First website is up, need some C&C

Hey everyone here is my first attempt at a website with Zenfolio. Please let me know what's working and what's not. Thanks in advance!

http://www.magfotos.co​m/

Tampa huh? Same here. TnC

Yeah I've seen you a couple times on Facebook. My name is Mario A Goncalves, I think we have some friends in common. I also live in the TnC area. I love your work!

Site failed to fully load. Nice logo at the top, though.

If it matters for you to trace it, it is 5:30 EST.

Way too many pictures in your portfolio. Only put up the best ones in your portfolio so your potential clients don't need to scroll through your gallery forever.

Need a better About page. Guestbook on a business website doesn't look professional, I'd get rid of it.

Background is great, dark but not too dark. Contrast is good between font and elements on pages. Logo is strong.

Some places to improve:

On all of your pages where text is present, it is centered. I like to see text that stretches from edge to edge uniformly (justified), or even just a standard left orientation - it is more natural to read this way. Also, you can experiment with actual text indentation on paragraphs.

Your "about" page is very "right now" - "but not until recently did I decide to take it one step further. I felt it's about time I turn my passion for photography into something more serious and what other way better to do so than to provide people with everlasting memories they can always look back on."

While this is well written, it might be a better idea to make it more future proof. Remove any references to "recently" - not only will this prevent you from having to change the text every year, it will look better to future clients. They don't need to know how long you;'ve been doing photography as a business, they only need to know about your portfolio. If they see you're inexperienced on the business end, they might use it as leverage to try to get better pricing. Or they may not hire you at all.

Make about section be current, but future proof, without letting your customer think that you're inexperienced.

Your portfolio is great, it is a wide variety of work and is very nice quality.

Of the zenfolio sites I have seen, yours is one of the better ones. I haven't seen many, but this one is good.

Oh, and the guestbook - guestbooks are nice but need to be moderated. You don't want some spam bot or jerk posting a bunch of nonsense, so make sure you read every post before it is published. Spam bots happen.

EDIT: Also, on your prices..I don't see the standard prices listed. I can see "$30 per extra hour" but you never say how much the package starts out as. It says "price given upon request" It is best to set a standard price, and then go up from there. Look at what other portrait photographers are charging in your area and go from there. You customer does not want to put the effort into calling or emailing you - this is why you have a website

First let me say thank you to you all for taking the time to look at my site and giving me some feedback. It is very much appreciated.

S.Horton wrote in post #12297802
Site failed to fully load. Nice logo at the top, though.

If it matters for you to trace it, it is 5:30 EST.

Sorry about that, I checked and it's working for me. Please let me know if it continues to do this. Also let me know what web browser you are using. I watched a tutorial video for Zenfolio and I think I remember him saying the site might appear different on certain web browsers.

Tawcan wrote in post #12297990
Way too many pictures in your portfolio. Only put up the best ones in your portfolio so your potential clients don't need to scroll through your gallery forever.

I was thinking of doing this but my concern was that I might not have enough photos to show. I just started recently and don't have much to show so far. I might have uploaded a lot of pics but I don't have a lot of variety yet

Also there is an option to "Show All" inside every gallery so all the photos are shown on one page, no scrolling needed to view the photos. I don't know if that's what you were referring to. I will go back and see how it looks with less photos though.

Tawcan wrote in post #12297990
Need a better About page. Guestbook on a business website doesn't look professional, I'd get rid of it.

The About me page is definitely not done. I plan on taking a new photo and just re-writing the whole thing. I just wanted to have something there to put up the site for now. The guestbook I don't need anyway so thanks for reminding me about that lol.

sbattey wrote in post #12297993
Background is great, dark but not too dark. Contrast is good between font and elements on pages. Logo is strong.

That is exactly the look I was going for. I'm glad I at least got that part right!

I must admit, the centering of the sentences is part of my OCD lol. Everything must look even, left to right or top to bottom. If not it will bug the heck out of me Of course if writing a letter or a paper for school or something similar I won't type everything centered but in this instance this is the reason for me doing so But I do see your point. I will give it a try.

Your "about" page is very "right now" - "but not until recently did I decide to take it one step further. I felt it's about time I turn my passion for photography into something more serious and what other way better to do so than to provide people with everlasting memories they can always look back on."

While this is well written, it might be a better idea to make it more future proof. Remove any references to "recently" - not only will this prevent you from having to change the text every year, it will look better to future clients. They don't need to know how long you;'ve been doing photography as a business, they only need to know about your portfolio. If they see you're inexperienced on the business end, they might use it as leverage to try to get better pricing. Or they may not hire you at all.

Make about section be current, but future proof, without letting your customer think that you're inexperienced.

This is a very good point. As I mention earlier, the About me page was something I put together rather quickly. I definitely want to re-write it and add a different self portrait. You bring some important points that I will keep in mind. Thank you for that!

Thanks Even though I did it through Zenfolio it was still a bit overwhelming but I'm pretty happy with the outcome so far. I'm glad you like it as well.

I agree, I just forgot to take it out. I have no need for a guestbook anyway

EDIT: Also, on your prices..I don't see the standard prices listed. I can see "$30 per extra hour" but you never say how much the package starts out as. It says "price given upon request" It is best to set a standard price, and then go up from there. Look at what other portrait photographers are charging in your area and go from there. You customer does not want to put the effort into calling or emailing you - this is why you have a website

I was told by another friend/photographer (as soon as I posted the site to my facebook) that I shouldn't list my prices online for a few reasons. This is some of what she said to me "This is for many reasons, one being you dont want them "shopping around", as a photographer, you want people to come to you for YOU not because you were cheaper. i had prices up on my site and then had 3 or 4 noted photographers say to take them down immediately and just put my packages. Turns out I had more business that way. When you get the chance to talk to a potential client you get the chance to sell yourself, when they see a base price there is nothing to show what a nice person you are or how you speak, those things make it a more personal experience.". It made sense to me so I went ahead and changed it. Do you think that's the right move? I originally had the prices up on the site.

Sorry, I don't have too much to add, but I'm not a fan of the music on the home page. That's probably just me being too lazy to move my mouse to the stop button. But besides what others have pointed out, I like the look of the site. Simple, but elegant and professional looking.

Very Nice first site.

~Chris

CCarter wrote in post #12298951
Sorry, I don't have too much to add, but I'm not a fan of the music on the home page. That's probably just me being too lazy to move my mouse to the stop button. But besides what others have pointed out, I like the look of the site. Simple, but elegant and professional looking.

Very Nice first site.

~Chris

That's one of the hardest things to try and get right when building the site (imo), the music. I tried several songs, different genres, some ambient, some with lyrics. I asked family members and friends to give me some feedback and someone always complained about the music for every different song So in the end I just used a song that I love and matches the feel/mood of the site. I know I don't HAVE to use music but I would love to

Thanks for taking a look and sharing your thoughts and thank you for the compliment

No problem.
I personally like the song, but I know some people that hate websites with any kind of sound at all. Just a matter of personal taste I suppose. But you definitely could have done a lot worse of a job with your song selection

I've noticed a lot of people around these forums don't like music on a site but it only takes one second to turn it off

I also added a Videos section just for fun.

For me I think your portfolio should be your "best work" and showing a bit of variety if you can. Don't show all the pictures from like 1 single photoshoot. Pick 1-2 best shots and put that in your portfolio. Instead of having bunch galleries in your portrait section have 1 gallery with the best pictures.

Tawcan wrote in post #12297990
Way too many pictures in your portfolio. Only put up the best ones in your portfolio so your potential clients don't need to scroll through your gallery forever.

Agree. I looked through some of the portfolio, but there were very similar beach photos as well as flower photos. Show the best of the best. Better you show few very good photos than many so-so photos.

Yeah I agree, I'll go ahead and do that when I get the chance. So I should put all the best portraits into one folder or should I at least have one folder for locations shots and one folder for studio shots?