New website being built...

Over the summer, I took a college class on building websites from scratch without using programs like Dreamweaver, Front Page, etc.

Essence of Imagery - Sebastopol & West County Wedding and Portraiture Photographers

I'd really like some feedback from the members here about the website. It's nearing completion, with the only thing left to do is build the modeling/portraiture portfolio into a slide show like the rest of the portfolios.

I'm looking for commentary on: design and layout, ease of use, if there are any dead links, if you get "lost" in the site, etc. The pics are going to be updated before I finally host it as my new, updated site.

Essence of Imagery

^Link to my old site, built with Dreamweaver, using tables and frames. I've built the new site to be XHTML and CSS compliant to the latest standards.
 

Browncoat

Senior Member
Why Flash is Evil. Your site is basically invisible to search engines. This is bad because 90% of the people you want to find you...won't be able to. I'm a web designer and SEO consultant, and this is a mistake that I see my clients make more than any other. Flash is pretty, but it's also pretty worthless for any business. Your URLs are going to give you trouble too. thisismysite.com/this-is-a-webpage is much better for a variety of reasons than thisismysite.com/~blah/FOLDER/2134.html.

You need a blog. It keeps the content fresh, keeps people coming back, and keeps search engines updating your site info. I understand the importance of DIY, but there's really nothing groundbreaking or unique about the design that justifies reinventing the wheel by hard cording a site yourself. Take a look at WordPress, a blogging platform. You can upload it to your site, choose a theme, and you're off and running.
 
From the look of your response, you seem to indicate that you don't use/like/suggest websites at all. Perhaps I'm wrong, but it looks that way.
Thank you for your feedback regarding the page names, because I'd almost forgotten about the importance of the appropriate names for the SEO optimization. From what I've been reading, some designers install meta-tags describing the images contained in the Flash layout.
 

Browncoat

Senior Member
Not at all. Traditional websites certainly have their place, mostly commercial. However, I'm of the new Web 2.0 school of thought...which means websites should be living, breathing, interactive things. Static web pages of old are simply outdated. The internet grows exponentially each and every day. By the time I finish this post, over ten thousand web pages will have been created. The odds of someone finding you out there in cyberspace are slim to none, unless the framework for your site is set up correctly.

I wasn't trying to knock your site, don't get me wrong...rather providing some honest feedback from someone who works "in the biz". Flash is awesome and is great in certain situations. But it is also severely limited when compared to a text-based site for a variety of reasons.

And yes, I am an advocate of WordPress. I use it myself and have developed many other sites with it. There are themes geared specifically towards photographers and there are numerous plug-ins for displaying galleries too. It's a quick and painless way to get a quality looking site up and running. If you want something more custom, take a look at the Thesis theme, which is what I use. You can make it look however you want with some basic CSS knowledge.
 
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That's an interesting point of view.

Perhaps I'm an old, outdated guy, but I'm not really THAT interested in being found by Google searches. From my experience, and from the experience of the wedding photographer who was my mentor, MOST of my wedding business comes in because someone was directed there by a business card, a contact, or word of mouth. All but one of the weddings I have booked this year have been a result of a referral from a friend or a satisfied client, who told the new client about us, pointed to our website, and the person contacted us because they like what they saw.

Don't get me wrong, blogs have their place, but if they are to be kept relevant and on-topic, there is a lot of work to be done. If I'm blogging about the last wedding we shot, the family who wants a portrait session, or the high-school senior who wants their photo taken will most likely move on. Conversely, if an engaged couple is looking for a wedding photographer, and my recent blogs are about landscape photos, a modeling session that I've done, and a few random photography posts, they aren't to dig around to find portfolio images related to our wedding photography.

The way I've structured the site, I believe that the people who are pointed to the site will be able to simply skip to what's relevant to them. Hence the simple, non-text driven main menu. From my experience, the first thing I look for/at in any photographers' website is their portfolio. If I like what I see, THEN I explore the other parts of the site. Hopefully this helps explain the reasoning behind the design.
 

Browncoat

Senior Member
So you're saying that you have no interest in potential customers finding you via entering Wedding/portrait/senior photographer in _______ (enter city name here)? Did you know that nearly 90% of internet users begin their online experience with a search engine, and that of those, the vast majority use Google? That's some pretty powerful stuff. Did you also know that you can optimize you site for local search? That you can have your physical location show up in Google Maps? That you can target potential local customers with keywords, even on their iPhones?

Word of mouth only travels so far. Word of mouse is much more far reaching. Business cards and what worked for your mentor will get you referrals, sure. But the potential there is very limited unless you plan on literally dropping cards from the sky.
 
Perhaps I'm just lost in the old times. My internet browsing is more of a check on what I already know - say this forum, my own Subaru forum I founded (admin there but sold it off), my own Nik Software users forum (founder, owner, administrator), several photography based forums, and I only use Google when I'm looking for something I can't find elsewhere. I'm NOT completely oblivious to the fact that Google is a good resource, however most every time I've used Google, most of the links are sponsored, or not relevant to the information.
 

Browncoat

Senior Member
The biggest thing is the "what-ifs". What if one of your word of mouth referrals doesn't remember the name of your website, but they remember your name? With an optimized site, they can still find you. Do a Google search for my name. You will find, in this order:

  • My website
  • My Facebook page
  • My Flickr photostream
  • My Twitter account
  • My LinkedIn account
A lot of effort went into getting it this way, and coming soon to Google search: my posts here. My name is already showing up in some results with association to this forum. Sure, Google has paid search results. Companies pay big bucks to have their products associated with certain keywords...I know because I've helped set up AdSense accounts and designed web pages with keywords in mind.

But when it comes to your business, especially when your business is you, then there are certain things you can do to ensure your name pops up when it's supposed to.

The point I'm trying to make in all of this is, if you want your website to work for you then there are steps to be taken. It's not enough anymore to just put up a few pages and expect people to be able to find you on the web. It's an ongoing process.
 
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