Need help - regarding my digital photography tips website

Hi,

I'm running a digital photography tips website for over a year now. I started with just posting images, but than later on shifted towards articles and explaining to others what I know... I've small but loyal readership, with around 500 email subscribers and growing everyday.

I still post images also, like daily postings from my travels and such. Not the very highest quality, I mean it's not my portfolio just a way to share my world.

Now problem I'm having is, do people who actually come to read my articles also see images? if so what is their impression? does this make me look less professional? or is it better for building loyalty? since I'm showing that I grow with my readership in photography... well, I'm very confused about the issue, and debating with myself to get rid of photo stories / car photography sections all together and put together a tight portfolio rather than show my daily crap...

please take a look and tell me your take on the subject.

the site: www.sandrophoto.com

I really would like some input from you!

thanks.

really? no one?

okay forget it.

Way to much crap on the home screen, reminds me of the yahoo home page. Keep it simple like google. Have only news/recent on the home page.

Cypther wrote in post #11786663
Way to much crap on the home screen, reminds me of the yahoo home page. Keep it simple like google. Have only news/recent on the home page.

I see what you mean. but my site isn't a search engine. google has only one function SeaRch, and yahoo is more a portal than a SE, so this comparison you gave me ain't helping.

What exactly would u remove? Like featured stories box? sidebar also maybe?

thanks!

sandro9mm wrote in post #11786740
I see what you mean. but my site isn't a search engine. google has only one function SeaRch, and yahoo is more a portal than a SE, so this comparison you gave me ain't helping.

What exactly would u remove? Like featured stories box? sidebar also maybe?

thanks!

Well make the feature stories box bigger. Remove "Tips and Tutorials" and "Digital Darkroom", put those in it's own page like a tab call Tips and tutorials. I think Galleries and portfolio should be in the same tab. Call it Galleries or Portfolio don't have both. Look at http://www.apple.com/, they have the feature in the middle of the page and four boxes at the bottom, for old news. http://vimeo.com/ is also a clean site, features on one side and blogs and ads on another side.

Also put all the "how too" and tips into the Tips and tutorial page, try cleaning it up. Honestly having to much crap on the screen will confused the viewers/readers. I also think the gear list should be in the about page as well. Maybe merge the two some how.

The site is kind of all over the place, is this your portfolio where you show you work, or a blog, or a photography news place, or Photography Tips. If you're going to do all that then have each one on it's own page. Or have the Home page a lot more clean looking.

Cypther wrote in post #11786902
Well make the feature stories box bigger. Remove "Tips and Tutorials" and "Digital Darkroom", put those in it's own page like a tab call Tips and tutorials. I think Galleries and portfolio should be in the same tab. Call it Galleries or Portfolio don't have both. Look at http://www.apple.com/, they have the feature in the middle of the page and four boxes at the bottom, for old news. http://vimeo.com/ is also a clean site, features on one side and blogs and ads on another side.

Also put all the "how too" and tips into the Tips and tutorial page, try cleaning it up. Honestly having to much crap on the screen will confused the viewers/readers. I also think the gear list should be in the about page as well. Maybe merge the two some how.

The site is kind of all over the place, is this your portfolio where you show you work, or a blog, or a photography news place, or Photography Tips. If you're going to do all that then have each one on it's own page. Or have the Home page a lot more clean looking.

that's exactly the problem I posted in the original post. Profile of this site is to teach photography, and also share photos as "photo stories". It's not a portfolio as portfolio has its own subdomain. photo posts like http://www.sandrophoto​.com …06/22/she-is-benediction/ serve as a link bait, people heavily share photos - so I get traffic, they go see what I shoot, and later subscribe to my blog to receive tips and tricks.

Does this make sense?

thanks for ur input btw, your helping me get things orginizd in my head first and then maybe I take care of the site

ok based on your comments I've come up with a v3 of the site homepage. cleaner, and I think more focused. let me know what you think. it's just a photoshop sketch... so pardon copy paste :P

HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/png'

Looks a lot better, one thing that you might want to change is the logo. Make the logo stand out more because the ad beside it, it is over shadowing it. Make the logo bigger or change the colour to make it stand out or make the ad smaller.

well, I implemented most of the changes... some things I did differently than expected...

so what do you think now?

hm, are fonts okay? I was thinking maybe to increase size a bit.

The site looks a lot better now a lot cleaner looking, the font seem fine.

New layout looks heaps better

siddr20 wrote in post #11800116
New layout looks heaps better

yep, cypther helped me allot. before him nobody cared to tell me my site was growing uber complicated...

It looks to me like your goal is to fit as many ads as you can on your blog. At first glance I couldn't tell if you actually had any content, but finally realized your blog story wasn't an ad.

The new layout looks much better, but...and this is just my opinion...there are a lot of ads, and a few short stories about basic photography tips. It appears to me that your goal is ad space and not your portfolio..

On a side note..I lived in Italy for 3 years so I was hoping to see photos of that beautiful county!

ShotByTom wrote in post #11803759
It looks to me like your goal is to fit as many ads as you can on your blog. At first glance I couldn't tell if you actually had any content, but finally realized your blog story wasn't an ad.

The new layout looks much better, but...and this is just my opinion...there are a lot of ads, and a few short stories about basic photography tips. It appears to me that your goal is ad space and not your portfolio..

On a side note..I lived in Italy for 3 years so I was hoping to see photos of that beautiful county!

are you kidding me? have you looked at the content? does these articles look short to you? they are basic because I just started, articles will get harder as I explain to people basics first, right? or not?

http://www.sandrophoto​.com …o-make-a-photo-portfolio/
http://www.sandrophoto​.com …utter-speed-aperture-iso/
http://www.sandrophoto​.com …-photography-winter-tips/
http://www.sandrophoto​.com …era-custom-white-balance/
http://www.sandrophoto​.com …ory/famous-photographers/

ads are important part of web landscape get used to it.

As for italy, you could have looked better into photo stories:

These right from the homepage... no need to look further,
http://www.sandrophoto​.com/2011/02/05/7-hours-in-venice/
http://www.sandrophoto​.com/2007/10/24/black-and-white/
http://www.sandrophoto​.com/2007/10/08/milan-duomo/

There is like tons more...

I take critique good, like I did with other commenters on this thread. But I hate people bashing things they never took time to look in.

p.s. abt ads you might be right, I was already thinking to remove some of them. like from photo stories totally. and category pages just to leave one ad.