Pet Photography Website -- Your Critiques Wanted!

[Adam Jones]

http://www.anthonyhelton.com

Hey all,

This has been a side project several months in the making. Please let me know what you think -- good or bad! While the site is live, I haven't begun marketing yet, so nothing is sacred!

One quick note: the image in the "About" section is a placeholder that will be replaced with one of my dog and I.

Thanks for all your thoughts and time -- I really appreciate it!

[chrispychicken]

Nice site, much better than lots I've looked at. You could pretty easily improve the HTML gallery to more or less mimic the flash gallery with some newer CSS features. I'd also suggest wrapping the thumbnails in anchor tags, as right now there's no visual feedback to indicate that clicking on the thumbnails will actually change the photo. Also, not sure what size the images are, but they're loading very slowly for me (in the HTML gallery).

[Mike]

HTML gallery loaded very quickly for me. Agree about the anchor tags though.

Lovely site and even lovelier photos :)

[Roostonmylens]

Oh wow! Never really seen a pet photog website, but this one is brilliant!

Only suggestion I can make is perhaps try a different font other thank Arial (I think) for your menu titles.

Very nice :) And Love the photography too.

[tman2782]

Nice design, simple layout, easy navigation.

My only pet peeve would be the fixed width. The fixed width is too big and at my work PC with a 1280x1024 your site throws me a scroll bar for width.

Another issue I had was your blog link opens in the same window and is a whole different standalone website it would seem, so you have duplicate content which I'm sure would not only be a pain to keep updated but also a mess waiting to happen (especially when you're talking important specifics like prices).

I'd keep one main site with all your details and use the other strictly as a blog with any other links leading back to your main site. This way opening in the same window wouldn't matter and the blog would seem 'integrated'. (But I'd theme it to match your site)

[Hikin Mike]

Not everybody has a large/wide monitor. I had to scroll to see your whole site. Kind of annoying, really.

[Adam Jones]

Nice site, much better than lots I've looked at. You could pretty easily improve the HTML gallery to more or less mimic the flash gallery with some newer CSS features. I'd also suggest wrapping the thumbnails in anchor tags, as right now there's no visual feedback to indicate that clicking on the thumbnails will actually change the photo. Also, not sure what size the images are, but they're loading very slowly for me (in the HTML gallery).

First off, thanks for taking the time to look and comment! I'll have to look into those CSS features you mentioned. Anywhere you can point me to to get started? I wrote the thumbnail gallery code awhile ago so I can't remember exactly the reasoning why, but I think was having issues with the anchor tags. I agree with the sentiment though and will look into that again. As for the images, they're a bit on the large side -- approximately 350kb. I'd like to bring down the size, but I'm very leery of compression artifacting. I'm probably going to reduce the size a bit. Slow loading is the kiss of death!

HTML gallery loaded very quickly for me. Agree about the anchor tags though.

Lovely site and even lovelier photos :)

Duly noted. Thanks, Mike!

Oh wow! Never really seen a pet photog website, but this one is brilliant!

Only suggestion I can make is perhaps try a different font other thank Arial (I think) for your menu titles.

Very nice :) And Love the photography too.

Thank you! :)

Nice design, simple layout, easy navigation.

My only pet peeve would be the fixed width. The fixed width is too big and at my work PC with a 1280x1024 your site throws me a scroll bar for width.

Another issue I had was your blog link opens in the same window and is a whole different standalone website it would seem, so you have duplicate content which I'm sure would not only be a pain to keep updated but also a mess waiting to happen (especially when you're talking important specifics like prices).

I'd keep one main site with all your details and use the other strictly as a blog with any other links leading back to your main site. This way opening in the same window wouldn't matter and the blog would seem 'integrated'. (But I'd theme it to match your site)

I've been meaning to have the blog open in a new tab. *Adds to to-do list*. Thank you!

Not everybody has a large/wide monitor. I had to scroll to see your whole site. Kind of annoying, really.

Come on Mike, it's 2011! :lol: (joking, obviously) This has been a sticky subject since I started working on the site. I think you and tman are completely correct, though -- I need to be able to dynamically resize the site based on the browser window size. Previously I just wanted to get the thing up and running...now that that's done, I'll work on scaling. (I started today, in fact)

Thanks again, everyone! I really appreciate it.

[Hikin Mike]

It would be an "easy" fix. I would shrink your logo and put it on your header, to the left of your nav stuff. That would free up some extra room. Then remove the fix width stuff and make it 'auto'.

FWIW, my monitor 1024 x 768 and computer are nearly 10 years old. Unfortunately I can't afford to upgrade. :(

[tman2782]

Anthony, as a fix for the widths, be sure to use percentage values in your widths, then use max and min-width properties to keep it from shrinking or expansing too much.

Try some of the available grid layouts or make your own simple one, this works really well.

[cacawcacaw]

"Lastly, I will do my absolute best to bring you fantastic images of you and your pet that you will always cherish!"

That sells it for me - great copy!

I don't know why but I always (this is the second time I've looked at your site) want to click on Live, Laugh, and Fetch and see where it will bring me. Big disappointment that there's nothing there.

Don't make me choose between an HTML gallery and a Flash gallery! I've been using personal computers for over thirty years and I still wonder what I'll miss out on by choosing one over the other. Less experienced computer users will be dumbfounded at the choice. If you need to make a distinction, it should be automated.

[Adam Jones]

Back from the dead! Just a quick update that I finally got around to implementing some of the suggestions made in this thread, and I'm very happy to have done so! Thanks, everyone!

http://www.anthonyhelton.com

[cacawcacaw]

I still like your images! But, I still want to click on "Live. Laugh. Fetch."

The galleries seem to take a while to load but the photos are worth the wait. And, saying "Investment" instead of "Prices" - well that's just nails-on-a-chalkboard to me. I've sat through too many sales pitches in my lifetime to appreciate the cleverness.

Fantastic photos.

[Adam Jones]

I still like your images! But, I still want to click on "Live. Laugh. Fetch."

The galleries seem to take a while to load but the photos are worth the wait. And, saying "Investment" instead of "Prices" - well that's just nails-on-a-chalkboard to me. I've sat through too many sales pitches in my lifetime to appreciate the cleverness.

Fantastic photos.

:lol: I had forgotten all about your comment on wanting to click the tagline, didn't re-read it until updating the thread. I think it's a fun idea, and I may do something with it in the future. I tried to downscale the images, but they're still a decent size -- ~200kb each. I'll definitely keep that in mind and will re-evaluate whether I need to make them smaller. Thanks also on the investment vs "pricing" comment...something else to keep in mind.

As always, thanks so much for taking the time to comment! I really appreciate it.

[skooba]

Love it, everything loaded very quickly for me. Using Firefox on a macbook pro, 1280x800

[tstevely]

Gorgeous!!!!

[J Michael]

I like the layout and navigation. Easy to use. Gallery load took a very long time and I probably would have moved on. One thing that struck me is the color balance on some of your images. For example the one on your landing page has a red/magenta tone to it. The reddish background color on the border seems to add to that. The image where you say you removed the leash appears to have a green/cyan cast. Nice selection of creative images. Good luck with your business. Oh, and great tag line!

[Adam Jones]

Love it, everything loaded very quickly for me. Using Firefox on a macbook pro, 1280x800

Gorgeous!!!!

Thank you!

I like the layout and navigation. Easy to use. Gallery load took a very long time and I probably would have moved on. One thing that struck me is the color balance on some of your images. For example the one on your landing page has a red/magenta tone to it. The reddish background color on the border seems to add to that. The image where you say you removed the leash appears to have a green/cyan cast. Nice selection of creative images. Good luck with your business. Oh, and great tag line!

Thanks for the comments! I've since learned that the gallery loads all of the images at once before it will display anything. It's about ~5MB of data, which on a slower connection (or if my host is being slow at all) will take way too long. It's an issue that needs to be addressed. Thanks also for the color cast comment -- duly noted.

[mr2step]

Oh wow! Never really seen a pet photog website, but this one is brilliant!

Only suggestion I can make is perhaps try a different font other thank Arial (I think) for your menu titles.

Very nice :) And Love the photography too.

I agree in that the header font is too "plain" and does not quite match the rest of the site's fonts. Also, I think the term "investments" is a little misleading and perhaps something simpler to understand like "session fees" or something along those lines would be more straight forward. As for the photos they are wonderful!Dogs rule!

[Adam Jones]

I agree in that the header font is too "plain" and does not quite match the rest of the site's fonts. Also, I think the term "investments" is a little misleading and perhaps something simpler to understand like "session fees" or something along those lines would be more straight forward. As for the photos they are wonderful!Dogs rule!

Thanks for the feedback! I guess my main concern with changing the font is I want the font to be something that is commonly installed on an end user's computer.

[mr2step]

Completely understand and agree however, in my humble opinion there might be other standard fonts that will work. It doesn't match the catch phrase font is all. Minor thing really but since you asked :-) Great images though.Having 3 dogs myself I can totally enjoy your work.

[Gizmo1137]

I agree with HikinMike on the widescreen, other than that it is a nice clean site.

[emelvee]

Love it!

[Adam Jones]

Completely understand and agree however, in my humble opinion there might be other standard fonts that will work. It doesn't match the catch phrase font is all. Minor thing really but since you asked :-) Great images though.Having 3 dogs myself I can totally enjoy your work.

Three dogs? I salute you, sir! Thanks again for the comments.

I agree with HikinMike on the widescreen, other than that it is a nice clean site.

Love it!

Thank you!

[isoMorphic]

Main thing it looks clean and loads quickly.

That's a big plus especially where potential clients wont be frustrated while waiting for pages to load and it has a major effect on SEO score.

[PeterBuzzrain]

Anthony,

I like your website!

Some suggestions:

- Get a contact form on your main site
- Create more links to your contact form. Example: Below the logo "Live, Laugh, Fetch".
- Create more content on your main site
- Link more often to your site from your blog, using relevant anchor text
- Get a Facebook Like on your main site
- Write your address on the footer of every page of your website (Google Local Search loves this)

You have done some good SEO, so keep up with that.

[Anona]

Love the site and your dedication to pet photography. Somewhere alnong the line you mentioned focusing on the eyes is key. I agree...but my problem is that the nose always gets in the way! Keep up the good work... BJ

[NLe]

Anthony, great to see someone from my neck of the wood. Don't implement to much change to your website all at once because it might drop down your search engine ranking. You've done a great job of seo and show up on the first page of local searches. Actually I think you know what you're doing so take my suggestion with a grain of salt.:)

[NLe]

Almost forgot visit http://www.shinepetphotos.com. Grace is a great pet photographer from the San Diego area and she is pretty much booked half a year in advance. Get your inspiration from her.

[BobbyLove]

looks great! The load on the gallery page was a bit slow and could be too long for someone to stick around with a crappy connection. You can test the pages on a free service like this http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/
Which can't analyze the gallery pages because they exceed the maximum size.

[Adam Jones]

Wow! Thanks everyone for taking the time to look and comment.

Main thing it looks clean and loads quickly.

That's a big plus especially where potential clients wont be frustrated while waiting for pages to load and it has a major effect on SEO score.

Thanks. Keeping it simple was definitely in the forefront of my mind while designing.

Anthony,

I like your website!

Some suggestions:

- Get a contact form on your main site
- Create more links to your contact form. Example: Below the logo "Live, Laugh, Fetch".
- Create more content on your main site
- Link more often to your site from your blog, using relevant anchor text
- Get a Facebook Like on your main site
- Write your address on the footer of every page of your website (Google Local Search loves this)

You have done some good SEO, so keep up with that.

Hi Peter,

Thanks for the input! I like some of your suggestions and will be implementing a few of them. The one comment I have is, what do you mean by write my "address" on the footer of every page? Do you mean my physical address?

Thanks again!

Love the site and your dedication to pet photography. Somewhere alnong the line you mentioned focusing on the eyes is key. I agree...but my problem is that the nose always gets in the way! Keep up the good work... BJ

Thank you!

Anthony, great to see someone from my neck of the wood. Don't implement to much change to your website all at once because it might drop down your search engine ranking. You've done a great job of seo and show up on the first page of local searches. Actually I think you know what you're doing so take my suggestion with a grain of salt.:)

Almost forgot visit http://www.shinepetphotos.com. Grace is a great pet photographer from the San Diego area and she is pretty much booked half a year in advance. Get your inspiration from her.

Hi there neighbor. :) Thanks for the word of caution! I actually do want to look into SEO a bit...my blog is highly ranked, but my main site is I-don't-even-know-where on the rankings. (Is there a way to check?)

I'm familiar with (and enamored by) Grace's work. She puts out the kind of work that I can only strive for.

looks great! The load on the gallery page was a bit slow and could be too long for someone to stick around with a crappy connection. You can test the pages on a free service like this http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/
Which can't analyze the gallery pages because they exceed the maximum size.

Thanks, Bobby! Optimizing that page is my #1 priority at the moment. I'm disappointed that the slider loads all of the images at once -- I thought I finally had a silver bullet for my gallery needs, but I guess not.

[S.Horton]

Very nice. Get the load time down on the portfolio page if you can.

[Adam Jones]

Very nice. Get the load time down on the portfolio page if you can.

Thanks, Sam. I did end up getting it down quite a bit. There's still some room for improvement.

I'm now working on re-doing the contact page (current one (http://anthonyhelton.com/contact.html) is pretty basic), and before I went the contact form route I thought I might try something a little different. I made a mockup in Photoshop. Any thoughts? I might sub out the phone number for Twitter.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7168/6768594635_7f5afb1e81_b.jpg

[SethDuBois]

I really like that mock up! The only thing I'd consider is to try and not have the repetition. I assume you plan on having those images being click-able links? If so, you may not need the whole paragraph below going over the same thing.

Just as an example - "To schedule a session, or if you have any questions, you may contact me through one of the above services".

[Adam Jones]

I really like that mock up! The only thing I'd consider is to try and not have the repetition. I assume you plan on having those images being click-able links? If so, you may not need the whole paragraph below going over the same thing.

Just as an example - "To schedule a session, or if you have any questions, you may contact me through one of the above services".

Thanks, Seth. Here's another mockup of a different style -- I may like this one better. Just disregard the duplicate content, since I put this together before I saw your reply. :)

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7172/6772980729_fff3aa488f_b.jpg

[SethDuBois]

I like the 2nd one a little better I think. The icon choice makes it seems more refined which follows your site layout a little better. And no worries, it's your site after all, that was just an opinion!

[kkc50]

Wow. Beautiful work. Site loaded very quickly for me but I wish there was a slide show home page.
I just sat and waited for the images to change, but thats a personal choice--- Otherwise very impressive all around -- the blog too!

[Adam Jones]

Wow. Beautiful work. Site loaded very quickly for me but I wish there was a slide show home page.
I just sat and waited for the images to change, but thats a personal choice--- Otherwise very impressive all around -- the blog too!

Thank you! I really appreciate you taking the time to look and comment.

If anyone out there is curious, this is the design I went with for the contact page. The three buttons at the bottom left light up (each a different, warm color) on rollover. It may not be perfect, but it feels much more complete than what I had up previously!

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7151/6798515593_595342a32e_b.jpg

[cacawcacaw]

I've resisted commenting a couple of times, but I really feel like you need a "call to action" on every page. Perhaps for a lowest-common-denominator product, something like, "$150 for a professional artistic portrait of your dog, in an 8x10 pewter frame, delivered gift wrapped with a card. Suitable for hanging on the wall or placing on a desk or table." Something that last-minute gift givers can arrange from their office chair. "Just give me a call and we'll arrange a time when I can photograph your dog - I'll take care of the rest and guarantee that you'll be satisfied."

Of course, I have no idea who your prospective clients are, but when I read the contact information page, I can't help but think that this dog-photo arrangement is going to be complicated, isn't it? Take this with a grain of salt, it's just my point of view, and I'll be the first to admit that the only way I would order a photograph of anything is if I were in a state of gift-giving panic.

If you emphasize one product, somewhere along the line you can mention that you are also able to customize both the session and the prints to fit the customer's needs. And, that a Facebook image is always provided for free with every order. (Another thought, ever consider working with an upscale dog groomer? Even though I refuse to pay full boat for a doggy haircut, our friends who drop $100 for a cut and blow dry wouldn't flinch at paying another couple - or few - hundred bucks for a professionally shot photo of their dog.)

[Adam Jones]

Thanks for commenting! Well, I think you're absolutely right in that I should emphasize just how easy the process of setting up a shoot can be, and I want to stress that more. Just because it's obvious to me doesn't mean it's obvious to a potential client!

In regards to your second comment, I haven't hit the pavement yet with marketing, but a dog groomer will absolutely be on my list for an affiliated business.

[cacawcacaw]

Thanks for commenting! Well, I think you're absolutely right in that I should emphasize just how easy the process of setting up a shoot can be, and I want to stress that more. Just because it's obvious to me doesn't mean it's obvious to a potential client! ... In this economic climate, it's getting harder and harder to pry money from people's fingers. But, a desperate husband, wife, or guest who quickly needs a unique creative gift idea - those are the people who will relax the grip on their credit cards for a moment.

For those who can't book in time for the gift-giving event, how about offering a really nice looking gift certificate in the attractive frame that you'll eventually use for the final print? (They say that up to 85% of gift certificates don't get cashed in, so you could even offer them at a lower price.) That would make it absolutely easy-peasy for the gift giver; overnight delivery of a really nice frame and gift certificate, all gift wrapped and ready to give. Or for those who procrastinate as furiously as I do, an online printable gift certificate is the easiest last-minute gift imaginable.