Website C&C

Jeremy Winterberg · July 14, 2009

Just finished my new website design... much more "basic" than it was before...

Contemplating adding photos to the actual site instead of just on my smugmug "portfolio" section... yeah, gonna do that...

I just needed to get this uploaded to the web asap. I talked to a couple today about shooting their wedding, and my old site just didn't look the greatest. Hopefully they haven't looked at my site yet. :huh

www.WinterbergPhotography.com

Hikin' Mike · July 14, 2009

I have to scroll horizontally to see all of your site. I'm using a 1024 x 768 monitor, as do a lot of people. I personally don't like having to scroll horizontally, so I would fix that.

You have a decent title meta tag, but I suggest adding your town/state and try to limit the characters to about 70. Something like this...
Eau Claire, WI ~ Senior, Portrait & Wedding Photography

You have no Description or Keyword metadata. A description should be about 150 characters long and basically a summarize of what you do. This is also where the description is found when Google indexes your site. Use about 10, relative to content keywords.

I'm no SEO guru, but if you need help...PM me.

Jeremy Winterberg · July 14, 2009

hmm.. I made it on my 15" macbook pro... fits fine, but I think the resolution is like 1440x900 or something... so it is smaller than yours.

I'll change the title heading, thats a good idea to include Eau Claire, WI

I don't know how to do the metadata so I'm gonna PM you about that...

Hikin' Mike · July 14, 2009

Jeremy Winterberg wrote:

hmm.. I made it on my 15" macbook pro... fits fine, but I think the resolution is like 1440x900 or something... so it is smaller than yours.

I'll change the title heading, thats a good idea to include Eau Claire, WI

I don't know how to do the metadata so I'm gonna PM you about that...

I've spent A LOT of time researching SEO! Got your PM and responded. I'm heading to bed and I'll check back in the morning...

Jeremy Winterberg · July 14, 2009

haha, it is MORNING... 4am here... meh... maybe I should hit the hay too... good thing I don't have to work today.

denisegoldberg · July 14, 2009

You have a photography website and your homepage is all text? Don't you think that some photos would help draw a viewer into your site? In addition, the primarily text presentation of your site (topped with grammatical errors) screams amateur.

Your portfolio - the smugmug portion of your site - does not match the rest of your site from a banner/navbar standpoint. They should match, or they should be different enough that it doesn't look like a mistake.

--- Denise

Photog4Christ · July 14, 2009

Okay....

These are just initial observations. I didn't study your site:

1) This is a photography site, where are the images? Too much text!

2) Speaking of text, too much scrolling. Don't make me scroll!

3) Deep-six the @charter.net e-mail address. You have a domain name. Your e-mail should be jeremy@winterbergphotography.com (or xxxx@winterbergphotography.com).

4) I'm not even going to comment on your pricing. You know your market, but $5 for a pet (negotiable), are you out of your mind?

5) Stop using the word "pictures". Get that out of your vocabulary. "Pictures" is what Uncle Bob takes and what your neighbor shows you when he gets back from his vacation. You do portrait sessions, capture memories, share images, etc... Use "Children's Portrait Session" not "I take photos of kids."

6) I have to scroll to see your portfolio (People).

7) "These photographs are not edited yet. They are on here merely to show you what I took. If you would like prints, let me know which ones and what you want made from them, I'll edit them and have them printed locally. jeremywinterberg@charter.net"

7a) You're showing unedited images to your clients and potential clients? These ("ECW Baptismal") all look like snapshots.

7b) That whole section (#7) is grammatically incorrect.

8) You're going to have A TON OF SPAM. Your e-mail address is all over your site and is text based. Spambots are going to find your e-mail address and you'll be flooded with spam. Make your address a graphic image or better yet, use something like the Email Riddler.

Like I said, these are just initial observations. I'm sure I can find more.

tijoseph · July 14, 2009

Have a pro do your website.

I hate to say it but you are way off.

Look into portfoliositez.com

Jeremy Winterberg · July 14, 2009

Photog4Christ wrote:

Okay....

These are just initial observations. I didn't study your site:

1) This is a photography site, where are the images? Too much text!
Adding pictures today as stated in my original post
2) Speaking of text, too much scrolling. Don't make me scroll!
Are you talking about my services page? The important stuff is right at the top
3) Deep-six the @charter.net e-mail address. You have a domain name. Your e-mail should be jeremy@winterbergphotography.com (or xxxx@winterbergphotography.com).
Yes, I know, but too many people know my email address as it is, so it would be nearly impossible to change it now
4) I'm not even going to comment on your pricing. You know your market, but $5 for a pet (negotiable), are you out of your mind?
Most photographers around here charge $15 per pet, non negotiable. I said $5 negotiable because if its a calm pet that cooperates they wont get charged, but if its a German Shepherd thats biting my leg every to seconds, they're gonna get charged.
5) Stop using the word "pictures". Get that out of your vocabulary. "Pictures" is what Uncle Bob takes and what your neighbor shows you when he gets back from his vacation. You do portrait sessions, capture memories, share images, etc... Use "Children's Portrait Session" not "I take photos of kids."
Yeah, I need to fix that, thanks for pointing that out
6) I have to scroll to see your portfolio (People).
So? The pictures are huge, making it easier to see, more impressive etc... I like the new Journal look for smugmug... personal preference
7) "These photographs are not edited yet. They are on here merely to show you what I took. If you would like prints, let me know which ones and what you want made from them, I'll edit them and have them printed locally. jeremywinterberg@charter.net"

7a) You're showing unedited images to your clients and potential clients? These ("ECW Baptismal") all look like snapshots.
Cause they pretty much were. I did it for free, so whatever. And wasn't expecting any prints from the session anyways. The main purpose of me taking pictures was so that the church could have a few images for their newsletter, not for prints.
7b) That whole section (#7) is grammatically incorrect.
Yep
8) You're going to have A TON OF SPAM. Your e-mail address is all over your site and is text based. Spambots are going to find your e-mail address and you'll be flooded with spam. Make your address a graphic image or better yet, use something like the Email Riddler.
Haven't gotten spammed yet. And its been displayed like that ever since day 1
Like I said, these are just initial observations. I'm sure I can find more.

Answers in bold above

Jeremy Winterberg · July 14, 2009

denisegoldberg wrote:

You have a photography website and your homepage is all text? Don't you think that some photos would help draw a viewer into your site? In addition, the primarily text presentation of your site (topped with grammatical errors) screams amateur.

Your portfolio - the smugmug portion of your site - does not match the rest of your site from a banner/navbar standpoint. They should match, or they should be different enough that it doesn't look like a mistake.

--- Denise

How is it a mistake if I did it on purpose? But yes they should match. I just really don't want to mess with CSS coding it again, because that was a pain before, didn't end up working properly anyways, and when I asked for help, you and others couldn't help with the problem for some reason.

Jeremy Winterberg · July 14, 2009

tijoseph wrote:

Have a pro do your website.

I hate to say it but you are way off.

Look into portfoliositez.com

Looks interesting, might have to try that when funds are available.

Photog4Christ · July 14, 2009

Jeremy Winterberg wrote:

Answers in bold above

Just trying to help. You asked for C & C. You don't have to take my suggestions, it's totally your call.

When you ask for C & C, you may want to be a little more appreciative of the feedback, especially if the person offering the feedback may have more experience than you (I'm not saying that I do. I don't know you from Adam.) Your answers to my points seem a little indifferent.

denisegoldberg · July 14, 2009

Jeremy Winterberg wrote:

How is it a mistake if I did it on purpose? But yes they should match. I just really don't want to mess with CSS coding it again, because that was a pain before, didn't end up working properly anyways, and when I asked for help, you and others couldn't help with the problem for some reason.

If you mismatch something on purpose you need to do it in such a way that it appears to be the way you intended. As it is, it looks like you were just too lazy to attempt to match the pages.

You were (and apparently still are) a very difficult individual to help. You were often rude and almost always made it clear that you thought you were right and that the people who were attempting to help you were wrong. You would reject suggestions and help out of hand - which makes it more than a little difficult to help you. You just gave the same type of answers to Photog4Christ as you did to me, rejecting all of the comments.

You asked for feedback, and then you rejected almost all of it.
I'm curious. Why did you bother to ask for feedback?

But - more power to you. You have a photography site that is text-based. That makes no sense to me, but it's your site.

--- Denise

Photog4Christ · July 14, 2009

denisegoldberg wrote:

If you mismatch something on purpose you need to do it in such a way that it appears to be the way you intended. As it is, it looks like you were just too lazy to attempt to match the pages.

You were (and apparently still are) a very difficult individual to help. You were often rude and almost always made it clear that you thought you were right and that the people who were attempting to help you were wrong. You would reject suggestions and help out of hand - which makes it more than a little difficult to help you. You just gave the same type of answers to Photog4Christ.

You asked for feedback, and then you rejected almost all of it.

But - more power to you. You have a photography site that is text-based. That makes no sense to me, but it's your site.

--- Denise

Thank you Denise. There was a lot more I wanted to say, but didn't.

Jeremy Winterberg · July 15, 2009

I wasn't rejecting your feedback. More or less, giving reasons for why I screwed up.

Anyways... I'm sorry

And, I'm redoing the site as a blog... much easier to update/customize... and it looks professional... and its free

still in the works right now... but you get the general idea of where I'm headed... Also check out the services page, and well all of the pages... and let me know if theres anything else I should fix. Cause I'm not the greatest proof reader as we have made clear.

www.winterbergphotography.com/blog

Also I tried the java encrypting email thing... but it wont work on a blog.

But wordpress has a feature that blocks spam and such, so I don't think I should worry about it.

Art Scott · July 15, 2009

When you go from your home page to your portfolio there is NO Way BACK.......
Scrolling is not good......I don't mind scrolling vertically but horozontally is just plain terrible, especially when all you had to do was shorten you lines.......I am on a 23"@1024X768 resolution and a lot of your business name has t obe scrooled to read it.....not good

Every where you have the word "pictures" needs to removed and replaced with portrait and the same for "photo"........
I shoot a lot of live music....when ased if I take concert photos I tell everyone NO....I take concert portraits.......

jmho

Photog4Christ · July 15, 2009

Have you considered hiring a web site designer?

Not trying to be negative, but that's why there are people of different professions. A plumber could attempt to do computer repair, but that doesn't mean it's going to turn out okay.

I just read a story in the paper last week about people that attempted their own auto repairs instead of taking it to a shop to begin with. One guy tried to save some money by doing his own brakes. It was done wrong and what would have initially cost him less than $300 at the shop ended up costing about $800 because of all the damage he had done trying to do it himself.

bikelanta · July 15, 2009

Info Architecture Thoughts
Jeremy,

As a former information architect and user interface professional, these are the thoughts I would offer, if you were you a client of mine.

You may want to consider reducing the size of your logo banner and navigation header. As they stand right now, they take up 1/3 of the page. In newspaper parlance, you're wasting the good "above the fold" space. This is occurring for both your original website and your blog style website. I'm viewing this site at the moment on a laptop using Windows XP and Firefox at 1280x800. I don't use any toolbars, I don't have any bookmark menu space, and I use the small icons. Still, half my screen is the top part of Firefox and the first third of your page. Many people use all sorts of toolbars and the large icons, thus when they land on your page, most of what they'll see is your header before even getting to the meat of your offering.

One thing you might want to consider is whether you want to assemble your own gallery for your portfolio, instead of using SmugMug for it. Revisiting the discussion surrounding the transition from your website to SmugMug, people will understand being handed off to Smug for the photos from their actual photo sessions. It lacks a transition and as mentioned, doesn't provide an easy way back to your original website. Using Lightroom (even the trial version) will allow you to build something quickly and then you can adjust the code as necessary to fit within your site. It would give you a cleaner, more professional look.

I would also add that you were heading in the right direction with your first website instead of the blog style. Your site just needs some photography added, the grammar cleaned up (perhaps edit in Word and then paste), and as mentioned, reduce the width of the page. What I would consider doing is adding an About page with a navigation button in your navbar after the existing link for Portfolio. Take the hours and contact information from the front page to the About page. Then, get rid of the instructions on how to use the site and put your absolute best photo as the main content on the front page. Blow away your visitors with the first photo they see and they'll want to see more.

One tool that you could add to your site is Google Analytics, which would provide you with tremendous amounts of information regarding your audience. If for some reason it turns out that 90% of your audience happens to be viewing at 1280px or larger, why worry about 1024px. Then again, you may find they're all still at 800px in width and you definitely need to downsize.

Regarding your email address, I would agree with previous posters, but there is also a way for you to achieve creating a new address for the business and keeping your old Charter email. Just have the mail from one address forward to the other. I would propose that you start using xxx@winterbergphotography as your primary and have the Charter address forward to it. People using your old one will still be able to reach you, but you'll start getting the professional mood you desire. Alternatively, use one for personal and one for business.

Anyway, these are my thoughts. Use them as you may. Good luck!

T.J.

Jeremy Winterberg · July 15, 2009

Art Scott wrote:

When you go from your home page to your portfolio there is NO Way BACK.......
Scrolling is not good......I don't mind scrolling vertically but horozontally is just plain terrible, especially when all you had to do was shorten you lines.......I am on a 23"@1024X768 resolution and a lot of your business name has t obe scrooled to read it.....not good

Every where you have the word "pictures" needs to removed and replaced with portrait and the same for "photo"........
I shoot a lot of live music....when ased if I take concert photos I tell everyone NO....I take concert portraits.......

jmho

Just a question... were you looking at my revised blog site or the html based one? I reworded the entire thing, and I believe it is MUCH better now.

Jeremy Winterberg · July 15, 2009

Photog4Christ wrote:

Have you considered hiring a web site designer?

Not trying to be negative, but that's why there are people of different professions. A plumber could attempt to do computer repair, but that doesn't mean it's going to turn out okay.

I just read a story in the paper last week about people that attempted their own auto repairs instead of taking it to a shop to begin with. One guy tried to save some money by doing his own brakes. It was done wrong and what would have initially cost him less than $300 at the shop ended up costing about $800 because of all the damage he had done trying to do it himself.

Yes, but hehe... theres just no money for that right now

Jeremy Winterberg · July 15, 2009

bikelanta wrote:

Jeremy,

As a former information architect and user interface professional, these are the thoughts I would offer, if you were you a client of mine.

You may want to consider reducing the size of your logo banner and navigation header. As they stand right now, they take up 1/3 of the page. In newspaper parlance, you're wasting the good "above the fold" space. This is occurring for both your original website and your blog style website. I'm viewing this site at the moment on a laptop using Windows XP and Firefox at 1280x800. I don't use any toolbars, I don't have any bookmark menu space, and I use the small icons. Still, half my screen is the top part of Firefox and the first third of your page. Many people use all sorts of toolbars and the large icons, thus when they land on your page, most of what they'll see is your header before even getting to the meat of your offering.

One thing you might want to consider is whether you want to assemble your own gallery for your portfolio, instead of using SmugMug for it. Revisiting the discussion surrounding the transition from your website to SmugMug, people will understand being handed off to Smug for the photos from their actual photo sessions. It lacks a transition and as mentioned, doesn't provide an easy way back to your original website. Using Lightroom (even the trial version) will allow you to build something quickly and then you can adjust the code as necessary to fit within your site. It would give you a cleaner, more professional look.

I would also add that you were heading in the right direction with your first website instead of the blog style. Your site just needs some photography added, the grammar cleaned up (perhaps edit in Word and then paste), and as mentioned, reduce the width of the page. What I would consider doing is adding an About page with a navigation button in your navbar after the existing link for Portfolio. Take the hours and contact information from the front page to the About page. Then, get rid of the instructions on how to use the site and put your absolute best photo as the main content on the front page. Blow away your visitors with the first photo they see and they'll want to see more.

One tool that you could add to your site is Google Analytics, which would provide you with tremendous amounts of information regarding your audience. If for some reason it turns out that 90% of your audience happens to be viewing at 1280px or larger, why worry about 1024px. Then again, you may find they're all still at 800px in width and you definitely need to downsize.

Regarding your email address, I would agree with previous posters, but there is also a way for you to achieve creating a new address for the business and keeping your old Charter email. Just have the mail from one address forward to the other. I would propose that you start using xxx@winterbergphotography as your primary and have the Charter address forward to it. People using your old one will still be able to reach you, but you'll start getting the professional mood you desire. Alternatively, use one for personal and one for business.

Anyway, these are my thoughts. Use them as you may. Good luck!

T.J.

Thanks, I'm just confused as to why there are still size issues with the blog one? I thought I would be fixing the issue not making it worse...

I will consider changing emails when I make new business cards. Untill then, I'm going to use an amateur'ish @charter.net domain

Makes no sense to change now, when I'm handing out cards (which I just got new ones) that say charter.net?

Also, around here, everyone uses @charter.net or @sbcglobal.net or @[person's internet or phone provider].com for their business emails. But, I do understand the importance of using my domain, and will implement the needed changes when the time is right.

This is for everyone - Opps! I got rid of the smugmug design I had before, because it didn't match anything, but I completely forgot about the navigation... thanks for pointing that out!

Jeremy Winterberg · July 15, 2009

Ok, I think I fixed the header size issue on the blog... and I fixed the no title, or navigation problem on smuggy.

I'll try the lightroom gallery... but from what I saw I didn't really like the looks too much.

bikelanta · July 15, 2009

Jeremy, the width issue isn't a problem with the blog style site.

Jeremy Winterberg · July 15, 2009

bikelanta wrote:

Jeremy, the width issue isn't a problem with the blog style site.

ok, thanks for making that clear for me!

Website C&C

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