Possible new website design

Ok I put this together yesterday, its not even close to full function and it loads slow since its not optimized but overall what do you think of the layout and such..


http://www.megapixelph​otos.com/newsite

Thanks!

A little slow to go through much. I like the design and layout. Very fancy. I would definely edit the front page photo to take out blemishes and soften. You may want to check you colors in PS using View-Proof-Web View.

I had to turn of my "block *.swf" filter to see that.
All you have made in flash can be made using css. And that would make your page load a lot faster. Drop the flash.

And I noticed, this little funny text. Did you invent this or what?

Kinda misleading?

I agree about editing the opening page photo. It needs to be changed or edited. Also it makes the text harder to read, maybe make the text backgrounds less transparent.
Nice home page layout, besides that.
I'm not thrilled about having a new window for every gallery though.

^^ New window for every gallery is a test thing, its going to open within the main window and eliminate the the about us text.

which is why it cant be done using CSS, the animation right now is very minimal but it will include overlayed galleries and such that would make it impossible to do in a normal html document.

Not misleading at all, a lot of photographers in our area use only traditional photo albums with prints not the Asukabooks and other hardbound albums..so it is innovative for our area.


Thank you all for the comments.

Saying it loads slow is an understatement.

It does look nice but you really should but a load status bar on so people know something is happening. You also really need an html alternate as many people either don't want to get the plugin, have it blocked, have a slow internet connection, or a variety of other reasons why flash wont work for them.

Also, you should be aware that search engines cant pull from swf files so the only way your page will be listed is by the metatags. The search engines use the site content heavily to weight the importance of these tags so without any readable content you'd never rank much on a search result.

As has been said, a lot of what you have there can be done using CSS. So do that, and leave flash just for where it has to be used. Having a site 99% flash does look nice but you'll only be shooting yourself in the foot.

^^ I know its slow, as I said it was quickly put together and none of it has been fine tuned, I think the background image alone is about a meg and half which is enough to kill about anyone, in any case, I was more of looking for comments on the layout, I have a similar HTML version here

http://www.rlhphotogra​phy.com/redesign

this one is not speedy either but that is due to where it is hosted from.