My new website
Posted 11/12/2011 - 13:47
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Joe S wrote:
I know this will not go down well, but your size ticks most of the boxes for "bad practice" in web design (music, cumbersome navigation, poor readability, landing pages with no function). The good thing is, I think your pictures deserve better.
If you are semi serious about it, I would suggest you to 1) pay for a domain and 2) forget about the flash stuff. Apart from the short comings already mentioned by others (which I support) flash is also poor with search engines, meaning Google etc. have a really hard time making any sense of it and therefore can't index it properly. It is no coincidence PPG have been ditched - it was all flash!
OK, it will cost you, but it is after all amazingly cheap compared to what you have paid Pentax over the years for the gear with which you take the pictures. So why not spend the 30 bucks/year it might cost to promote and show your pictures on a site in your name?
You are surely right. I think a bad combination of poor web hosting and web design experience. You are correct in saying that, as have others, the site does no justice for my photos. I should take this as a compliment i suppose. Out of respect to my photos I will go for a better web design and host. Thanks for your feedback, very constructive
I know this will not go down well, but your size ticks most of the boxes for "bad practice" in web design (music, cumbersome navigation, poor readability, landing pages with no function). The good thing is, I think your pictures deserve better.
If you are semi serious about it, I would suggest you to 1) pay for a domain and 2) forget about the flash stuff. Apart from the short comings already mentioned by others (which I support) flash is also poor with search engines, meaning Google etc. have a really hard time making any sense of it and therefore can't index it properly. It is no coincidence PPG have been ditched - it was all flash!
OK, it will cost you, but it is after all amazingly cheap compared to what you have paid Pentax over the years for the gear with which you take the pictures. So why not spend the 30 bucks/year it might cost to promote and show your pictures on a site in your name?
Posted 11/12/2011 - 13:51
Link
wvbarnes wrote:
I use Serif Webplus for all the sites I do. I use Javascript rather than Flash menus and galleries to ensure most devices can use the pages. All WYSIWYG and no coding needed although you can add any HTML etc you want.
This is a simple photography site I've done for a pro friend using the same. My clients brief was for it to be all about the photos with very clean and simple once past the home page. About twenty hours to put this sort of thing together with the client preparing his own photos.
http://colinharvey.co.uk/index.html
I personally still like black backgrounds but they do seem to go in and out of fashion. Brightness is difficult to judge from monitor to monitor or depending on viewing room light conditions I find.
What is good in my opinion is people still willing to do their own thing rather than use the clone approach of so many online in the cloud libraRY systems. Well done for trying!
Looked at the site and rather liked it. Very fast and functional. Thats what I want. Still a lover of the black background though, but it is so hard to manage
I use Serif Webplus for all the sites I do. I use Javascript rather than Flash menus and galleries to ensure most devices can use the pages. All WYSIWYG and no coding needed although you can add any HTML etc you want.
This is a simple photography site I've done for a pro friend using the same. My clients brief was for it to be all about the photos with very clean and simple once past the home page. About twenty hours to put this sort of thing together with the client preparing his own photos.
http://colinharvey.co.uk/index.html
I personally still like black backgrounds but they do seem to go in and out of fashion. Brightness is difficult to judge from monitor to monitor or depending on viewing room light conditions I find.
What is good in my opinion is people still willing to do their own thing rather than use the clone approach of so many online in the cloud libraRY systems. Well done for trying!
Posted 11/12/2011 - 15:00
Link
Ok, so I looked into wordpress for a website. Well, slightly better than wix, ha ha ha. Very daunting really. Not quite sure exactly how to start out though. Got an account and blog set up, now I have to select a them??? Need to look into that a bit more. Any thoughts?
Posted 11/12/2011 - 15:21
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I find your website dark and uninviting and difficult to navigate. That said, I do like your style of photography.
Not everything in life is Black & White, If only it were!
Kind Regards,
Rees
Kind Regards,
Rees
Posted 11/12/2011 - 15:31
Link
I would have thought if you are selling your work then look at really successful sites to get an idea of why they are successful, then talk to a web site designer. I looked at your site to see photographs but there was too much involved before getting to see any. Sorry but I just thought it a mess and needs a good overhaul. Good Luck with your venture.
Posted 11/12/2011 - 16:10
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Well I think we have finally established that a good photographer can be a crappy web designer. Ha ha. LOL. In my defense wix is limiting, but free. I am looking at Wordpress as we speak. Very very very nice. Just seems confusing. Maybe I should open a new post.
Posted 11/12/2011 - 16:25
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Just to agree with those who don't like sites that use Flash. A site that is important to me has been sending me messages asking me to "upgrade to Flash 10". Well, Flash 10 isn't really around anymore for PCs: it's Flash 11 or nothing. Believe me, installing Flash 11 is a real time-consumer. I spent 2-3 hours recently pfaffing about with cookies, firewalls, anti-virus and reducing all MSIE browser protections to near-zero. Don't build a web-site that needs a Flash Player on a prospective customer's browser!
I'm not qualified to comment on layouts, etc, but I did find that there was too much 'dead' black space around your photos. It gave the whole display a heavy feel.
Good luck with another design. I know that it's hard work.
Martin
I'm not qualified to comment on layouts, etc, but I did find that there was too much 'dead' black space around your photos. It gave the whole display a heavy feel.
Good luck with another design. I know that it's hard work.
Martin
A few of my photographs in flickr.
Lizars 1910 "Challenge" quarter-plate camera; and some more recent stuff.
Lizars 1910 "Challenge" quarter-plate camera; and some more recent stuff.
Posted 11/12/2011 - 20:22
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To give you an idea of how time consuming it can be, I've just changed my home page and it took me around 3 hours!
Points involved:-
Work out a new layout
Work out content and spend ages trying to get the words right / avoid repetition etc.
Work out a new image size for the small photos that keeps the original ratio of the larger ones and fits well within the columns that I also had to work out how to format with a title.
Choose, create and upload images used for the 4 sections.
Add a gap between pictures and the title above them as they were touching.
Provide links to the correct pages when you click on the pictures.
Remove Twitter box from right hand side to balance out the height of content and sidebar, needed 4 updates from the blog instead of 3 to make it level!
Time consuming indeed, but I believe it was worth the effort!
Points involved:-
Work out a new layout
Work out content and spend ages trying to get the words right / avoid repetition etc.
Work out a new image size for the small photos that keeps the original ratio of the larger ones and fits well within the columns that I also had to work out how to format with a title.
Choose, create and upload images used for the 4 sections.
Add a gap between pictures and the title above them as they were touching.
Provide links to the correct pages when you click on the pictures.
Remove Twitter box from right hand side to balance out the height of content and sidebar, needed 4 updates from the blog instead of 3 to make it level!
Time consuming indeed, but I believe it was worth the effort!
Posted 11/12/2011 - 20:35
Link
One thing that hasn't been mentioned so far regarding making a successful website is SEO - for all the effort you might put into making a slick and professional looking website it's of little use if no one comes across it. SEO takes even more time than building a website and never ends.
Simon
Simon
My website http://www.landscapephotographyuk.com
My Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/landscapephotographyuk
Find me on Google+ link
My Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/landscapephotographyuk
Find me on Google+ link
Posted 11/12/2011 - 20:46
Link
With a wordpress blog to change it you choose a new theme install and test.
Regards SEPTEMBER metastatic in your images helps a lot. I know my images are top of most goggles searches on my site and flick due to filling out metastatic correctly
Regards SEPTEMBER metastatic in your images helps a lot. I know my images are top of most goggles searches on my site and flick due to filling out metastatic correctly
PPG Wedding photography Flickr
Concert photography
Currently on a Pentax hiatus until an FF Pentax is released
Concert photography
Currently on a Pentax hiatus until an FF Pentax is released
Posted 11/12/2011 - 20:55
Link
simonkit wrote:
One thing that hasn't been mentioned so far regarding making a successful website is SEO - for all the effort you might put into making a slick and professional looking website it's of little use if no one comes across it. SEO takes even more time than building a website and never ends.
Simon
What's SEO?
One thing that hasn't been mentioned so far regarding making a successful website is SEO - for all the effort you might put into making a slick and professional looking website it's of little use if no one comes across it. SEO takes even more time than building a website and never ends.
Simon
Regards,
Michael
Michael
Posted 11/12/2011 - 21:07
Link
I have no idea either what seo is, but check out this template I found on Wordpress. I think it is me all the way
http://themeforest.net/item/king-size-fullscreen-background-wordpress-theme/full...
http://themeforest.net/item/king-size-fullscreen-background-wordpress-theme/full...
Posted 11/12/2011 - 21:12
Link
SEO = Search Engine Optimalisation
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16 years
This is a simple photography site I've done for a pro friend using the same. My clients brief was for it to be all about the photos with very clean and simple once past the home page. About twenty hours to put this sort of thing together with the client preparing his own photos.
http://colinharvey.co.uk/index.html
I personally still like black backgrounds but they do seem to go in and out of fashion. Brightness is difficult to judge from monitor to monitor or depending on viewing room light conditions I find.
What is good in my opinion is people still willing to do their own thing rather than use the clone approach of so many online in the cloud libraRY systems. Well done for trying!