New Web Site

DavidS · January 11, 2008

I have a new website for my business and would be interested in some feedback on it. I am still using Smugmug for my personal photos and client shopping cart. Thanks for looking.

Elaine · January 11, 2008

Oh, I'm glad you put this thread up! I took a gander yesterday and was going to mention a couple things.

I really like your blue logo!

In your menu bar, when a button is in use, it disappears to black. Maybe have it bold or get larger or change to blue or something? Having it disappear was a bit confusing to me.

I'll be back for more later! It's lookin' good!

ShepsMom · January 11, 2008

Hey David, i must agree with Elaine about changing color of the link/button, whatever it's called.
Is there anyway music on your site could be starting with lower valume?
Otherwise, doesn't look bad at all.
Who were you using for a flash site? I went through so many, but couldn't jastify pricing on all of them.

Cuties02q · January 11, 2008

It looks really nice....it is from Bludomain?

DavidS · January 11, 2008

Elaine wrote:

Oh, I'm glad you put this thread up! I took a gander yesterday and was going to mention a couple things.

I really like your blue logo!

In your menu bar, when a button is in use, it disappears to black. Maybe have it bold or get larger or change to blue or something? Having it disappear was a bit confusing to me.

I'll be back for more later! It's lookin' good!

Thanks Elaine. I agree with you on the button. I noticed that, but have not been able to figure out how to change it. The site is easy to edit, but also limited in what you can do. I will email them and see if I am missing something.

DavidS · January 11, 2008

ShepsMom wrote:

Hey David, i must agree with Elaine about changing color of the link/button, whatever it's called.
Is there anyway music on your site could be starting with lower valume?
Otherwise, doesn't look bad at all.
Who were you using for a flash site? I went through so many, but couldn't jastify pricing on all of them.

Thanks Marina for the comments. I can't change the volume for folks. Sorry about that. I usually have the volume low on my computer, so I never noticed that. I sent you a pm on who I purchased it from. I looked at a ton of sites, before settling on this one. Most of them are priced pretty high.

DavidS · January 11, 2008

Cuties02q wrote:

It looks really nice....it is from Bludomain?

Thank you Stephanie.

~Jan~ · January 11, 2008

Ooh, you went all flashy.

I noticed the same thing about the links. Also, to help Google ratings, put portrait photographer or something like that plus your city in your page title (the thing that shows at the top of the explorer window). I have a bunch of keywords in a sentence in mine and it really has helped my Google searches. Just make sure it's a logical phrase...Google doesn't like a string of keywords there, I've heard.

Seneca · January 11, 2008

"The fee for an event with posed potographs and no candids is $175. "

You have a typo.

You also have a PM.

photogmomma · January 11, 2008

I can't turn the music off! I'm not a fan of music on sites since I have my own music playing on my computer - clashes pretty badly!

Also, is this music royalty free? Don't want you getting in trouble!

Looks good so far! I think the others have good suggestions and I'm sure you'll get more.

Also, what is "smugmug"? What does that mean?!? If it's your portfolio of images, I'd call it that. Most people don't know SmugMug!

DavidS · January 11, 2008

photogmomma wrote:

I can't turn the music off! I'm not a fan of music on sites since I have my own music playing on my computer - clashes pretty badly!

Also, is this music royalty free? Don't want you getting in trouble!

Looks good so far! I think the others have good suggestions and I'm sure you'll get more.

Also, what is "smugmug"? What does that mean?!? If it's your portfolio of images, I'd call it that. Most people don't know SmugMug!

Thanks for the input Andi. I understand what you are saying about the music. It can be turned off, but the prompt is blending in with the background. It is in the lower right corner if you mouse down there. I have the same problem with the menu buttons.

Yes the music is Royalty Free. Thanks for looking out for me. I don't want people using my photographs improperly, so I am not going to use their music improperly.

I am surprised you have never heard of Smugmug. They are a great company for hosting your photos.

Seriously, I get your point, but I don't know what to call it yet. It is probably not as much of an issue as you might think. The people I want to go there will be invited, mostly friends and family. All of the galleries are password protected. I will want a title that will discourage most folks from clicking on it. My new site is where my work is displayed for the general public.

DavidS · January 11, 2008

~Jan~ wrote:

Ooh, you went all flashy. I noticed the same thing about the links. Also, to help Google ratings, put portrait photographer or something like that plus your city in your page title (the thing that shows at the top of the explorer window). I have a bunch of keywords in a sentence in mine and it really has helped my Google searches. Just make sure it's a logical phrase...Google doesn't like a string of keywords there, I've heard.

Thanks for the advise Jan.

DavidS · January 11, 2008

Seneca wrote:

"The fee for an event with posed potographs and no candids is $175. "

You have a typo.

You also have a PM.

Thanks for catching my typo Seneca.

schmoo · January 11, 2008

Moving to MYOB

DavidS · January 11, 2008

schmoo wrote:

Moving to MYOB

Oops. Sorry.

denisegoldberg · January 12, 2008

I like the looks of your new site, but you've hit a couple of my hot-buttons with the design. Feel free to ignore my comments because yes, they do reflect personal feelings about web site. Two major things - I really dislike music on web sites, and I also do not like pop-ups.

I know you've heard this before, but... if there is music on a site there needs to be a way to turn it off, and to make it lower.

I find pop-up windows to be quite annoying. I deliberately set my browsers to open pages in new tabs to eliminate desktop clutter. Not only does your page use a pop-up window, the title in the pop-up is the same as the title in the original site. That means that if I have minimized the two windows that I can't tell them apart by the name.

Your flash window automatically opens to full screen. I use a laptop with a large screen, and I almost never open anything to full screen. The windows are quite large enough at smaller than full screen and the slightly smaller size allows me to easily select other items from my desktop without minimizing windows.

Even with the site opening to full screen, a lot of scrolling is required to see all of the text in your "selling" windows. While buttons for scrolling look much more professional than a scroll bar, they provide what appears to me to be jumpy scrolling. That may be the computer professional in me talking though and not the potential customer.

Just curious - have you considered using two smugmug sites, one as a selling tool and a place to host your client photos, and the other as a personal site? It looks like you are trying to separate the two things, but it appears to me that you have ended up creating two places that your clients need to go - one to see your pricing & selling presentation, and one to look at their photos.

--- Denise

DavidS · January 12, 2008

Denise,

Thank you. I appreciate your detailed assessment of my website. There is a way to turn the music off, but it blends in with the background. I am trying to resolve that. I can't do anything about the pop ups. I will consider your suggestion about full screen and get input from others on that. I did consider two Smugmug sites, one for personal and one for business, but decided to go with a flash site. Thanks again for you input.

New Web Site

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