Feedback for my website...

dawssvt · October 27, 2009

I'm trying to improve my overall wedding photography business, so I would like some inputs on my website.

www.photographybydawson.com

1. What are the things you like about the website?
2. What are the things you don't like?
3. How can I make the website better?
4. Is there anything you feel that is missing?

Thanks for your help!

11/1/2009 Update: Thanks for the feedback everyone! I have made several changes to my website and published them. Check it out again and let me know what you think!

JohnBiggs · October 27, 2009

dawssvt wrote:

I'm trying to improve my overall wedding photography business, so I would like some inputs on my website.

www.photographybydawson.com

1. What are the things you like about the website?
2. What are the things you don't like?
3. How can I make the website better?
4. Is there anything you feel that is missing?

Thanks for your help!

1. I like the flash site.
2. I hate the flash site.

lol. Flash can be good and bad. It looks great but its harder for google to help people find you. Not everyone has flash and is can be slow to load. When I clicked on galleries I noticed a long pause with out a loading screen or any notice. I thought the galleries button was broken becuase it took so long.

You link back to your smugmug but then on your smugmug you have different pricing pages and other data (Prices are actually cheaper). I'd ditch/hide all those pages and just have a link at the top to return to the main site.

You named your packages A, B, C... try something else like ruby saphire diamond.... anything. I personally don't think A, B, C is good and it hurts you.

Your prices should be increased.... so should mine actually. I don't know what you are spending on advertizing, insurance and such but remember IRS gets 30%.

Add up all your projected annual expenses (Gas, Insurance, Advertising, Packaging, Hosting, Equipment, etc). Multiply that by 1.3 for tax. Then divide that by a realistic number of weddings you will do in the year.

What you have is how much it costs you to shoot a wedding with no pay back to yourself.

You may be suprised how little expenses will drive your costs so high.

Mox · October 27, 2009

I agree that you should be charging substantially more. For yourself and for the industry.

I would ditch the word "pictures" in your Bio and your package descriptions. It sounds more professional to call them photos, photographs, images...just my opinion.

In your FAQ, it states that you give the client copyright to their photos. I don't think you mean this. Hopefully you mean that you give them license to print and display, etc. There's a very big legal difference, so I'd clear that up quickly!

Also, I may have missed it, but I don't see where you're located or what region you provide services to.

These are all content based quibbles, the look of the site is very nice!

denisegoldberg · October 27, 2009

It looks like you put quite a bit of thought into your flash site, but little into your smug site. The flash portion of your site looks polished. The smug portion does not.

It's a good start. You did ask for comments though, so...

You've chosen to remove your banner image when a gallery is selected. This caused the content on the page to shift up when the gallery is opened. I find this to be quite annoying. Having the center flash image changes sizes when you switch to a different navbar selection is also a bit jarring.

When inside a gallery, there is no indication of which gallery is being viewed. If a potential client wants to ask about a photo, how will they describe to you which image they are asking about?

Proofing jumps from your flash site to your smugmug site. That's fine - but the smug site should match the proofing site in the overall look and feel. The background colors should match, as should the banner and navbar.

Clicking on Proofs opens your smug site in a separate browser window. If a client jumps back to the flash site and clicks proofs again, another browser window is opened. This is very poor application behavior. When I go to a web site, I expect it to remain within one browser window.

--- Denise

Sam · October 27, 2009

OK,

Here is my impressions:

I didn't care for the choices of your home page. I think you have much stronger images available. Your home page needs to wow and provide an incentive to spend time at your site.

As Mox mentioned I don't think you meant to give your copyright away. What you want to do is license / permit clients to print images for personal use. This is important!

Also, no way in Beelzebub domain would I include every image shot on a DVD! Why would you want to include 12 shots of the same thing? Why would you include images with people's eyes shut, or drool hanging out? You want them to have out of focus shots? Shots with bad exposure, or heads chopped off?

What about processing time?

I would encourage you to think seriously about this.

I have seen other wedding photographers use the same wording "complimentary engagement shoot" What the heck is complimentary about it? It comes in a higher prices package.

These are just my thoughts.

Sam

Hikin' Mike · October 27, 2009

Did you ever read this? http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=148111

dawssvt · October 28, 2009

JohnBiggs wrote:

1. I like the flash site.
2. I hate the flash site.

lol. Flash can be good and bad. It looks great but its harder for google to help people find you. Not everyone has flash and is can be slow to load. When I clicked on galleries I noticed a long pause with out a loading screen or any notice. I thought the galleries button was broken becuase it took so long.

You link back to your smugmug but then on your smugmug you have different pricing pages and other data (Prices are actually cheaper). I'd ditch/hide all those pages and just have a link at the top to return to the main site.

You named your packages A, B, C... try something else like ruby saphire diamond.... anything. I personally don't think A, B, C is good and it hurts you.

Your prices should be increased.... so should mine actually. I don't know what you are spending on advertizing, insurance and such but remember IRS gets 30%.

Add up all your projected annual expenses (Gas, Insurance, Advertising, Packaging, Hosting, Equipment, etc). Multiply that by 1.3 for tax. Then divide that by a realistic number of weddings you will do in the year.

What you have is how much it costs you to shoot a wedding with no pay back to yourself.

You may be suprised how little expenses will drive your costs so high.

Thanks so much for all your comments. I thought it over when first going with a flash site about the slowness factor as well as knowing that not all computers have flash. I probably didn't think about it as much as I should have - I was just hooked on how it looked!

So, I think I have a solution for this problem... This will somewhat cover your next point about the Smugmug site as well. My dad and I shoot weddings together very often, so we have shared the Smugmug site since we started shooting weddings. This is the reason for the different look/feel/prices. I went ahead and started my own Smugmug site today (http://dawsonhunt.smugmug.com) and I will be using that for proofing. My goal is to have it look similar to my flash site. Also, for people without flash - the page that comes up saying you must have flash you view this site will have a link to the smugmug site with the same information as my flash site.

So, in reality, I would be running two websites. I think this would also help with the Google search problem. Hopefully I can get better search results with this new Smugmug site. I've only been doing this for about a year and a half, so I'm trying new things for advertising. I think getting higher on the Google results will drastically help.

I went ahead and changed the names of my packages as you suggested - thanks for that. Also, I had just increased my prices a week earlier, but I went ahead and increased them a little more. I was increasing them on the idea that some brides may relate price to quality.

Mox wrote:

I agree that you should be charging substantially more. For yourself and for the industry.

I would ditch the word "pictures" in your Bio and your package descriptions. It sounds more professional to call them photos, photographs, images...just my opinion.

In your FAQ, it states that you give the client copyright to their photos. I don't think you mean this. Hopefully you mean that you give them license to print and display, etc. There's a very big legal difference, so I'd clear that up quickly!

Also, I may have missed it, but I don't see where you're located or what region you provide services to.

These are all content based quibbles, the look of the site is very nice!

Thanks for the suggestions. I went ahead and raised my prices as I mentioned above and changed out the words "pictures" on the Bio page. Thanks for bringing up the copyright suggestion, I really had no idea I was saying the wrong thing. I changed that wording as well. I also added my location and where I provide my services. Thanks again for the comment!

denisegoldberg wrote:

It looks like you put quite a bit of thought into your flash site, but little into your smug site. The flash portion of your site looks polished. The smug portion does not.

It's a good start. You did ask for comments though, so...

You've chosen to remove your banner image when a gallery is selected. This caused the content on the page to shift up when the gallery is opened. I find this to be quite annoying. Having the center flash image changes sizes when you switch to a different navbar selection is also a bit jarring.

When inside a gallery, there is no indication of which gallery is being viewed. If a potential client wants to ask about a photo, how will they describe to you which image they are asking about?

Proofing jumps from your flash site to your smugmug site. That's fine - but the smug site should match the proofing site in the overall look and feel. The background colors should match, as should the banner and navbar.

Clicking on Proofs opens your smug site in a separate browser window. If a client jumps back to the flash site and clicks proofs again, another browser window is opened. This is very poor application behavior. When I go to a web site, I expect it to remain within one browser window.

--- Denise

As I mentioned above, the Smugmug site is actually a site that my dad and I share (we shoot weddings together on occasion), so this is the reason for the different look/feel/prices. I went ahead and started my own Smugmug site today (http://dawsonhunt.smugmug.com) and I will be using that for proofing. My goal is to have it look similar to my flash site. The logo being removed is something I couldn't figure out if I could change or not. I'm going to send an email to Portfoliositez to ses if I can change this - I really don't think I can though (it's always bugged me also!) About the gallery not being labeled, this is something I can really change either.

Thanks again for your comment!

Sam wrote:

OK,

Here is my impressions:

I didn't care for the choices of your home page. I think you have much stronger images available. Your home page needs to wow and provide an incentive to spend time at your site.

As Mox mentioned I don't think you meant to give your copyright away. What you want to do is license / permit clients to print images for personal use. This is important!

Also, no way in Beelzebub domain would I include every image shot on a DVD! Why would you want to include 12 shots of the same thing? Why would you include images with people's eyes shut, or drool hanging out? You want them to have out of focus shots? Shots with bad exposure, or heads chopped off?

What about processing time?

I would encourage you to think seriously about this.

I have seen other wedding photographers use the same wording "complimentary engagement shoot" What the heck is complimentary about it? It comes in a higher prices package.

These are just my thoughts.

Sam

Thanks for your suggestions, Sam. After reading through your post, I went in and deleted some of the not as strong images from the homepage slideshow. Can you take a look at it and let me know what you think now? I changed the wording for the copyright problem as well. Concerning the disc of pictures. I don't by any means give them EVERY picture I take. I will delete the pictures like you mentioned with eyes closed, heads chopped off, out of focus, and just bad pictures in general. So, what they are really getting is every good picture I guess you could say. Do you think I should re-word what I offer on the DVD? I have seen some photographers mention a photographer's clause or something to that manner, meaning they have the right to only give the "good" pictures. Thanks again for the comment!

denisegoldberg · October 28, 2009

dawssvt wrote:

The logo being removed is something I couldn't figure out if I could change or not. I'm going to send an email to Portfoliositez to ses if I can change this - I really don't think I can though (it's always bugged me also!) About the gallery not being labeled, this is something I can really change either.

So you're willing to not have information on the screen that is needed both to identify you as a photographer and to give your viewer an indication of where they are on your site? If "fixes" to these items aren't possible I'd say that Portfoliositez is not a good choice of vendor.

--- Denise

dawssvt · November 2, 2009

Thanks for the feedback everyone! I have made several changes to my website and published them. Check it out again and let me know what you think!

Mox · November 2, 2009

The flash is running so slowly, I can't get past the home page - clicking the links just makes me wait & wait. I didn't have that problem the other day, although others made mention of it being slow then. Sorry, I'd like to help.

Sam · November 2, 2009

Dawson,

From your FAQ's:

"Q: Can I get every picture you take during the session?
A: Yes. Unlike many photographers, a DVD disc of all the pictures I take throughout the session is always included."

I would not say this and absolutely not put it in writing! In an other area of your site you mention you typically take about 1000 photos, and here you tell them they will get every one of them. If you delete the OOF, the closed eyes, blurred, and duplicates then give them say 300 great images and they complain they expected 1000, what are you gona say?

Plus I still don't understand a couple of things. Do you post process every image? If not, they are going to receive a lot of second rate images. That's a lot of work for images that really don't add to the story and will never be used.

"Q: Will I have the copyright to get pictures printed on my own?
A: Yes. All of our collections include license to print and display the pictures as you desire I offer a printing service through the online galley that is available, but not necessary to use."

No , No and NO. Don't give them the copyright! I wouldn't even mention copyright. Just let them know you are licensing / allowing / giving permission, for them to print and use the images for personal use only.

Sam

squiddy · November 2, 2009

JohnBiggs wrote:

1. I like the flash site.
2. I hate the flash site.

ditto...

i like flash intros and some flash navigation but flash on the whole site is too slow.

I don't really like the background of the galleries with the flowers. Especially since your portrait feature photo is of a dude on a motorcycle... =?
Do you have something a little more abstract?

dawssvt · November 4, 2009

I just added a non-flash version of my site available on the opening page.

Captured Moments - Photography by Dawson - Las Cruces, NM

Feedback for my website...

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