My first intention when I came across the Paradise Cottage web site was to quickly move on because I am not a fan of white text on black background. The style seems more suited to obscure rock bands, anything related to the Twilight series, or a technically oriented site that would go way above my comprehension. For some reason I stayed with it, and found myself looking at every page – which is rare given my customary attention-deficit surfing technique.
What hooked me were the photographs. When I’m looking for a vacation or cottage rental, I want to see lots of pictures. And this is what you get with this site. Anyone wanting to explore a room-by-room presentation would be delighted with the detail offered here. Each room has a separate page with photos taken from every angle – nothing is hidden from view which can be very appealing to a potential guest. By the time I had viewed the site I felt I had intimate knowledge of the cottage.
It was clear this had been ‘staged’. This was not a case of taking a few happy snaps and uploading them onto a freebie site which unfortunately tends to be the norm with many vacation rental sites. Care has been taken to stage every room to create images that will attract site visitors and draw them in. This is very well done here. I liked the close-up photos of different aspects of each room – a table lamp; the bowl on the dining table; a stack of board games in a cabinet; the mantelpiece in the living room. This is a clever way of showing the attention to detail evident in every room.
The site seems to have been developed as a showcase addition to the main VRBO listing which has all the information on facilities and features. Since it has such potential for converting visitors, I’d be inclined to give it a more stand-alone function and include that additional information on this site. If a visitor comes here then is pushed off to VRBO to find the calendar and facility list, there is the risk of losing them to the myriad other listings posted there. Grab them while you can!
I have one issue that could be resolved fairly quickly. After several visits to the site and a bit of time spent searching for images of the waterfront and lake – probably the greatest opportunity to capture interest – I realized that if I hung around on the home page long enough, the image sequence would scroll through to them. I had missed this on all previous visits. It is so important to have an image on the home page that will hold a visitor for more than a few seconds. Although the concept of the garden path sequence is creative – take a look to see what I mean – it is lost on a home page. That first image should have enough WOW factor to stop someone in their tracks and get them to look further.
The site was designed by Jodi Spangler – a Californian who now lives in rural Michigan. Jodi also staged the cottage for the owners and I’ll be interviewing her soon for a Renting For Profit feature that will explore the art of cottage staging. Since I am a new Mac convert and iPad owner, the fact that Jodi is a Mac expert could come in pretty helpful too! You can find her here http://www.lakeshoremac.com/contactus.html
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