Need site critique: velographie
cycleman
Registered Users Posts: 56 Big grins
hi, all,
thanks to Andy's generosity and help from other pros, I now have my website up. www.velographie.com my purpose is to market the site,attract visitors and hopefully sell pics. I've never done this sort of thing before.
many of you have a lot of experience with this area. I would appreciate it if you would take a close look at the site and give me your critique and suggestions.
some of my questions about the site:
one part of this, it appears, is dealing with the search engines and part of that is getting meta tags onto my site. I've been browsing DGrin on that topic, not sure I understand exactly how to do that yet but will keep on reading. I suppose that I ought to go through the galleries and enter captions for my images (do these captions get picked up by the search engines)? are people also using software programs to help with this? should I spend a lot of time on this search engine stuff?
is there any other stuff I should be reading about this topic? I need to put together some sort of list of tasks to do in this area.
As regards the site itself, some of the things I would like people to look at: the overall look, how it's set up, the images (enough pictures or too many?, images that sell or not), print pricing, etc from the point of view of attracting visitors and getting pics sold. there are probably a number of other things that I need to know about.
I will be very grateful for your comments and suggestions (positive, negative, constructive). thank you!!!!
dick louderman
:
thanks to Andy's generosity and help from other pros, I now have my website up. www.velographie.com my purpose is to market the site,attract visitors and hopefully sell pics. I've never done this sort of thing before.
many of you have a lot of experience with this area. I would appreciate it if you would take a close look at the site and give me your critique and suggestions.
some of my questions about the site:
one part of this, it appears, is dealing with the search engines and part of that is getting meta tags onto my site. I've been browsing DGrin on that topic, not sure I understand exactly how to do that yet but will keep on reading. I suppose that I ought to go through the galleries and enter captions for my images (do these captions get picked up by the search engines)? are people also using software programs to help with this? should I spend a lot of time on this search engine stuff?
is there any other stuff I should be reading about this topic? I need to put together some sort of list of tasks to do in this area.
As regards the site itself, some of the things I would like people to look at: the overall look, how it's set up, the images (enough pictures or too many?, images that sell or not), print pricing, etc from the point of view of attracting visitors and getting pics sold. there are probably a number of other things that I need to know about.
I will be very grateful for your comments and suggestions (positive, negative, constructive). thank you!!!!
dick louderman
: Dick Louderman:thumb
http://velographie.smugmug.com/
http://velographie.smugmug.com/
0
Comments
* keywording diligently and thoroughly - all your photos!
* caption all your photos
* have gallery descriptions that are meaningful for searches
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Thanks, Andy, great ideas. I'm looking at the various customization pages, where can I add keywords to individual photos?
I see where I can caption the photos.
and I can see where I can enter a gallery description as well.
dick
http://velographie.smugmug.com/
Photo Tools>Edit Keywords (bulk)
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
hi,
thanks for your suggestion. I guess I didn't really think about that. that would seem to be a good idea. I'll work on that.
dick
http://velographie.smugmug.com/
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
As regards the site itself, some of the things I would like people to look at: the overall look, how it's set up, the images (enough pictures or too many?, images that sell or not), print pricing, etc from the point of view of attracting visitors and getting pics sold. there are probably a number of other things that I need to know about.
Responding more to the content of your site, rather than the technical side, I would suggest you pare down your slide numbers to those you are really happy with. Like: "Wow, that's damn good; I nailed it; I 'captured' it"...whatever the term for pride in something you've done well, and are happy with, wouldn't change (hardly) a thing (not a sin, pride). As well, there are photos that are not technically carried off in any great manner, but are just cool, weird, whatever, and also represent something that strikes within a harmonic chord...or, for that matter, dissonant chord. I would not second guess which are likely to sell or not. With that path, lay maddness.
For me, it's always content, over technical matters, though I'm somewhat interested in what an image I like was shot with, or what my site's statistics tell me. In the end, though, I really hardly care. I like looking at photographs. If your gallery is dilluted with so-so images (you should know which one's they are), dump them. Some cliches are great, most should be in the trash. That may leave us few. But remember, many--I think--see a couple cliches, or third, or fourths while scanning your site--and THEY'RE OUT OF THERE!
I'm just starting my site on Smugmug and I must say--having said the above--I don't particularly like what I have to date. But...I'm working at it little by little. I see my site really as a place to point people who may be interested in my photography, maybe want to hire me for a job, or to turn them on to the secret lives of traffic cones (keyword, traffic cones!). In the end, I'd rather they see my prints. No computer screen will ever do your hard prints justice.
William Thompson
hairofthedogwest
http://velographie.smugmug.com/