Website C&C Please

[Destin]

Alright guys, I'm ready for some C&C on my website. It's just a basic smugmug pro setup. Nothing fancy about it. But tell me; what do I need to change? What did I forget to add? Anything you think could make it better, let me know!!

Don't hold back guys. I've got thick skin, I can take whatever you've got to dish out.

www.DestinDanser.com

 

[Destin]

Anyone?

 

[ChadHillPhoto]

Pro's:
I like the website.
Its clean, easy to navigate.

Con's:
The slide show features a landscape image but there is no landscape gallery.
I also feel that eventually you ll have to pick which genre you specialize in as now it seems to be 4 different genre's.

Good luck and keep up with the good work!

 

[Destin]

Pro's:
I like the website.
Its clean, easy to navigate.

Con's:
The slide show features a landscape image but there is no landscape gallery.
I also feel that eventually you ll have to pick which genre you specialize in as now it seems to be 4 different genre's.

Good luck and keep up with the good work!

Good point on the landscape images and not having a gallery. They'll be removed asap. Good catch, I should have noticed that lol.

And I might have to narrow it down, but honestly I make money in all of them except for music. I just have that there now because I'm trying to get a job shooting a music festival and needed my portfolio online.

Many photogs are able to balance portraits and weddings. And I'll definitely be keeping both of those for the long run, and building upon them.

As for sports, I don't make a ton of money at it, but it's something to do in the winter when nobody wants to get married or have portraits done. Plus I use it as a marketing tool for senior portraits.. hand out cards at high school games, get parents to my site, then when they need senior portraits for their kids, they might remember me.

 

[Russell Johnson]

My one comment would be that there is no 'About You' section. In my experience, it is a page that is visited as regularly as any of my galleries.

Also, your contact link is hidden in the footer, I would place that in the main navigation.

A nice clean site and easy to navigate.

 

[Destin]

My one comment would be that there is no 'About You' section. In my experience, it is a page that is visited as regularly as any of my galleries.

Also, your contact link is hidden in the footer, I would place that in the main navigation.

A nice clean site and easy to navigate.

Thanks for the feedback. I just updated it with a pricing page, and for now my contact is in that.

I'm working on adding a seperate contact page, but im not too good with CSS and html, So reformatting galleries into info pages (the way it has to be done on smugmug) can be tricky for me. It's a slow process, but I'm figuring it out.

 

[Destin]

Alright guys, I added the contact page and made some other changes. Let me know what you think now? Anything else I'm forgetting?

 

[Russell Johnson]

I would move the contact & pricing page to give a better flow to the site navigation.

Have your galleries first, then pricing, then contact. As we read for left to right, you want people to look at your images first.

The big issue that I have with the site is the lack of information about yourself or your photographic style, as I already mentioned.

There are plenty of people who can take a decent portrait, so you need to include that extra dimension as to why people should use you. What extra do you offer? Sell and promote your brand.

For example, in the sports gallery , include some text as to why sports photography appeals to you and what experience you have in that field.

PS Get a domain name too.

 

[Robin Usagani]

You should only put horizontal photos on your main page slideshow. The portrait orientation is too small I think to be on a slideshow.

 

[Destin]

Russ: I have a domain name. But it's not set up to redirect right. It's DestinDanser.com, but it is just set to redirect to my smugmug url. I need to change it to redirect to domains.smugmug.com, and then change my url in the smugmug settings. However redirecting is something i have no idea how to do, so I'm waiting for my friend to do it for me.

I've changed the location of pricing and contact links in the nav bar.

As far as information goes: I'll have to add a seperate page for it. The problem with your example is that smugmug doesn't allow me to have text on the sub-category pages, such as the page with the different sports listed. Unfortunately there is nothing I can do about that, so I'll just have to write a bio and throw another link in the nav bar I guess.

@schwetty: Yeah I thought about that and I agree. Unfortunately almost all of my favorite photos or in portrait orientation, so I'm gonna have to wait until i get a chance to shoot some more