Thread: Critique My Site

Its newly remodeled. Be honest

http://www.amberbrookephotography.com

Hi there,

I haven't got long before my bed as it's coming up to 1am here so I will make brief points, so please don't take any of them the wrong way.. I just need to go to bed..

You have NO text at all on the site as you have taken the decision to use a fancy font. I understand that you are right in what you have done by saving the text as an image, however this leaves you with a website with extremely little if no content whatsoever for the search engines to pick you up. No search engines.. few visitors..

You also have not maximised your page titles. You should as a photographer maybe have titles such as...

wedding photography, Portrait photography etc in your titles. As well as your town/city?

You should have NO keywords on any of your pages as you have no text on them.

Your meta page descriptions read more like keywords than a description.

You also don't mention ONCE on your site where you are?? I am presuming America.. but it's a big place ya know? You want to attract clients in your area no?

You could also do with a small contact form on your site.. maybe with a few basic questions required by this type of business..

e.g. date of event, budget, name address, contact number etc etc.

Sorry... I don't mean to be so harsh... but I think there is a lot to consider here. We are all here to help you though as we all want you to make a sucess of your venture.

The cursive writing is difficult for me to read. On your contact page the email address is an image. Therefore I cannot select it and paste it into my email client. I won't want to manually enter the L O N G emaill address to contact you. Disableing the right click option is somewhat of an annoyance. They are easily copied using other means. Why worry about someone copying small photos?
That's just me of course.

I cannot figure out what your specialty is, or if you have one.
For instance, you open your Prices page with the comment that you can spend less money on your wedding than the photographer (wishful thinking, I am afraid by the time all is said and done), only to not have a Wedding Gallery present anywhere to see the various styles you might be capable of. And...again about the Prices.....who expects to see individual print prices lumped together with wedding options? Isn't that usually part of a very specialized presentation?

See...rather than approach designing a photography site with the focus on "selling" I tried to enhance the "consultation" and interpretaion of needs aspect, and to shift emphasis on the personalized interfacing to use the consultation itself as the vehicle to "fulfill" the desire (and/or dream)....for in visual arts it really is all about personal desire, and to have that epitomized, right?

Maybe you can tell me if I am in left field or not (since I am actually just getting ready to do a complete update on this site this weekend)???

Hi, your off to a good start but may need a couple of tweaks & a couple of suggestions.
You will need to reduce the images with software to get the best out of them. When you look at the originals of the front page (& others), they a far superior to the ones actually showing on the page. IE: this image

http://www.amberbrookephotography.com/2007%20Prom%20Pictures%20(%20(400%20x%20600).jpg
has a lot of great detail & is lost through using the image handles to reduce it. If reduced properly, they will look a lot clearer & the pages will load ever faster. (Try & avoid those image handles for adjustments)
I like the text you are using for the header/titles of the page. But normal text would be better for general reading on the rest of the pages.
I noticed you are using JAlbum for your gallery’s (Great program) but once you are viewing a gallery it would be nice to have a link back to your site. (Got a bit lost).

Good luck.
PS. if you do some reducing of your images? It will also be a good time to make your images SE friendly. Not many will do a search for
2007%20Prom%20Pictures%20(%20(400%20x%20600).jpg in google But might for white-wedding-suite.jpg or wedding-images.jpg.

Wow, great advice. I never thought about naming each page in the page properties as"Whatever page it is" I just always added my website name. I am new to this so all of your info is quit helpfull. I dont get offended so you can say whatever is on your mind.
So what is the correct use of metadata.
Should I only do my Web name(AmberBrooke Photography) in a Fancy image text and then the rest normal text for search engines. I have never really understood what triggers a search engine to find things.
Any help will be greatly appreciated. I want to make the site as good as possible.
I just dont want it to be plain. I assumed that once someone arrived at my site, it would be easy to navigate.

Originally Posted by Marincky

Hi there,

Originally Posted by Marincky

I haven't got long before my bed as it's coming up to 1am here so I will make brief points, so please don't take any of them the wrong way.. I just need to go to bed..

You have NO text at all on the site as you have taken the decision to use a fancy font. I understand that you are right in what you have done by saving the text as an image, however this leaves you with a website with extremely little if no content whatsoever for the search engines to pick you up. No search engines.. few visitors..

You also have not maximised your page titles. You should as a photographer maybe have titles such as...

wedding photography, Portrait photography etc in your titles. As well as your town/city?

You should have NO keywords on any of your pages as you have no text on them.

Your meta page descriptions read more like keywords than a description.

You also don't mention ONCE on your site where you are?? I am presuming America.. but it's a big place ya know? You want to attract clients in your area no?

You could also do with a small contact form on your site.. maybe with a few basic questions required by this type of business..

e.g. date of event, budget, name address, contact number etc etc.

Sorry... I don't mean to be so harsh... but I think there is a lot to consider here. We are all here to help you though as we all want you to make a sucess of your venture.

I originally wanted the email contact to be a link to email. I have alot of people that would like to be able to click an email link and it open a form box, then type what they want and click send. Sort of like the customer support box here at Blue Voda. I cant seem to do this so I have since changed that because the font I wanted it to display isnt web friendly anyway. It is now a text box again.
Also, when I first built my site a year ago, I had bigger images on the pages. Again, I was then and still am new to website building. Therefore someone could copy them. I since started using PIX Resizer and no longer need right click disable. I just never removed it. If its a good idea, then I will remove it. You are right, they are very small and worthless, so OFF with the right click disable. Thanks for you honest support. Anymore hints would be greatly appreciated.

Originally Posted by CarbonTerry

The cursive writing is difficult for me to read. On your contact page the email address is an image. Therefore I cannot select it and paste it into my email client. I won't want to manually enter the L O N G emaill address to contact you. Disableing the right click option is somewhat of an annoyance. They are easily copied using other means. Why worry about someone copying small photos?

Originally Posted by CarbonTerry

That's just me of course.

Your post doesnt make any sense. My Prices page says nothing about Weddings.
And also, thats on my Services page which states,
"Spend more money on your Wedding...Not the Photographer"
Your post says, " Spend less on the wedding" The whole point is
You spend more money on the rest of your wedding and "I" as the photographer will be a small portion of the cost. I think its very clear on my Services Page. You must have been tired when reading it.
Secondly, the price page say clearly at the top, This is for Sports Pictures only.
You cant give a same basic price for every Wedding. This is why I dont list any other prices other that Sports Pics. Wedding quotes are done in private and no Albumns are posted on my site unless authorized by the client. I give discounts if they allow it. Its advertisement.
Our goals are somewhat different. I use my website to allow parents to choose which photos they want of there children in School events. A wedding is different, You are paying for all of you pictures in advance.
If the client is interested, then I wil show them a portfolio in person.

Originally Posted by Vasili

I cannot figure out what your specialty is, or if you have one.

Originally Posted by Vasili

For instance, you open your Prices page with the comment that you can spend less money on your wedding than the photographer (wishful thinking, I am afraid by the time all is said and done), only to not have a Wedding Gallery present anywhere to see the various styles you might be capable of. And...again about the Prices.....who expects to see individual print prices lumped together with wedding options? Isn't that usually part of a very specialized presentation?

See...rather than approach designing a photography site with the focus on "selling" I tried to enhance the "consultation" and interpretaion of needs aspect, and to shift emphasis on the personalized interfacing to use the consultation itself as the vehicle to "fulfill" the desire (and/or dream)....for in visual arts it really is all about personal desire, and to have that epitomized, right?

Maybe you can tell me if I am in left field or not (since I am actually just getting ready to do a complete update on this site this weekend)???

WOW, geat advice. I didnt know those handles degraded the images. I usually start with the standard size of 3888x2592 pix, then with pix resizer convert them to 600x400.
I guess you are saying, resize for what the end size should be instead of 600x400 and the handleing them to where I want them.
Give more detail about those pics on my front page. Are you saying to rename them with SE in mind. These were named for the client originally. I never thought it would matter, so I never changed the name. These were prom pics, so should they be White Prom Suit or Green Prom dress. And should I leave out the spaces since they display as "%20"
I will see if I can add a link back to my site in JAlbumn, I have never liked that myself.
Please respond, this is great advice I am getting from everyone here. I feel like I have somehwere to start working now. I never knew I was so far away. Good. Thanks

Originally Posted by Collectors-info

Hi, your off to a good start but may need a couple of tweaks & a couple of suggestions.

Originally Posted by Collectors-info

You will need to reduce the images with software to get the best out of them. When you look at the originals of the front page (& others), they a far superior to the ones actually showing on the page. IE: this image

http://www.amberbrookephotography.com/2007%20Prom%20Pictures%20(%20(400%20x%20600).jpg
has a lot of great detail & is lost through using the image handles to reduce it. If reduced properly, they will look a lot clearer & the pages will load ever faster. (Try & avoid those image handles for adjustments)
I like the text you are using for the header/titles of the page. But normal text would be better for general reading on the rest of the pages.
I noticed you are using JAlbum for your gallery’s (Great program) but once you are viewing a gallery it would be nice to have a link back to your site. (Got a bit lost).

Good luck.
PS. if you do some reducing of your images? It will also be a good time to make your images SE friendly. Not many will do a search for
2007%20Prom%20Pictures%20(%20(400%20x%20600).jpg in google But might for white-wedding-suite.jpg or wedding-images.jpg.

Hi, Yes! Always best to reduce to the size that is on the page. The image in the link is a nice image, but if you look at places like the edges of the suite, all looks a be crinkle, yet the original is perfect.
Also! you will reduce the kb’s if sized this way.

On the naming of the images, avoid any spaces & name like……
white-wedding-suite OR
white_wedding_suite.
I & many others search by images quite often, so naming these correctly can help someone find the site with a better SE score.

Good luck.

Originally Posted by jzwwdlez

Wow, great advice. I never thought about naming each page in the page properties as"Whatever page it is" I just always added my website name. I am new to this so all of your info is quit helpfull. I dont get offended so you can say whatever is on your mind.
So what is the correct use of metadata.
Should I only do my Web name(AmberBrooke Photography) in a Fancy image text and then the rest normal text for search engines. I have never really understood what triggers a search engine to find things.
Any help will be greatly appreciated. I want to make the site as good as possible.
I just dont want it to be plain. I assumed that once someone arrived at my site, it would be easy to navigate.


[i]

My personal opinion.. YES I would turn a lot of it into actual text (common font) as this will help the SE's. I also felt your font although nice was a bit hard on the eyes.

I notice there is no mention of wedding photography until you hit the prices page? You have to remember that people are going to spend probably a few seconds to a couple of minutes on your site.

On first glance your site doesn't scream to me what you do, where you do it and why I should use your services.

I have made a couple of sites for photographers, both of them in fairly early days of my web building life so nothing much to write home about but they do get my clients enough business to keep going. Having made these two sites I am aware of how massive the photography business is and how competitive it is too and so I had to make sure I made it very clear as well as attractive to the viewers of the sites exactly what, how, why, where and anything else a potential client may ask, making it clear exactly what type of photography my clients specialised in, with examples of each type, i.e. wedding, portrait etc..

All of this either on the index page of the site or within easy reach allowing no confusion and a pleasant flow to the sites.

If you want to email me through my main site below I'll be happy to show you these sites if it helps.

The cursive is the only thing you should change that I can think of, However the cursive looks good on the tile

I liked your website, I just noticed that you used a third party gallery templates. I guess was JAlbum. I am interested in embeding my gallereis that are generated in Photoshop or Adobe lightroom. can you help in this.

Hi, Nice Animal shots..

I am completely confused though, on your services pages for me, all I see are rates for wedding packages and senior portraits? Or am I not understanding it?

Cheers Pickels
www.salobrenacleaners.com