New website critique needed ~ please!

[rub]

Hello

I have been working on my new website for a few days now. I will say now that I am still working on the gallery speed/navigation.

Please take a look if you ahve a few minutes to spare. Im hoping to get some honest feedback about what works, but especially about what doesn't.

I have recently come to find I dont much like shooting families and kids and newborns as much as portraits and weddings and boudoir, so thats what I tried to focus on.

Any feedback is appreicated.

Thanks,
Kristal

www.kristalburgessphotography.com

 

[c&k]

Kristal I work for a webhost/cms and look at websites all day everyday so I'll be happy to take a look and post some feedback when the bosses aren't around.

 

[bennielou]

I think it looks super good. Go with it!

 

[SpeedTrap]

it is a bit slow to load, took about 30 sec to get to main page and longer to get into the gallery.

You need to make it faster, I left after waiting for 1 min and 30 sec for the gallery to load.

 

[bennielou]

Hi Speed, I'm on a TWC, and it loads super fast for me.

 

[c&k]

Ok I checked it out. I'm not a fan of flash websites at all. Nevertheless some people love them. But what you'll find is that a large number of visitors will get frustrated at the load times and leave the site early and/or not come back at all. This you see already with some of the feedback you've already received here.

I didn't like the gallery experience at all. I thought it was counter intuitive and thought there were too many clicks. When I first clicked one of the top gallery links I expected to be taken directly to the gallery however your visitor is shown a couple of images. Then to enter the gallery the visitor has to click an image.

But then I tried again and realized I just didn't wait long enough for the gallery to load. I may not be the first or last to do that.

It would also be nice if the visitor could control the speed at which the galleries scroll.

The home link doesn't work.

The images in the circles on the About Me page rotate too fast for my preference.

Pocketbook page has a misspelling.

Kuddos page- Again I thought the image rotations were way to fast here. Plus you have text that tells the visitor to click the image to pause when more accurately the images are enlarged. I expected the rotations to stop and read the image there rather than a larger version pop up.

I know that wasn't very positive but honest feedback is what was asked for.

 

[craig]

Beautiful photos!

I had trouble getting out of the Boudoir gallery. The site was slightly slow, but I think it was because I was downloading photos. Personally; I like to see thumbs and 1 large image.

Maybe try a simpler site for kicks. Use google analytics and compare the two.

Love & Bass

 

[rub]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. This is exactly what I was wanting to hear - the truth! I will be working on these things today, and will post again when I am closer to be finished.

Cheers,
Kristal

 

[rub]

I have made some changes, and hope you can look again and give more feedback. Please note there are just place holder photos in the galleries for now. Once I have it set, I will upload the images.

Thanks everyone.

Kristal Burgess Photography

 

[c&k]

The slower picture transitions in the about me page is much better.

Still a misspelling on the pocketbook page unless you're intending to use the British variation. (enquire)

Love the change to the Kuddos page (although I just realized it is misspelled too)...Kudos

Home link works which is great.

And the gallery change is great as well.

I think there's some really nice changes in there Kristal. Nice job.

 

[rub]

Thanks!

I am the QUEEN of typos. I once had a 4' x 2' banner made for Kristal Bugress Photography. Ouch.

 

[c&k]

Thanks!

I am the QUEEN of typos. I once had a 4' x 2' banner made for Kristal Bugress Photography. Ouch.

Haha yeah that would suck for sure.

 

[Johnny C]

Hi,

I don't like flash unless done really well but even then I still prefer a good old CSS built web site.

Right first things first what are your goals in relation to traffic?

Do you expect people to find you naturally through google and yahoo etc. or do will your other marketing drive people to your site?

If you are looking at google traffic you will need to wokr on some seo?

I would suggest building an HTML feeder page so build a well optimized page following good seo principles. Get a free bit of software called web ceo which will help you keywords, seo anaylsis and track your rankings.

Going back to these feeder pages submit the page to google and yahoo. Design in such a way that it is highly seeded with your keywords and at the same time invites people to enter the main site.

You need to register a google account and then add analytics to your pages which will help you get your website statistics. Bounce rate is a key figure keep it under 30% and your site is what they are looking for and so search your site.

plenty of seo information available on the web.

others have commented on the look etc though i would give you a bit of a different slant.

cheers

Johnny

 

[HikinMike]

If you want to be found in search engines, you need to add some text (actual words) on your home page. Adding what you do and where you're located would be a plus. At a minimum you need to at least change your <title> tag from 'Kristal Burgess Photography' to 'My Town, State - Your Specialties Photography'.....fill in the blanks obviously. When was the last time a potential client Googled your name to find YOU? I didn't think so....

 

[rub]

Honestly, I'm not all that concerned with the google traffic. At this point, I receive 95% of all new business from word of mouth and referals. I have started to do some advertising, and just felt that my old site was a bit too juvenile.

Maybe once I am a bit bigger I will look at that aspect (and hire someone to do it for me, as I am clueless) but as it stands at the moment, I am more interested in having a funtional, easy to navigate online portfolio, rather than a site that will bring in additional business. I am not quite at the year 2 mark for my business, and I plan on growing slowly, as I cannot commit to this being a full time career at this point. *I own 2 other businesses in non related fields

That being said, I do appreciate the feedback, and I will look into makeing at last some of those changes work for me. Meaning I will copy and paste and send to my web guy

Thanks.
K