Please tell me what you think...

This is my new website...

www.jessewest.net

#1 on google and yahoo searches when you search jesse west or jesse west photography

my main page is missing a specials ad for my seasonal changeing specials... working on it now.

remember i dont know the proper way to build sites. i design what i want it to look like in photoshop then slice it and export it to go live. the galleries are lr 1.2.

Overall first impression is decent, but I think you need to specialise on one type of photography and promote it, not be a jack of all trades. Looks a bit like a hobby site for someone who wants to make a few dollars.
- There's not wedding pics, or the image isn't clickable. The wedding pic doesn't impress.
- The menu links with italics isn't good.
- The main pic of some dude with a guitar is kinda boring.
- The yellow star is 80s.
- The scroll bar down bottom isn't good
- It doesn't tell me where you are - that MUST be in the title and on the home page, in text not an image, for search engine optimisation
- Being #1 in google for your name is only useful if you're a big name, otherwise you need to be up there for terms like "wedding photographer/photograp​hy wellington", or "portraits in LA".

thanks tim
ill take all you said in consideration

um, thanks for all the help everyone... lol

"Please tell me what you think" won't get many views, it's too general. "Please critique my website" would be better.

I'm not an expert or something but I think the main page is too crowded. Simple looks classier IMO. And I second "The main pic of some dude with a guitar is kinda boring."

Client list...so Keith Urban, Gwen and the others HIRED you?

Bio reads a bit strange, scroll bar at the bottom of the main page needs to go as well.

You have a good start. It falls apart mostly at the bottom when you get to the "recent photos" section, the advertisement, and the footer. It leaves a ton of white space and the floating scrollbar just doesn't make a lot of sense. It doesn't look integrated with the rest of the site.

Also, the "click here to watch promotional videos" link is a bit crowded and looks like an afterthought. I would tighten up the navigation with simpler, smaller text and add the videos to the navigation (if they are important). I'd probably also remove the recent photos listing and replace it with a "client login" link on the navigation. I'd personally not use the "homepage" tag on the home page, as it's implied... but that's up to you.

You're pretty much guaranteed to be #1 in google for your name if your name is your URL, so you're not gaining a whole lot there unless people are looking for you anyway.

Hope that helps.