my new website + blog

[sseeton]

i launched them both yesterday! woot!

in case anyone cares to take a peek...

sara seeton photography | modern lifestyle + portrait photography | houston children + family photographer

cc welcome :)

[dryicerx]

Very good, consistent theme all across... crisp and clean.

The only comment I have is, get rid of that splash page (the one to select between site/blog/facebook) and have it go directly to the flash main page (that already has link's to the blog and fb anyway).

Good luck!

[sseeton]

no more feedback??! is it really that bad?! lol

[GypsyHighSide]

Hi Sara, welcome to the forum. I took a look at your site and I like your site overall but there are a few things I would change.

I think you are going for a crisp, clean look and feel to your site. Your landing page, that has the website, blog, facebook links, has too much writing / info below those links. You want people to look at your website and your blog, you are giving them too much info up front. You might leave the “get flash” logo at the bottom of the page. I don’t think that would hurt the look.

Once I clicked through to the website, I noticed that it opened the page in another browser window and did away with my browser navigation buttons. I don’t like that. I would rather it open another tab and leave my nav buttons alone.

The first thing I did once on your main page was watch your slide show. There are two images that you need to replace. The first is of the little blonde headed boy. There are two people behind him in the photo and both are obscured, one almost entirely. The second is the family picture with the little girl, the mom and the dad in the yellow shirt. Dad is cropped almost to his ear. The image seems out of balance. I do like your logo design and the overall layout with the menu bar at the bottom.

Next I went to your portfolio. I looked through several of the galleries. The only think I would change would be to make the images all color or all black & whites. This just may be a personal preference, but I think the gallery flows better when it sticks to a consistent theme. I did experience something interesting here, when I clicked the “back to main menu” on the left hand side. I thought it was taking me back to the main page; it just changed the menu on the right hand side. When I didn’t see the page refresh I hit it again. I know you can navigate anywhere once the menu loads, but I guess it wasn’t what I expected.

Next was the details page. When I saw “details” I was thinking wedding shots and why wasn’t this in the portfolio section. I think a better label would be About. All the rest of your pages have normal names, portfolio, contact, blog; why not use a standardized name here? As for the content, I think you should put the info from your landing page here; this would be where you tell folks what you specialize in and where you work. You might make it a “General” subsection as you have one for “me” and “my style”. You also might try to trim some of the content down. Brevity is a good thing here. I wonder if a better way would be to put the general, me and my style next to the creative fees menu, that way you don’t have to scroll so far. Speaking of creative fees, I wouldn’t put your prices on the site. You want them to contact you. I am not sure that I would even have that section. I am sure if they like your style, they will call to get that info.

Next, I followed down your menu and went to the contact page. I like it and don’t see anything that needs changing.. Keep it as it is.

Finally I went to the blog. The thing that struck me was the layout was different than your site. I would try to match your main site as closely as possible. The other thing that I noticed was it seems busy with the slide show rolling. I would strive for a crisp, clean blog. Maybe just your logo up at the top of the page flush left. Then put a thin black line underneath the logo all the way across. Then put your menus flush right under the black line. I would also take the “me + my style” out and put it under an “about” menu. This way when people go to your blog, they can just jump right in and look at your blog posting and you photos. As for having a twitter stream on your blog, I am not sure that I like it. I certainly wouldn’t post personal info on twitter and then have that info posted to my business blog.

Well that is about all that I have. I hope my comments help you out. I know wrote a lot, but you seemed like you were looking for honest input to improve the site. Your site is not bad. Again, I like the overall look of your site.

Rob

[sseeton]

thanks for the cc rob! i appreciate it :)

[CaseyS]

Congrats on the launch Sara! I didn't read all of Rob's post but I did notice that on the blog, once you hover over the navigation at the top the dropdown menu comes up. But when you go to click on them they go away.

Of course, this could totally be user error seeing as how it's Monday morning and I haven't had any coffee yet! :)

[sseeton]

casey - what kind of computer are you on and what browser? it hasn't done that for anyone else that i know of?? weird!

[wake]

Hi Sara, I would suggest placing a background behind your navigation sub-menus. For instance, there are multiple times throughout your slideshow that when I show the sub-menu for Categories (Children/Families/Promotions) it is extremely difficult to read the sub-menu. The white text over a white blanket or on the bright image of the woman laying down make it difficult to see the links.

You have four main colors in your logo, so maybe you could use a couple of those as solid background colors for the drop-downs. :)

[CaseyS]

Sara, I'm using IE and I'm on Windows 7. I can send you some screen captures if you'd like.

[wake]

Originally Posted by CaseyS

Sara, I'm using IE and I'm on Windows 7. I can send you some screen captures if you'd like.

Sara, this is also apparent in IE 6, on Windows XP.

[sseeton]

hey guys....can you check to see if my drop down menu is working now?? thanks for the feedback!

[GypsyHighSide]

I am using a Win XP machine and normally run FireFox. They are working. I also checked it in IE8. They are working there as well.

Rob

[ChristopherCoy]

Sarah...

If you use the following HTML code on your splash page, it will turn the text white. You can type as much information as you please without 'overloading' the visitor at the first glance. This allows the web crawlers to locate HTML info on your splash page and still gives you the opportunity for rankings.

</br>
</br>
</br>
</br>

<html>
<head>
<style type="text/css">
.different-text-color { color: white }
</style>
</head>
<body>
<p><span class="different-text-color">EDIT THIS PART AND ENTER YOUR OWN INFORMATION LIKE SARAH SEETON PHOTOGRAPHY FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHY CHILDREN PHOTOGRAPHY HOUSTON PHOTOGRAPHER </span>
</p>
</body>
</html>

[wake]

Sara,

The links look great now in IE6, great job.

Chris I would advise against hidden text. Back in the late 90s web developers could get away with tricking web crawlers but they are more sophisticated today. I think caution should be taken when trying to improve SEO for our websites and research should be done to do it the right way. The last thing we want is to penalize our websites when we are trying to make them more visible.

In the first paragraph of Google's spam report page, they say: Trying to deceive (spam) our web crawler by means of hidden text, deceptive cloaking or doorway pages compromises the quality of our results and degrades the search experience for everyone. (https://www.google.com/webmasters/to...amreport?hl=en)

Google also has a Webmaster Guidelines page that suggests developers avoid hidden text (Webmaster guidelines - Webmaster Tools Help - Under Quality guidelines - specific guidelines).

Sara I like the suggest by dryicerx to get rid of the splash page all together. I think it will help you in multiple ways.

1. You could have your main portfolio {site} be the focal point. Currently it's all in flash and hijacks the web browser, so I would put it in a normal window and utilize the top to describe the services you provide (meeting Chris' suggestion, of getting web crawlers the correct information).
2. You will immediately immerse your viewers/potential customers in your work. Having them view your work when they first enter your site is better than forcing them to click/decide where to go.
3. You will be able to focus your energy/marketing on a single page instead of multiple (site/blog/facebook). You already have links listed to get to the other pages (blog/facebook) so my suggestion would be to take users directly to the site portion and let them go to the blog. Again, decide what you want to market...your blog? Or your portfolio? Personally I think portfolio, so concentrate on that and let viewers go to your blog later if they wish.

[micajoy]

I think it looks good. How difficult was it to customize your blog look? Was there coding involved?