Making my site more appealing...

[TomMessenger:Photo]

Hi all,

I've recently had a complete overhaul of my site as, basically, it was a bit naff. I only have a very basic knowledge of web design, but I want to make it as good as I possibly can until I can afford someone to do it for me!

My main concern is the homepage at the moment. It's boring. What can I do to improve it? I did have a scrolling slideshow, but people didn't seem to like that idea, to say the least.

www.tommessengerphoto.com

Any help or advice would be great!

Cheers,
Tom

[tracknut]

Hi Tom,

Regarding the home page, a couple suggestions.
- Get rid of the intro page, replace it with a normal single home page
- On the home page, I wouldn't use your "about" content there, other than just enough to mention who you are and what you do - leave the "I shot photos when I was a kid" stuff either for the about section, or remove that entirely
- Put a photo on the home page, and create a logo. The current dull black page as you say is pretty boring
- Make your fonts consistent across the site. Serif fonts, like used in your navigation, are not the style these days for web sites, and certainly the fonts used in your intro page are quite dated. Pick a nice sans serif font and use it consistently.
- I've used SimpleViewer once in a while myself, but I have to say it is feeling a bit "been there, done that" on web sites. I would look for a bit more snazzy gallery tool.
- To me, your nature photos are far and away better than the others, and I would have said to emphasize those (and use one on your home page) except that you state your goal is portraits and modeling. So get a portrait or modeling shot for the home page. Your nature gallery should be using the same viewer as your other galleries though.

Dave

[TomMessenger:Photo]

Thanks. About the galleries, I changed them all to the style the nature one is now, and it got ripped to shreds on model mayhem - hence why it is back as simple viewer now. I lost all my resized nature files, so I left that as the slideshow for now with the intention of changing that too.

I have no control over the menu fonts unfortunately :S That's the trouble with these template thingys. I really need to learn how to do it properly!

Thanks for taking the time to give me your thoughts,
Tom

[Faolan]

Lose the intro animation, it's not 'cool' anymore.

Don't put your text into an image, not only is it bad practice as it make text illegible but also invisible to 'bots. Learn to use <p> <span> tags and CSS typography.

You have a 122 errors on the main page alone from the W3C validatior.

Google analytics is mis-placed plus it's duplicated.

@import is bad practice for using stylesheets it's better to link to the sheets.

This is just the first 2 pages of your site so far...

[TomMessenger:Photo]

I haven't got a clue what any of that means lol

[kevitivity]

Intro page is a huge no-no...

[Faolan]

Tom,

If you don't understand what I wrote, then find someone who does or learn. Google Analytics gives clear instructions and there is tonnes of free tutorials on CSS out there, some better than others but starting with Eric Meyer is a good place.

Read my FAQ as well, it will give some tips what not to do.