SITE REVIEW: www.viva-almeria.com

Hi,

I've only joined this forum recently but found everyones help invaluable.

So time to be brave and get your thoughts on my site ...

http://www.viva-almeria.com

It's a directory for a province in southern Spain called Almeria. It's target audience is ENglish speakers (typically from the UK) who live, tavel to or intend to move to Almeria.

It's been live since the beginning of the year - but could always do with improvements.

Thanks in advance for your comments,

Mike

I am just bumping this post to the top.
hehe.

Hi
Site is well designed,neat and professional and not taking much time to download .
Good work!

nice warm and light feel.
i like the useful refs section that shows how many car hire, restaurants etc.
my only slightly crit would be the way the sponsored links etc scroll down for miles leaving a large blank white space on the right.
hope this helps,
tony

HI Tony,

Thanks and good point regarding the Google ads on the left. Some pages on the site are deeper than others, so it depends on the page as to how bad the effect is.

Maybe I'll consider putting the ads along the bottom - that there won't be a gap at all.

Cheers,

Mike

Hi MikeGibbs,

first of all, I really think that your travel site is good.
It is time consuming to make a travel site.

I am having a "half time" from mine now..heheh.
mine is pretty new. started it since april or may.

comments on yr site..
try getting a link (that links straight to domain name) at the bottom of pages. it will help in many ways.

dont put "costa almeria spain" in yr title. will pm you more details, too long to write more in here...

I like the site. Great content u put there, the design is nice and the loading time is good. I can see u worked a lot on this site due to the content. The site is simple and predictive navigation just how a travel site must be.

The only thing i don´t like is the header section specially that logo. I think u can make it better.

your design and php skills are good at least.
I think your site has a lot of potential.
everything is set up neatly.

is your google ads working well for you?
it is suitable for type of yr site i find...

nicely design but not to sure about some of the links

i clicked on Legal Advice and all i got was information about having a SPANISH WILL need a bit more info there. what happens if i want to brake the law why on my hoiliday?

would be really nice to have a phot gallary of the area to

Hi All,

Been a long evening, read all the new posts but don't have time to respond today. Just a quick message to say thanks very much for all the comments (everything has been helpful) and I'll post thoughts and answers on points that have been made tomorrow.

I'll also reply to the PMs sent to me.

Cheers,

Mike

Nice site. Well layed out except for the unecessary space at the bottom. love the use of your colors. looks cool. You know it would sound better with " 4 persons online" than "4 people online".

nice site overall

Hi All,

Thanks for your comments ...

madmonk
- Thanks for the comment re the link at the bottom of the page. I've added this in now. I'll send a PM re your comments on the title.
- Re the Google Ads, yeah they work reasonably well. I've spent quite a lot of time tweaking and optimising the Adwords ads (with a wide selection of ads priced in different bands) and I reckon I get a much better click through ratio than my competitors in this section (I average 3% which I think is pretty good). Consequently I get high placement for lower cost. Also, I run Google Adsense which covers a large part of the Adwords cost.

assasin3k
- Thanks for the feedback. What don't you like about the logo?

lomo
- Thanks for the comments on design. Regarding our advice and information section, I agree we need to provide more of it. We recently got some more information from a local charity (we've done them a free web site) and we just need the time to get it typed up.
- Photo gallery is a good point. We actually have tonnes of great photos and virtual tours on the site associated with the actual places (check out the link below and look at the selection of towns). However, maybe we should bring together a nice gallery for people to look at - nice idea.
http://www.viva-almeria.com/Towns_Cities_C2.php

soulseek3r
- Thanks for the comments and agree about space at the bottom (see Tonys' point above). Re the '4 people online' isn't that grammatically correct - not sure I like '4 persons online'?

Thanks to all for taking time to review the site.

Cheers,