New Smoky Mountain Site

[mooney101]

Great Smoky Mountains Family, Wedding, Event, Photographer

This is a new site I did to give a unique experience and look for those who visit the Great Smoky Mountains. What do you think?

 

[tirediron]

I think:

(1) This is posted in the wrong forum; and

(2) You have some work to do

-The pages have way too much information, and it doesn't seem to be laid out logically

-The 'site takes WAYYYYYYYYY too long to load

-Looking around, I can't find any galleries or image collections; this is a photography 'site, right?

 

[mooney101]

I think:

(1) This is posted in the wrong forum; and

(2) You have some work to do

-The pages have way too much information, and it doesn't seem to be laid out logically

-The 'site takes WAYYYYYYYYY too long to load

-Looking around, I can't find any galleries or image collections; this is a photography 'site, right?

Sorry about the wrong forum. As for length of loading it doesn't seem to take long on my end but thanks for the heads up.

Galleries are to be added.

What do you mean by way to much information? I was trying to create an online pricelist, did I go to far?

 

[tirediron]

It will load much more quickly for you because it's your 'site and all the cookies and previously viewed pages are on your machine. Don't forget people today have little time and less patience; given the number of competeing 'sites, yours HAS to stand out.

I shouldn't have said "information", I should have said "text". Quite simply, there's just too darn much data to look at. Have you reviewed the 'site on a smartphone? I can't access it from work, but I will when I get home, and I suspect reading and navigating is going to be a challenge.

First off: I would have only one navigation bar NOT two or three on a single page, and I would remove the animation which causes things to automatically shift on your home page. You don't need a home page link on your home page.

On your home page, I would have a brief introduction (max 3-4 lines) of what your company is and what you offer and where you're located- if I want fashion photography and you don't do that, I'd like to know sooner rather than later, likewise if I'm on the west coast and you're on the east coast, I'm wasting my time, along with your best image (600ish pixels long side) as an attention grabber. Along with that large, easy to read navigation links:
Galleries, Bookings, Contact, Bio, Prices
Lose all of the superflous graphics "Tips" "Payment Plans".. and I would lose any reference to financing, payment, etc. If you want to mention in alongside your prices, great, but without the prices, I see "Financing" and think, "No way I can afford this guy, I'm outta here!"

Try and size your page so that it will fit all on a 1024x768 monitor. I'm lazy; making me scroll down for information and I'm going to get bored and go elsewhere.

 

[GeneralBenson]

The first thing I noticed, is a pet peeve of mine: use of ubiquitous quotation marks.
"We come to you" "Don't wait" "Unique" "Weddings" and so on. Quotations marks have nothing to do with any of those headings and are completely out of place. Unless of course what you provide is ironically close to unique in a humorous way, but isn't in fact unique, and is therefor "unique".

I also agree with Tired. It's information overload, and there is just way to much going on visually. And it looks way too much like a blog of twtter homepage, and not like a professional photography site.

 

[pbelarge]

What is also difficult to adjust to, is there is no header on your page. The top of the page is your contact icons. Place them somewhere else and design a header so people don't flounder.
Your home page has way too much happening.

 

[mooney101]

thanks for the feedback. I'm going to tweak a few things.

As for load time i was talking about with cache cleared on both the server and my end it still loads in about 8 seconds on broadband. After the initial load the rest of the pages laod in a few secs each.

 

[GeneralBenson]

thanks for the feedback. I'm going to tweak a few things.

As for load time i was talking about with cache cleared on both the server and my end it still loads in about 8 seconds on broadband. After the initial load the rest of the pages laod in a few secs each.

8 seconds is really slow. If a photo website ever took that long for me, I would be gone before it loaded. People are really impatient, especially when "window-shopping" for photographers. You don't want to give them any reasons to leave.