[Max]

If anyone has found a good way of making an holiday cottage website, please share it here.
Please state setup cost and recurring costs. Was it easy to set-up and maintain? Rate it's good looks!
As a rough guide I would expect to pay about £40 / year for hosting and £8 / year for a .co.uk -- but then you're coding it yourself, which can be tricky.
It makes the job a lot easier if there is some kind of content-management system and this is where the 'create your own website dead easy' providers come in.

[kirstenw]

Hi,
I've now done two different websites with two different webhosts and the easiest one I found by far was http://www.doyourownsite.co.uk. I think it is about £60 per year but you don't have to write your own code at all, there is a range of page types already set up that you can use or just create your own. They have a really good site traffic analysis page so you can see how many hits you get, where from and what they look at. It also looks quite professional when you have finished and it is really easy to edit pages.

[rodomo]

You can set up a template web site pretty easily here http://www.independentowners.com/ and they even have a free version if you don't mind adverts on your site.

Might also be worth checking out http://www.booksterhq.com for getting online booking onto your web site - looks like it is in early stages but looks promising.

[Ty Cariad]

We wanted to get ours up quickly, and (fairly) easily - so we used Google Sites.

It comes free with a Google Account (also email, etc).

Backstage it is structured something like a Wiki, so that more than one person can work on it, and you can revert to earlier versions, etc. It takes a bit of getting used to, but the result seems OK for now.

Oh, and it's FREE!

If you want a simpler address you can always buy a Domain Name, and link through (apparently) but we haven't done that yet.

http://sites.google.com/site/tycariad/

[Max]

I have been contacted by person who advertises a property on UKCR. He has been kind enough to offer, for FREE, a software program which he has developed which can help make holiday property website quite easily.

Aswell as making a website which is good looking and functional, his software is specifically aimed at good search engine ranking. All pages produced have all the critical SEO features such as titles, link-text etc. The software does it all without the user needing to do the clever bit.
The software also guides you through each step. Your site is also very quickly editable.
I highly recommend it and have uploaded it to our server, where you may download and use it for free.
To download please click herehttp://www.uk-cottage-rental.co.uk/holiday-site-maker.exe

[rodomo]

If you are making your own website and want to drop in an availability/pricing calendar, there is a free version of Bookster Self Catering that lets you generate one.

Some examples:

http://www.sunhavenvillas.com/ (under "reservations")

http://mull-escape.co.uk/availability

The paid version allows you to take bookings on top of showing availability / prices.

More info and sign up here:
http://www.booksterhq.com/

[aamymoore]

This holiday cottages website might help. Simple yet having impact.