wordpress expert ... could not build my own wp site but I update it constantly. We pay someone to keep things humming but I visit the site often just to check. Sometimes (and I don't know why) something goes weird with one of the plugins. Or a link stops working or whatever. And then I get in touch with the tech people for help.
I maintain another website that is not wordpress. And sometimes that develops issues as well. One day I was glad to receive an email telling me something on a site was not working as I had no idea.
Everyone who has a website has to regularly check that all is working properly. Time consuming, I know, but so important. It's the face of your business..

I just have to say, I have to depend on clients to do this. Broken links are usually because a sit you linked to goes down or changes. That is not the web masters job to check or fix them unless they are paid. Assuming it was correct when originally done.
I am not paid to monitor hundreds of sites. When there are updates required with plugins and themes, with one I know there are 100 I have to update and I do it freely.
.

I just have to say, I have to depend on clients to do this. Broken links are usually because a sit you linked to goes down or changes. That is not the web masters job to check or fix them unless they are paid. Assuming it was correct when originally done.
I am not paid to monitor hundreds of sites. When there are updates required with plugins and themes, with one I know there are 100 I have to update and I do it freely.

Agreed.
I can't even keep my restaurant list up to date. Literally they open and close before your eyes. I hear you on this, in the slow season I work the links on our website, forget the blog, there is no way to maintain past links now.
For anyone reading this, worst than broken links is outdated info. There are B&B sites that have Valentines Packages on their homepages from last year! There is a lot more to being an innkeeper than makin' muffins, that is for sure.
THANK YOU FOR THE REMINDER
There is a program you can run looking for broken links http://www.deadlinkchecker.com/website-dead-link-checker.asp
If you do this link check above, report back with HOW MANY hyperlinks you have on your website
Just found a 404 on a pet boarding I refer people to
Here is mine:100% scanned - 1277/1277 URLs checked (an yes there were some broken links) click on report and it will tell you what page. The link above was on our reservations/policies page (where we mention no pets here)
.

JB - is my result terrible or something that should be of concern?
.

Not JB but me. I just checked your gtmetrix and your site page load time is 1.1 seconds is FINE!!! No worries but it does say your images needs optimizing. I am guessing you didn't do that when you uploaded them????
You can install WP SMUSH IT plug in and it can bulk optimize all images on your site at once.