Thread: Re-Vamped

I have been re-vamping my site, www.terryodonnellphotographs.com, have added more pages, and photos. have made the photos a little larger. This has slowed the gallery load times but not too dramatically, I live half way up a mountain in the middle of a wilderness and have a steam driven internet connection and it doesnt seem too bad. I've put a little warning and apology on my home page, would have like one of those little whirly-gigs that thanks you for waiting but am a professional do-nut by trade and it is a step beyond my back-wood intellect!. Would welcome all criticsm, hopefully constructive. Am still doing the shop, am working out codes etc etc. Still, looking forward to your comments

Terry

Hi Terry,

Looking good. A couple of comments:

• The black text on grey background is difficult to read.
• Consider spitting your galleries up into two smaller galleries (maybe 'black and white' and 'colour') because lightbox is great but if a visitor jumps the gun while your present long gallery is loading lightbox doesn't work.
• Remove the spaces between words when saving your pics to get rid of all the % signs (make use of _ or -)
• You need to do plenty of SEO of your pages (keywords, titles etc) Beth to the rescue
• Consider naming your galleries (eg Gallery 1 could be Beach Gallery etc)
• What about protection of your art????

Great Photo's.

Cheers,

Hello Andrew
thank you for your observations and I am looking at my options now regarding text/background. Will change the 'save' names of the photos too, but not all at once, theres 125+ of them!! Also like the split gallery idea and will experiment. As for protection, following your comment I've bought a watermark software that will put very subtle copyrights on the photos, I was reluctant to do so because I didn't want to spoil the pictures for people who just wanted to look at them, if you know what I mean, at the same time, I do have to eat and pay bills so don't want truck-loads of freeloaders taking what they want!
Again, many thanks for your observations, the appreciation is genuine

Terry

Very beautiful.
I do not have any other comments!
Alas
www.mediterraneotanzania.com

Thankyou Alas, you made an old man happy with those few words and I am grateful

Terry

Very nicely done. Photos are well done. Loaded quickly. Congratulations.

Thankyou choco777, doing this with Bluevoda and reading up on all the different forums has made it possible, it is a great place to be

I love the black and white effect on the index page. Makes it very classy. I do strongly agree with Andrew about nameing the galleries by category. If the viewer is in a hurry (and who isn't now a days), it may deter them from opening each "gallery" to see your beautiful work!
Congrats on an excellent site!

I like your site Terry. I'm new at this myself, but I found your site very pleasing to the eye. I've liked the photos especially the black and whites.
Jerrl

very stunning pics... mesmerising. I love photo's of people and found that I had to go thru each gallery to find out what type of pics would be there... the buttons could be a little more enticing to 'intertwine' with your commentary ie 'interwoven existences' rather than 'gallery 4'. I found reading about you a little difficult... a larger font or two columns perhaps... and personally the equipment you use is a little over my head... perhaps an equipment page for those interested. When reading about Terry, I'd like to know about Terry... and see a few photo's of Terry down the side. The world you're talking about is being created on the web, and I'd like to see who's created these amazing photo's. Two more questions.... can these photo's be used for backgrounds on sites? And, have you thought about a newsletter to let people know when new photo's are posted? A B S O L U T E L Y S T U N N I N G photographs... thanks for sharing!

arhhh ... see you have changed the text colour and lightened the banner ... looks good ... one small thing you migh like to consider is adding an extra line at the end of each paragraph it will help the readability ...

otherwise absolutely stunning site ... with some tweaking over the coming months yu should be very happy ... I also agree with naming the galleries ... and something I do is try and get the photos of an approximate size and shape and group them together then I specify a thumbnail size ...

wedll done ...

Hello
Wow, I'm rather stunned by the post's and think I need to reply to you all individually as I feel rather humbled by your reactions to my efforts. I've been away over the weekend and having just returned need to digest the suggestions and work out how to do the changes, particularly the naming of galleries which is a unanimous opinion.
My thanks to you all is heartfelt. Thankyou
Terry

Beautiful site Terry - loads pretty fast for me and i have a sporadic satellite connection - also agree on naming the galleries. you have done a great job love your photos! went back to check - you need to title your pages - read Beths info for SEO

Terry

I want to echo the previous comments. The photography is very professional as is the site. I love the use of thumbnails. I am not sure that is the proper term.

I noticed the word category was misspelled on the first page. Otherwise no other comments.

hi dont know if anyone said this but since you are a photographer I would change the image on your home page at the bottom..it is a little to blurry..maybe it's because you streched it..but i would make sure that the two photos people see first are at least in focus..
there are programs out there to help you stretch them and still keep their focus..
good job on the site..and hey I love the fact you use steam ..amazing ..you should start a site just about that!
John

First off I want to say particular thankyou's to PlayItByBeer, MADinMelbourne & WhiteShepherd for the in-depth observations you provided last week, also thanks to Asirimarco and Slick1121, especially for the spelling error slick!
I have changed quite a few things following the advice and opinions which I hope you have time to review and comment on. Some things it isn't practical to alter, namely the photo sizes, but as the images get changed in the future I can probably get them all more on an equal footing, however, please voice your thoughts.
Many thanks
Terry

Hi Terry,
Your photographs are beautiful, and without having looked at your site before, I can tell you've changed some things based on the suggestions above.

I'm not going to talk SEO here (as everyone would expect) but a suggestions regarding the store - personally, I'd want to select my own photographs. I'd hate to have a favorite - and purchase the 10 - and you not select the one I want. I really recommend that you let people select the pictures from the gallery that they want. Or at least be able to select 1/2 of them, with the rest possibly selected by you.

Art is so subjective, and while I might like all the photographs in a gallery, certain colors or photographs might speak to me personally - and others might not. Same for your customers.

Good luck to you with the website and your business.

absolutely stunning ... it would have to be one of the best photography websites I have seen ... now it is time to read Bethers book about SEO ... keep up the great work ...

Hi!

OOOOOOOOHH!!!

Love the visuals! I agree with Bethers. Let me (the customer) pick at least half of the shots in the package.

And let me type more than 300 Characters in the contact form. AAAARRRGGGHHH!!!

LOL. Please don't take offense, lol. I have filled out contact form and eagerly waiting response.

From a customer's point of view, your site is very nice now with the named galleries--good job!

And this customer is looking forward to hearing from you!

OOOPS!
Terry -- I hit reply instead of using the addy you supplied.
Have it fixed now so you don't have to "go and fetch" after this one.

BIG WOW TO YOU... great to see the changes... Is it me, or does the commentary make the pics look even more amazing? Did I see that 'after the rain' photo before??? LOVE READING the 'about Terry' page with a big smile on my face... BRAVO, your site is a thoroughly enjoyable experience!

As ever I have much to thank everybody for in the advice received and have made some way toward the changes suggested, particularly those from Bethers and Karenwms63.
I'm having to put my hands up and say that the SEO, Keywords and meta tags stuff leaves me completely and utterly bamboozled, I have read and re-read Bethers e-book, looked at the sources for other sites on the internet and made another cup of Horlicks before retiring into my little shell none the wiser. Think I have more chance of getting a degree in Rocket Science than ever understanding any of it.
Am working on two more galleries for the site, people and art, so will let you know when they are done, thanks every one, you are all Good people
Terry

I'm very impressed,that's IMpressed. You have some beautiful work. Oh yea, your site looks very good too! It's probably just me but I keep expecting something to load between the link buttons and your thumbnails. It looks like the text should start up at the top and then widen out under the buttons. But I have never been considered normal.
Good luck and keep up the beautiful work.