No Sales

[toastydeath]

Would you please elaborate on what you mean here "professional standards."

thanks
J
http://www.redhawkphoto.com

Sure. While DocFrankenstein bluntly nailed the image composition complaints I had, I really didn't elaborate on specific website critique. I felt the critique of the product was necessary before the delivery mechanism.

But since you ask...

Professional standard: What would you expect for $10k (USD) per page? Because that's what businesses pay, base price, for top-quality websites. It goes up from there depending on how complicated the website needs to be or what it's for (people to maintain it, etc). As was mentioned earlier in this thread, this does NOT account for the hundreds of thousands of dollars that need to be invested to get legitimate traffic. There are a bunch of user interface considerations and aesthetic elements that MUST be considered from a psychology standpoint in order to create a sense of trust and honesty with the people browsing a website. There are tons of papers and studies on this, and I won't go into that aspect of things. Good textbooks on web design and development will have it in spades, and I suggest your local public or college library.

Specific non-professionalism on the page in question:

It's written in a very informal tone. This presents the things being sold as amateur work, as the person doesn't appear to have the seriousness required to pitch themselves. This presentation style does not consider what the person wants from the service being sold, but instead pitches it from the viewpoint of the person selling the service. This is not a good way to sell something.

The background color is inappropriate and is in the same intensity ballpark as the white text AND the picture colors. The pictures have a wide variety of reds and oranges, and this contrasts very strongly against the stark blue background. The layout, in general, looks like it was done by someone just learning HTML. Looking at the page source itself appears to confirm this.

There are only 5 or so menu sections, and a gigantic title graphic that takes up a large amount of space (it draws the eye away from everything else, including the minuscule menu by comparison). One whole page is dedicated to a one-line copyright statement, and the contact information is a direct link to e-mail. E-mail is great, but businesses expect to be able to contact you via phone, and possibly send you letters in real life. This is common inter-business peeve (that I have unfortunately experienced all too often), and you don't want to **** the person off who wants to contact and buy stuff or services from you.

"Buy Image" is an awkward menu item to read, as it reminds me of a lemonade stand I once tried running as a kid. The gallery and "buy image" section are separated for no apparent reason. All the pictures in the gallery are on the "buy image" page. You have to find and view the image on the gallery, then find the image again on the buy page. You can't just browse and buy, because the buy page doesn't allow you to blow the image up. Even worse, the buy page is substantially different from any other part of the website.

Even worse than that, it's offered as low-cost commodity data file. No apparent print service, no prompt shipping, just some JPGs on a website for some money. I would expect to see a large, nice page about each picture. What print sizes are available, the framing available, the purchase option, and even a link to the contact page for additional questions or custom requests. For each picture. Let me say that again: A specific webpage for each picture.

Realistically, that means developing a database and a webpage fronted capable of delivering that.

These items seem like nitpicking to people outside computer science and web development/internet commerce, but they seriously affect how a person viewing a page interprets the information conveyed to them. It's like walking into a shady pawnshop versus a high-end art gallery.

This was mentioned before: You can't just learn some basic HTML and expect to put up a good commercial webpage. That was the state of affairs back at the beginning of the internet boom, and we've moved so far past that, amateurs can no longer compete. You need to spend serious time learning the visual standards used, as well as the programming languages and database packages available in order to even DREAM of running a successful webpage.

 

[NJMAN]

Professional standard: What would you expect for $10k (USD) per page? Because that's what businesses pay, base price, for top-quality websites. It goes up from there depending on how complicated the website needs to be or what it's for (people to maintain it, etc). As was mentioned earlier in this thread, this does NOT account for the hundreds of thousands of dollars that need to be invested to get legitimate traffic. There are a bunch of user interface considerations and aesthetic elements that MUST be considered from a psychology standpoint in order to create a sense of trust and honesty with the people browsing a website. There are tons of papers and studies on this, and I won't go into that aspect of things. Good textbooks on web design and development will have it in spades, and I suggest your local public or college library.

It doesnt need to go this far to get a decent commercial website up and running. I wrote all my own code with HTML, CSS, Javascript, and ASP without any formal education in any of it. I was eager to learn and just kept experimenting bit by bit until I got what I wanted (or more importantly, what the customer wanted). And my site is always a work in progress as I refine the details and pick up tips here and there all the time.

Or you can hire a talented starving college student to do a professional site for you for a fraction of what it costs to have the big dogs do it. Some of them are quite eager to show off their abilities, and also make a little cash on the side. Do some networking with your local colleges or community college/tech schools, and see what you find.

 

[DocFrankenstein]

It doesnt need to go this far to get a decent commercial website up and running. I wrote all my own code with HTML, CSS, Javascript, and ASP without any formal education in any of it. I was eager to learn and just kept experimenting bit by bit until I got what I wanted (or more importantly, what the customer wanted). And my site is always a work in progress as I refine the details and pick up tips here and there all the time.

Or you can hire a talented starving college student to do a professional site for you for a fraction of what it costs to have the big dogs do it. Some of them are quite eager to show off their abilities, and also make a little cash on the side. Do some networking with your local colleges or community college/tech schools, and see what you find.

Without a link to your website, it doesn't really say much.

Webdesign is a huge field - if you want to set up a database for the pictures and a selling mechanism, with a unique look to the whole thing - it ain't easy.

Again - let me know if you have a sample.

 

[toastydeath]

It doesnt need to go this far to get a decent commercial website up and running. I wrote all my own code with HTML, CSS, Javascript, and ASP without any formal education in any of it. I was eager to learn and just kept experimenting bit by bit until I got what I wanted (or more importantly, what the customer wanted). And my site is always a work in progress as I refine the details and pick up tips here and there all the time.

Or you can hire a talented starving college student to do a professional site for you for a fraction of what it costs to have the big dogs do it. Some of them are quite eager to show off their abilities, and also make a little cash on the side. Do some networking with your local colleges or community college/tech schools, and see what you find.

I've worked in IT for several years in production shops, despite my young age. I've also come out of a computer science college background, so please understand I'm coming from the field you've briefly dabbled in.

It all depends on how serious you are about your business. Most amateur photographers building websites are not going all in on photography, like other small business owners are. They're still amateurs. They are not developing business plans and strategies, or considering advertising channels. So in that sense, it doesn't matter what the person's website looks like, because none of the aspects of serious business are in place. That, ultimately, is a bigger factor than any website.

If you pay a starving college student and become sucessful, it often winds up being 10K per page to the company when all is said and done in hidden manpower costs. You'll eventually pay people to fix what they did wrong way down the line when your business has integrated the website tightly with the rest of it's process. You won't even know it when they're fixing it. They'll happily bill you as they go.

Business websites need to be coded and designed cleanly and professionally, unless you plan on junking both the codebase and database down the road and doing it over again.

A starving college student will get you a website that looks decent right now. A large website, done poorly, will quickly become unmaintainable. You get stuck with the initial website, and further changes are either made at great cost or not at all.

 

[stevewalton]

Thanks for all your advice guys, i can see that i am going to have to invest a lot of time in my photographic technique and web design in order to make my site successful !
Steve.

 

[markc]

I personally think it's a rare individual that can put together a good photography sales site as a solo project. I've been working with computers since the early 80's, got into web design before it was cool, and used to work for a company doing web database work. One thing I've learned is that the design process and the implementation of that design are two very different things. I've sold framed prints in a gallery, so I think I'm doing ok with the photography, and I've worked on some heavy projects for big companies, so I could implement the site easily, but for design.... Well, I'd want a graphic designer on my side. It's different from composing a photograph. My own website was easy enough for me, using a pre-built PHP app called Gallery that I modified some. But it's rather generic looking and wouldn't cut it for sales. If I wanted to go that route, I'd need a really good graphic designer to come up with something.

I used to work with a young lady that was brilliant in this area. The main thing was that she wasn't very familiar with web limitations, etc. Working together, we could come up with some great stuff, with her designing the look and me making sure that it would work. There are definitely people out there that can do both, but then how much photography experience do they have?

I'm not saying it's impossible, but that it's usually best to have outside input at the least. I think working with someone who has had experience is the way to go.

 

[ironsidephoto]

i'm trying to get the same thing going with my site. i'm trying to make myself start learning some html and start using dreamweaver. . . i'm just now realizing how much effort it takes to get your name out there. this forum helped a lot!