Martin and Nadine haven’t been to France since January, and Covid complications certainly are an issue and a constant worry. It seems sorting out a ferry crossing isn’t the only hurdle. Is it better to go or to cancel?
On 1st July 2012, a law was introduced in France: all drivers had to carry a breath test kit in their car. Find out why and if or how that law was implemented. Read more about the driving requirements in France.
Kouign-amann is a beautiful, buttery, traditional Breton cake. During the current lockdown, unable to travel to Brittany, we have found an alternative: the British lardy cake. Read on.
Is it possible or indeed practical to buy a LHD car in the UK, originally registered in Poland, and then import it to France? Are there guidelines to be followed?
Chris Slade describes the son et lumiere presentation at the abbey of Bon Repos called "Le Pays de Conomor" in Brittany, which takes place during the first two weeks of August.
Can anyone buy a metal detector in France and go detecting wherever they like? You can if you’re on a beach, but in other areas you are likely to need a licence for metal detecting in France
On 1st July 2012, a law was introduced in France: all drivers had to carry a breath test kit in their car. Find out why and if or how that law was implemented. Read more about the driving requirements in France.
The Summer holidays are nearing the end in France and everyone is preparing for “La Rentrée des Classes”. On September 2nd, every school in France will officially re-open its doors for the new school year.
Kouign-amann is a beautiful, buttery, traditional Breton cake. During the current lockdown, unable to travel to Brittany, we have found an alternative: the British lardy cake. Read on.
Make sure there is a clear and obvious way for people to get in touch with you wherever they are on your website. Failure to do so could result in lots of potential bookings finding their way to somebody elses website.
What’s in a name, Simon asks? His Brittany property has two names – the original, official Breton name, and the slightly changed name chosen by the previous owner of the property.
Can you light a fire outdoors in France to burn your garden waste? Maybe – but it’s best to check first with your local Mairie or fire service to make sure you don’t get a fine.
Publishing to the web is so much easier these days, making it possible for all French Property Owners, no matter what their level of technical expertise, to promote their rental property online in a website or blog or on various social media sites such as Facebook. All one needs is a computer, an internet connection, and some words and images to show the property off to best effect. Whilst this empowerment is great, for example by bringing down the cost of a web presence for you, it does bring some issues, notably – now that web publishing is so easy it is generating a whole new wave of additional content to present to would-be holidaymakers looking for a suitable place to stay when they next venture to France. The number of web pages promoting french rental properties is increasing at a very fast rate, presenting a bewildering array of choice to search engine users, making it harder for your property to get found.
This series of hints and tips (in no particular order of importance) will hopefully help you to stand out from the crowd, improving the traffic to your website and help convert more visitors into bookings!
Tip 1 – Be visual
Remember! Yours isn”t the only holiday property in the area, and it won”t be the only property seen by search engine visitors looking for their ideal holiday retreat. So it needs to stand out from the crowd and it needs to do so from the moment the visitor arrives on your site.
Whilst text content is generally (but not always) what gets your site noticed by search engines in the first place, for holiday rental websites it is often the imagery on the main landing pages that grabs the visitors attention and keeps them on your site. Website visitors have short attention spans – if they don”t see what they want within a few seconds of opening your website they will go elsewhere.
This means that you need good quality images on all landing pages in your website – those pages that visitors arrive at first when they come to your website. This isn”t always your home page (your web statistics or analytics should be able to show you which pages your visitors land on). Make sure that the images are big enough to be seen “by the unaided eye” and that they show the property in good light. If you are marketing the ideal summer holiday accommodation, don”t show the property under 2 feet of snow. By all means direct your visitors to a photo gallery, but make sure you have given them sufficient reason on the landing page to keep them there long enough to see your Photo Gallery link!
The examples shown on the right are just a couple of websites we came across on the web that we thought were attractive and good enough to hold the attention of the casual web surfer. You don”t necessarily need professionally-taken photographs, but they must be sized to fit neatly on the page, they must be sharp and in focus, and the subject matter should be highly relevant to what you are selling.
Martin Jarvis is a professional web developer and a WordPress expert, with a passion for all things "France" - including his lovely wife Nadine! With a french wife, a house on the border of Brittany and the Pays de la Loire, an aunt in Paris, his wife's family in Bordeaux, and a dear (now sadly departed) friend on the Cote d'Azur, Martin is well placed to comment on France from the point of view of an Englishman. Hopefully, this interest in France and his experience as a developer and marketer of websites will help make this site invaluable to francophiles everywhere.
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