Request for feedback on website

goldenstarphoto

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone would take a few minutes to check out our new site and provide us with feedback. Any comments or advice is appreciated. We're looking for a little more than "nice" or "yuck".......:D:D

Thank you in advance!!!

www.goldenstarphoto.com

Blaker

goldenstarphoto wrote:

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone would take a few minutes to check out our new site and provide us with feedback. Any comments or advice is appreciated. We're looking for a little more than "nice" or "yuck".......:D:D

Thank you in advance!!!

www.goldenstarphoto.com

Basically a nice, site, and loads very quickly!
I'll just mention 2 things-

#1- EDIT EDIT EDIT!!!!!
I think there are too many photos on your home page (popular photos). I would edit this down to just a few REALLY GREAT photos in a larger size, to draw your customer in.

Also , I would edit the galleries- it doesn't seem like you need to show so many galleries to show what you can do.
Again, editing is your friend.
For example, there is a gallery of posed dog photos, and when you open up the gallery, it says that due to problems with the lighting and backdrop, you are offering another sitting for those people.
This should be a closed gallery visible only to the people who participated in the event.
You don't want your future customers seeing a whole gallery of bad photos!!! That is not good advertising!
Go through and edit out any of the marginal or poor photos and make just a few galleries populated by the photos that you are selling-
Maybe one gallery consisting of a few of the really GREAT photos from a few different events so potential customers can see what you can do .

#2
On your Photo gifts page, you list all the photo sizes, and all the luggage tags, mugs, etc, but there are no prices.
It would be very helpful to your customers to be able to look at these items and have the price listed on the same page. I skimmed through, and honestly, if I am looking for a gift under $20, ( or in any specific price range) and I can't find the prices, I am leaving your page and looking elsewhere!

Good luck with your photography and your business, and don't forget to EDIT!!!!!!

denisegoldberg

You have a good start, but I think a few simple changes could make your site a lot better.

First, remove the smugmug header. That doesn't do anything for your site, and you should be promoting your own site, not SmugMug. Also, switch to the small Smug footer, much more professional looking, and there really isn't a need to send your customers to dgrin or to any standard smug pages. See # 16 in the customization FAQ to remove the footer - http://www.smugmug.com/help/customize-faq - and clcik No for display smugmug header on your site-wide customization page.

If you want to continue showing your popular photos on your homepage, I would recommend moving them to the bottom of the page. Popular photos are those that your viewers have selected, not the photos that you have selected to highlight your work. Those two things often are not the same.

You might be better off selecting a featured gallery from each of your events, sports, and pets areas. You could build galleries for that purpose, copying photos from multiple galleries to highlight the best of your work. TO set them as featured, see http://www.smugmug.com/help/arrange-galleries.

You are showing your galleries by gallery which contributes to an unorganized home page. I'd recommend changing to display by category. You may want to reassign some of the galleries to different categories though. To my mind a category called photography on a photography web site doesn't do much for you.

To see how to change the display to categories, see http://www.smugmug.com/help/arrange-albums.

Are you sure that you want to use a different look & feel on your homepage vs. your galleries? I don't believe the multiple looks provides a professional-looking site. I'm much prefer to see a more cohesive design.

--- Denise

Toshido

Few coments.

guestbook:

-Remove share, buy, slideshow and cart buttons top right. Not needed in a guestbook
-Change gallery comments to Guestbook comments.
-Where it says "Gallery pages: 1" change it to "Guestbook pages: 1" or remove completely
-personally I would also remove the breadcrumbs from things like guestbook as well. You have the navbar and the viewer is not deep into a gallery tree.

Contact us:

-Seems to have most of a gray box around the gallery. Looks incomplete and messy.
-Turn off gallery comments
-Remove share, buy, cart, slideshow buttons
-Again personall I would again remove breadcrumbs from this page.


Guarantee:

-Again partial gray line border but two of them here
-Remove the "There are no pictures in this gallery.

Prints and gifts:

-Personal opinion, remove breadcrumbs. If you can't tell I only like the breadcrumbs in the galleries
-Partial gray border again
-Remove the no pictures in this gallery notice at bottom of page.

Giving back
(great idea I love it)

-breadcrumbs
-share, buy, slide, cart buttons
-partial border
-gallery pages
-I think I would also disable comments here too. Leave all the comments for the guestbook and gallery specific. Hard with this page though because it is very heartwarming.

About us:

-breacrumbs
-gallery pages
-slideshow


Home:

Too busy for me. I would go with Denise's suggestions about categories. Then make a galleries page and add that to the navbar. I also second Denise about the header and footer.

Just looked at one of the galleries and the difference in styles was a little shocking. Cohesive styling is nice. May also want to limit the maximize size people can view. Also if you do not want to give your photos away disable the easy sharing.


Sorry if this sounds like a lot. basically I like the site but I am a minimalist and utilitarian when it comes to website and stuff like that. If it is not needed, don't show it

Sorry I could not point you to links to do that thing I suggest like Denise, i am new to this as well and every change on my site has involved lots of searching, copy/paste then much frustrated tweaking.

Good luck.

goldenstarphoto

Blaker, Denise, Toshido, thank you so much for your comments. I will begin implementing many of your ideas soon. I only have a few hours a week to devote to site development. Thanks again.