Hows my website coming along?

[Rachel B]

Its really really simple, I made it myself, lots still to learn. Do you think it will put customers off using me? My prices are competitive with other photogs in my area who are to the same standard as me. also is the color scheem to neutral? Thanks for the imput
http://rachelclarephotography.com/

[FlyingPhotog]

Typo in the "About" section...

You've got "there quality" and it should be "their quality" where you're talking about how much you like Canon lenses.

Otherwise, not bad.

[tfizzle]

The wall of text in "Services" is intimidating to go through.

Break it up some. If I were looking to contact you I wouldn't want to have to read through it all just to find a simple price list.

Also you probably meant to say that the web sized ones aren't meant to be suitable for printing. The language makes it sound like they are ok to print.

I'd only offer websized ones with a watermark on there. They'll try to print them/only use web ones anyway with no credit to you and worst of all, no sales.

[SwitchBlade]

I'd use a mail-to form on the site (plenty of free scripts around) rather than put your e-mail address up there as it will be spammed senseless.

As for the style it feels dull, plain can work well as a style but it's all to easy to make feel dull with all the text. All the text with the plain space at the bottom before the copyright notice box doesn't help that feeling IMHO, as if the text needs a little something to help it along.

Your copyright notice also moves from centre to the left on some pages.

[Hikin Mike]

Nice to see some actual content (text)! I would add your location and your specialties in your title metadata tag. Add a description and keyword metadata tags too. Think about SEO!

You need a 5-10px padding on the right of the images on both "About" and "Services". Look into learning CSS.

I normally don't comment about prices, since I don't do people, but your prices are too cheap IMO. A $0.29 print? I would charge at least $5.00 for a 4x6. ;)

[Frugal]

Change your page titles and google will like you even more. For example, replace 'About' with 'Rachel Clare photographer- City1, City2, City3". (People google "Photographer City")

[GwagDesigns]

I think you should rethink your image selection on your portfolio page. Portraits, few landscapes, and then army men? your Zenfolio seems to center around portraits, so I'd stick with examples of those.

[Yossarian22]

Glad it's not a flash site, really hate those

[Hikin Mike]

Change your page titles and google will like you even more. For example, replace 'About' with 'Rachel Clare photographer- City1, City2, City3". (People google "Photographer City")

or "City/State Photographer" Start with the most important thing first. ;)

[SwitchBlade]

Glad it's not a flash site, really hate those

Oh yes, a definite saving grace there.

[Vineet666]

I suggest keeping your portfolio in the same site as your main site. Looks more professional.

Also, more Pictures and less Text please, IMO Photographer's site should be more visual. The color scheme looks average, but maybe that will appeal to your target audience.

[Rachel B]

Great all this is very helpful, I have a boo on CSS, so I will look at fixing the issues mentioned.

I am not absolutely sure how to include more photos without doing flash at the moment.

I will also re think my print pricing structure.

Thank you all for taking the time to look!

[alohabob]

Overall I like it!
here are a few nitpicks...
Just don't think the toy army guys and rubber duck fit.

This CD/DVD does contain photographs suitable for printing as the quality is restricted to web only.
This mistake needs to be addressed.

$.29 for a 4x6!! Crazy low price.

The camera equipment is all Canon, I love the quality that there lenses produce, and I have lenses to suit every occasion. Although I prefer to shoot utilizing natural light I do have lights and flash systems that will let me shoot in most conditions
This sounds a bit amateurish to me. If your truly a pro, of course you have all the gear needed! ('there' should be 'their')


Don't think I'd announce I've only been focused on this for 3 yrs. Some competitors probably have decades of experience.

I'm getting my site together now, and am glad I saw yours, I like it and wish you well!

[tfd888]

Switch out the plain white background (body to be exact) with something else. +1 on happy it's not another one of those flash sites.

[tracknut]

I am not absolutely sure how to include more photos without doing flash at the moment.


I would use flash. You're already using flash on your home page and getting congratulations for "not having a flash site" :)

Just keep the flash exclusive to the photo galleries, it makes sense to me.

At some point you'll want to validate your code (http://validator.w3.org/check?verbose=1&uri=http%3A%2F%2Frachelclarephotography.com%2F) and fix the errors. Many of them come from announcing at the top (via your doctype) that you're coding in xhtml, and then not doing that.

Dave

[tfd888]

I would use flash. You're already using flash on your home page and getting congratulations for "not having a flash site" :)

Just keep the flash exclusive to the photo galleries, it makes sense to me

Dave

I mean websites that are completely flash based. Flash slideshows or image viewers don't bother me as much and are actually nice additions to have to a site.

As a non-flash alternative for the homepage slideshow and for small galleries, take a look at http://www.electricprism.com/aeron/slideshow/

[SwitchBlade]

I didn't see any flash on the site as my work computer doesn't do it, all I saw was an HTML website. Looking at it now the slideshow takes away that empty feel to the front page, downside is it does feel like embedding a youtube clip.

[turbo212003]

Glad it's not a flash site, really hate those



All flash sites aren't bad. Get over yourself.

[SwitchBlade]

True, but a lot of people have flash sites that just says "You need flash to view this site" and then fails to do anything else.

[ClickHappy]

You have a really good start there. Lots of good advice already, so take that into consideration. Just to get you up and running a bit quicker, there's the CSS needed to pad the images a bit on the Services and About pages:
#rightcolumn img {
margin-right: 10px;
}

That will affect all images you place in the "rightcolumn" div. If you want to add more images that aren't affected later, you can single out specific images with ids or classes...that CSS book should come in handy.

Regarding adding more images, you can definitely do it without flash. There are many Javascript slideshows and image presentations you could use. To name a couple, SmoothGallery (http://smoothgallery.jondesign.net/showcase/timed-gallery/) and Galleria (http://devkick.com/lab/galleria/) are both very nice. Each are customizable and allow you to have the exact look you want for the galleries.

Keep working on the site, it's coming along great.

ETA: here are a bunch of JS galleries: http://tutorialblog.org/12-javascript-image-galleries/