Critique: www.claytonwallace.com - Tear into it!

[Clayton Wallace]

Ok, I finally launched my new site. Feedback welcome. Here are some catagories I particularly care about:

1. Impact - Does the site in general and specifically the photos have strong impact on the viewer?

2. Navigation - Is it intuitive, do you know where you are and how to get to where you want to be in less than 3 seconds?

3. Content - Is the content designed for the target audience (clients in the 4 catagories)

4. SEO - Does the site have the appropriate text usage, interlinking, structure etc.. to be search engine friendly (very friendly).

5. Does it leave the viewer wanting just a tiny bit more? (avoiding overkill)

6. Contact - Does it make it easy for an interested client to contact me?

I have a few minor pages incomplete that I'll be adding in the next week, and the captions are are only complete for Portraits as I haven't had the time to complete the others.


Thanks in advace. I can take criticism, so don't hold back . You can't get better if you think you're the best.

[sebbomar]

Looks like a great site to me. Not to mention the photographs. I am impressed.

As far as thinking your the best. You may have the best site.

I am assuming you are using a third party to host the photographs for people to view their photographs. If that is true. Who are you using.

Steve
www.stevebomar.com

Steve Bomar

[Clayton Wallace]

Thanks Steve. That portion of my site is through www.morephotos.com. You can see their asp generated url as mp_client (the mp being morephotos). I still have to go rework my navigation on that section as their CSS is overriding mine. I just figured out how to trick it and just need the time :)

I'm trying to muster the energy to work on it tonight for the corrections I've already found, but I'm afraid my butt is starting to look like my chair already. Maybe a few hours off is in order! (my son recently said he thought I lived in this chair...not a good sign) I'm just stumbling my way through here, following paths of people much smarter and gifted than myself. Every so often I get to make a contribution. BTW, I like your "email a photo" feature. Did you change your site recently?

[sebbomar]

I have been going through my site and updating things. The email a photo wasn't working. I found a database connection problem. I just fixed it. When I'm working on one page sometimes I mess up another page.

The free email card feature seems like a way to get my name out. I am just getting started on making money with photography. If you are interested I could email you the code for that page. You would have to modify it to match your mail service that is provided by your hosting company and incorporate it into flash. It is asp, vbscript, and mysql.

I am looking at exposuremanager.com to handle galleries and sell photos. Currently my sell photo section is under construction. It looks like it is there but nothing happens.

[janetg]

hey, i'd love to have that script...if it's not tooooo hard...

thanks

[mramos]

Very nice site. What looks a little off to me is the big gaps when you hit contact or prices. You have to scroll down to read. At first I thought it was missing until I scrolled down.

[Clayton Wallace]

Miguel,

Thanks for the feedback. Not sure what you mean about gaps. No gaps on the contact or prices pages in FF, Safari, Explorer 5+. Even the scorned Explorer for Mac shows it (mostly) correct. What browser are you using?

Do you mean the 'gaps' on the slideshow pages, below the slideshow and before the text? If so, those are intentional. The text distracts from the photos. That text is all useful, but designed for search engine optimization. If/when people find the text, all the better. The idea is to sell them on the photos, the text is to get them there.

[alyce51]

Hey Clayton,
I know what he means :when on the contact page and you have to scroll down,he means the white gap before you begin to write.
It's the pictures that make the gap,
the pictures that have the writing on them:(weddings,portraits etc...)maybe write something else on the left of the pictures like on the prices page where there is alot of writing.
It's really nothing but if you make the pictures smaller then it will fix on it's own I think.
But not a problem it's a nice site and very nice pictures also.

[Clayton Wallace]

Alice,

What browser and version are you using? I haven't seen a gap in the browsers mentioned above. I need to know what browser and version you guys are using.

[Elsaspet]

I think it looks fantastic Clayton. The photos are beautiful, it's super easy to navagative, and everything loads really quickly.

[alyce51]

firefox up to date one.

[mramos]

Originally Posted by alyce51

Hey Clayton,
I know what he means :when on the contact page and you have to scroll down,he means the white gap before you begin to write.
It's the pictures that make the gap,
the pictures that have the writing on them:(weddings,portraits etc...)maybe write something else on the left of the pictures like on the prices page where there is alot of writing.
It's really nothing but if you make the pictures smaller then it will fix on it's own I think.
But not a problem it's a nice site and very nice pictures also.

Clayton,
What Alice said is what I meant. I viewed it from work and we use internet explorer. Will check it later from home to see if I still see the white spaces.

[sebbomar]

Hello:

I didn't see that text down below.

The gap can be seen in the attached screen shot.

Steve

[Clayton Wallace]

Do you mean the 'gaps' on the slideshow pages, below the slideshow and before the text? If so, those are intentional. The text distracts from the photos. That text is all useful, but designed for search engine optimization. If/when people find the text, all the better. The idea is to sell them on the photos, the text is to get them there.

The gap they are referring to seems to be visible in an older version of FF.

Miguel, did you see it at work using Explorer? If so, what version?
Alice, do you mean you are using Firefox 1, not 1.5?
Cindy, thanks! Download time is one of my main reservations when designing this site. I finally decided the benefits outweighed the detriments. It is pretty snappy for dsl/cable, but I feel for those dial-uppers.

[alyce51]

dude it's ok! ff 1.5