Can you do the biz on my site please...?

Hi all

I've been giving my site a makeover the past couple of weeks and having got to a stage where I think I'm satisfied I need a few people to give it the once over and shatter all my dreams so I can improve it further...!

http://www.geofflove.c​o.uk

So some general comments would be great and in particular I'd like a few questions answered....

1) Putting yourself in the situation of a potential customer - what's the experiece like?

2) Did you find your way round ok? Anything in the wrong place, not where expected or confusing?

3) Looking at the wedding and portrait sections is all the info you need there? Anything missing?

4) Does it give a professional impression? If a customer would you use the service, if not what would put you off?

5) What do you think of the pics?!

All comments would be really helpful so please comment away and tell it like it is!

Cheers


Geoff

Don't have much time, but here are my initial impressions.

1. My browser says "Wedding Photographer...", but all of the photos that come up in the slide show are landscape type photos. If I'm looking for a wedding photographer, I want to get hit with wedding photos. When weddings are simply a page on your greater site, it makes it look like you're a landscape photographer who wants to make some extra money shooting weddings.

3. Didn't make it there, I kept waiting for a wedding photo on the slideshow.

4. The slide show is a little cheesy. The whole zoom-out thing is a bit clunky.

Still 1000% better than my websites, but I would do something different for the wedding stuff. Maybe have a main splash page or something? I would have the main focus be people photography. Odds are that anyone that visits your website is going there to potentially hire you to photograph a person, not a landscape.


5. Your landscape photos are outstanding! Awesome work.

I use FF3 and no issues here. All and all, I like the site!

I might add a 'favicon'. Looks more professional IMO.
I like the idea of having a 'News' page, why not use a RSS feed?

DDCSD wrote in post #7928273
Don't have much time, but here are my initial impressions.

1. My browser says "Wedding Photographer...", but all of the photos that come up in the slide show are landscape type photos. If I'm looking for a wedding photographer, I want to get hit with wedding photos. When weddings are simply a page on your greater site, it makes it look like you're a landscape photographer who wants to make some extra money shooting weddings.

3. Didn't make it there, I kept waiting for a wedding photo on the slideshow.

4. The slide show is a little cheesy. The whole zoom-out thing is a bit clunky.

Still 1000% better than my websites, but I would do something different for the wedding stuff. Maybe have a main splash page or something? I would have the main focus be people photography. Odds are that anyone that visits your website is going there to potentially hire you to photograph a person, not a landscape.


5. Your landscape photos are outstanding! Awesome work.

Thanks for taking the time to look - your comments are really helpful.
I understand what you mean about the wedding stuff not looking though it has enough priority. I'm changing the balance of shots in the slideshow so there is more wedding/portrait stuff. Also have removed the zooming - see if that's better... Thanks for the help. I did wonder if I needed a completely separate wedding site.... maybe I do

Hikin Mike wrote in post #7928324
I use FF3 and no issues here. All and all, I like the site!

I might add a 'favicon'. Looks more professional IMO.
I like the idea of having a 'News' page, why not use a RSS feed?

Thanks for the comments. I'm using a clikpic site which means facilities are more limited. Did think about RSS but not sure how or if I can add this. Similar with fav icon. I did just mange to add a fav icon to the home page to test it but it only appears for that page - would I really need to add the script to each page to work properly? I suspect not - must be doing it wrong......

Cheers

geofflove wrote in post #7928722
Thanks for the comments. I'm using a clikpic site which means facilities are more limited. Did think about RSS but not sure how or if I can add this. Similar with fav icon. I did just mange to add a fav icon to the home page to test it but it only appears for that page - would I really need to add the script to each page to work properly? I suspect not - must be doing it wrong......

Cheers

I don't personally use a RSS Feed. I do have a blog with a RSS Feed if people want to use that feature and I noticed a few subscribe.

If you can upload a 'favicon.ico' to the root directory (http://www.geofflove.c​o.uk/favicon.ico), then all of the pages will follow suit.

Anyone else got a comments? Feedback would be really useful - thanks

I like the website, it is nicely done. You have awesome landscape photos as well as wedding/portraiture.
I'm using IE7 and in the wedding gallery everytime i click it the nav bar moves to the bottom instead of being on the left hand side, i dont know if this is a problem (I hate IE but i'm at work) so unsure if it is the same with Mozilla.
I also noticed that in the "titles" if you click on landscape gallery/news/portraits​/wedding, it shows in the title your font coding and href links for some reason. Again, unsure if it happens in Mozilla but you should change this.

I also think you should possibly think about adding a hyperlink to the thumbnails in the "prices" section, as the first thing i did was click on the picture and realized it wasn't a link, again, this is just personal opinion.

Great photos, good site, congratulations.

The index page is too long, hiding your spiel at the bottom of the page plus the design has too much dead space in it. Speaking of dead space there's a lot of it in your code as well.

The too long feel is also apparent in other pages like the galleries, the structure, typography and layout should also be thrashed out as your forcing your visitor to hunt for information that should really be at their finger tips. Most users don't like scrolling too much.

Masthead/banner should be made clickable to your index page. Most people expect this these days.

Typography - the font is a tad small and can be hard to read due to it's lack of contrast.

The bookmark button feels out of place in the design of the site. Almost like a tacked on feature.

Guestbooks are a security and reputation risk, all it takes is one spammer or one customer with a grudge to start filling it up with pointless posts. They also speak of amateurism. Solicit and create a testimonial page instead.

Orders and contact page should be integrated. Plus you should change the blueyonder address to something more professional. Again this doesn't inspire confidence in your services.

For address/contacts I would advise you looking at the HCard MicrFormat layout. It can make peoples lives easier to gather this information.

Wedding Galleries feel anaemic for weddings especially when compared to the testimonials you have.

Experience? The site is nothing special, navigation whilst clear isn't concise. The site doesn't have a that must hire this photographer feeling. The images are good to excellent but again there is so many images mixed together that it's hard to decide what you do or specialise in.

realitysays wrote in post #7940252
I like the website, it is nicely done. You have awesome landscape photos as well as wedding/portraiture.
I'm using IE7 and in the wedding gallery everytime i click it the nav bar moves to the bottom instead of being on the left hand side, i dont know if this is a problem (I hate IE but i'm at work) so unsure if it is the same with Mozilla.
I also noticed that in the "titles" if you click on landscape gallery/news/portraits​/wedding, it shows in the title your font coding and href links for some reason. Again, unsure if it happens in Mozilla but you should change this.

I also think you should possibly think about adding a hyperlink to the thumbnails in the "prices" section, as the first thing i did was click on the picture and realized it wasn't a link, again, this is just personal opinion.

Great photos, good site, congratulations.

Thnaks for the comments. Hadn't spotted the IE7 prob on that page as I usually use Firefox but you're right - not sure what the prob is on just that page but will look into it.

Will look at the hyperlink. Cheers

Geoff