Site Re-Do www.BellesPhotography.com

[HotHolly]

I've just finished a site do-over on the wedding 1/2 of my website. I decided to split the site into 2 sections - 1 entirely devoted to weddings and 1 entirely devoted to children.

I was hoping a fresh pair of eyes could help me with any trouble issues, or oversights, as well as aesthetics on the wedding 1/2 of the site.

Thanks!

Belle's Photography

Edit: I have up the children's 1/2 also...

Any tips would help. I'm an HTML for dummies kind of girl, so use little words. :o)

[HotHolly]

Hello? Nobody's got nothing to say? :o(

[Daniel Bates]

C'mon, Holly, it's been four hours! Let us get home from work first!

A couple of things caught my eye... on the Gallery page, could you decrease the vertical height of that white row to make it match the other pages? Also, putting another row of thumbs in the Simpleviewer gallery wouldn't stretch the layout and would make it a bit easier to navigate (imo).

Also, the text on your site is in Times (New Roman). I'm not a huge fan of this font for web design--something less common, like Verdana, might work better here. Also, if you could widen your text columns and eliminate the scroll bar, that would be a huge improvement in usability. Scroll bars are evil...

Hope this helps you some!
--Daniel

[HotHolly]

Originally Posted by Daniel Bates

A couple of things caught my eye... on the Gallery page, could you decrease the vertical height of that white row to make it match the other pages? Also, putting another row of thumbs in the Simpleviewer gallery wouldn't stretch the layout and would make it a bit easier to navigate (imo).

I thought I put HTML for Dummies on this thread. I was SO lucky I got that page that far. Feel free to advise on how to fix it as you suggested.

The font on the site is supposed to be Tahoma. I'll look into that.

:o)

[d2frette]

Holly -

Consistency one thing I always consider when writing an application or a website. Your site has an almost consistent feel, but it's not there.
1- The menubar is at the top, but it's not always at the same spot.
2- The page colors changes, but it's not unique to each page. There are 2 red pages, 4 black ones, and two blues (perhaps of different shade of blue). I'd consider making each one different, or make them all the same.
3- The navagation is slightly different community than for FAQ or Testimony. It may or may not be a big deal for your clients, though.
4- The Gallery background is all black, whereas the other pages, only the content background is colored. I suggest making them all feel the same.

As for personal preferences, I don't like having to read such a small column. I'd rather see less margin space and more text. I also don't think much of the links at the bottom as they aren't typically links. More importantly, you've got a bad link in the middle where your address is.

Check out this odd behavior (I have IE7).
1- Keep this tab open. Begin typing a Quick Reply
2- Open a new tab and go to http://weddings.bellesphotography.com/
3- Click About
4- Return to this quick reply and type a few words
5- Go back to the tab with the About page opened.
Weird, huh!?


- Dave

[Daniel Bates]

Originally Posted by HotHolly

I thought I put HTML for Dummies on this thread. I was SO lucky I got that page that far. Feel free to advise on how to fix it as you suggested.

The font on the site is supposed to be Tahoma. I'll look into that.

:o)

You're using Simpleviewer v1.8, right? The option for changing thumbnail rows and columns is in the gallery.xml file (open it with Notepad).

As far as the bar at the top, it looks like you're using a table with a height defined by a percent value (1%). Try making that a specific pixel value, say 25 or so. The code would look like:

<td width="100%" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" height="25">

[d2frette]

Holly is using a nested table. Above the table are hidden words, such as
"take your breath away..." on the community page and
"Abilene's premiere photographer specializes in fine portraiture with an artistic New York style. Belle's creates images that will take your breath away..." on the about page.
The difference is she used a <P> tag on one page but not the other.

1 - Why are you including hidden text? Is it to get better search results?
2 - Why don't you use a stylesheet? It sure would be a heck of a lot easier to maintain this site, as opposed to dozens of font tags.

I'd highly recommend using javascript and/or DIV tags for your navagation bar....for consistency. :)

[d2frette]

Originally Posted by HotHolly

The font on the site is supposed to be Tahoma. I'll look into that.

View source and you'll see
<font size="3" face="Times New Roman">

You can either replace the TNR with Tahoma, or create one style. Instead of all of these
<font size="3" face="Times New Roman">...</font>
you'd have
<span class="basicText">...</span>

and in the <HEAD> area you'd have a style similar to this:
.basicText { font-size: 10px; font-family: Tahoma }

Stylesheets give you expontential control as compared to HTML tags.

HTH.

- Dave

[HotHolly]

Thanks Guys!

Daniel - thanks for the help with the gallery. I'm a total spaz with simple viewer. I'll give it a try this weekend and make alterations. I would like the gallery page to be consistent with the rest of the site, but have had no such luck.

David found my sneaky text. Yes, its there b/c it improved searching ability. So far, no normal people have noticed (not that I'd blush if they did). Did you notice from clicking or from the html? Just wondering. And if that's not kosher, let me know. Someone suggested it might not be. In which case, I'll move the text into the body.

A style sheet would be a good idea. I don't know how to make one. I told you - html for dummies. My brain likes paintbrushes, not computers. I'll buy a site from Blu one day. But, not today!

I have up the children's 1/2 of the site too. The background colors do NOT change. Do you think that is more aesthetically pleasing?

THANK YOU SO MUCH!

[d2frette]

Holly -

If you want, you may zip up your site and send it to me. Don't include the gallery generator, but do include the images. I'll send it back nice and tidy. Then, you can read thru the files and learn from a finished product. Trial and error is great, but it's even better to experience after it's working.

- Dave

My email is myfirstname dot mylastname at gmail dot com

[d2frette]

Oh, as for the sneaky text, not sure. I found it viewing the source. I'll show you how to hide it completely, too.

You could buy a site from me, but I doubt I'm any cheaper than anyone else!

[babybluetx23]

You have some broken links and DARNIT I can not reproduce it! ARG! NM!

EDIT: Ok I reproduced it. From this page: http://www.bellesphotography.com/specials.htm
Testimony
Proofs
Investment
Community
About
FAQs
and
Benefits are all dead links

[SaundraU]

Personnally, and this is very subjective, I think you've got a lot of great Wedding Photos and I would use one of them versus the one you have. It's a nice shot but it is the kind of shot that specific people will like and entice them further.

[HotHolly]

Thanks for the ideas.

Cynthia - How did you get to that page? There must be something pointing there from the old site. The new site has the links on a white background.

David - Are you sure? I'd be stupid to say no, but I don't want to take advantage either. This is so far beyond me, that I am lucky I got this far. Having no money is funny like that - whats that quote? Necessity is the mother of invention...double dibbs to that. I'm guessing you can tell - but I really have no idea what I'm doing. :o)

Saundra - you think there should be a more generic photo on the home page? Or the portal page? I wasn't sure where you meant. We are moving away from traditional and toward more creative images. The gallery looks like a hodge-podge of styles to me.

Thanks...

[SaundraU]

HH on the Homepage itself. I think you can still use a creative shot that would apeal to more people, take for example some of your BW with the hand painting, very crerative, very unique but still appeals to alot of people or maybe even one of the other NYC shots. For me its the Red coloring that I think might hamper some people from going further, where as if the homepage has a bit more "traditional" but still creative flair you draw them in, the portal page leave the creative one for the more creative feel and then they go and look at the gallery and they see just how dynamic a range you can do with your photography. I don't get the hodge podge feeling but if that is how you see it maybe different catagories within the gallery, i.e. Traditional, BW, Hand painted, Creativty, etc