connersz

I have just tried adjust the page but I just can't get things to look right with the pictures, I have tried a few different approaches but just can't get it to look ok. I also tried two buttons linked to prices and gallery but they looked awful and out of place. I have tidied the site up a bit and removed some links. I was also trying to add a slideshow on the home page but the site runs on Joomla and I tried 4 different slideshows but could get none of them to work.

Thanks, I will get onto those this evening! BlueDreamer: When it comes to buttons I have tried them before on this site along with other things but never got them to look right. Do you have any suggestions as to how I can make buttons look good or where I should put them?

I lose a good 75% of traffic on the home page after a couple of seconds. I need to improve the site so that they move on to take a look at the products and then preferably to the contact page afterwards. The site is www.jcp.photos Any tips or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

No one able to answer this at all?

I read somewhere a while ago that by having lots of good reviews on your Google places (now Google+ business) page that it could increase search rankings as obviously they provide Google a reason to bump you up. I was wondering how relevant this information still is and if anyone has had any experience with reviews on the linked Google+ page pushing certain sites up the search rankings. I would also be interested to know whether this is the best platform for accepting reviews or are other sites like Facebook etc. better in any way.

Ok, so I guess I will just have to live with it :-\

Hi johnF, I a gree and have been thinking of a few ways I could do this. If you have any ideas please share.

As I said before they are all direct.

No I'm using Vidahost.

I can't work this out, I don't promote my website at al in Germany. None of them are coming from search traffic or referals, it is all direct. And yet over 13% of my website traffic comes from Germany. What's going on?

Hi rallport, Yes it's quite hefty but I don't think it causes any real problems, unless you can advise otherwise. I updated all the images in event folders but forgot a few, will get those resized. I'm glad you like the design, I am trying to get a balance between commercial and family photography which are usually completely different things so I hope it works. The turd I'm guessing is Joomla? This is the only one I've had experience with in the past, to be honest I should of given Wordpress a chance but it will do me I'm sure.

I presume that was the idea but I have thought about it before, all it adds on the home page is 'Home' and it adds more space between the menu and the content. I have still left it on all other pages. I don't think the search engines will have a problem, I am submitting site maps so I guess this is alright? Will the search engines even use breadcrumb trails?

I have also removed the breadcrumb trail from the homepage.

I have sorted the problems with the image files last night but didn't have much time to do the other bits so will take a look later. I am really trying not to use a portfolio style website because I still feel I need to keep things separate as much as possible. I know it's not entirely avoidable but a lot of people coming to the site are looking for family photography and I don't want them to have to sort through photo's or albums of loads of air-brushed models and pictures of food etc. to get to them. The goal I had in mind was to eventually have one tab called 'Photography' for example with the types listed as child elements, but this was going to be a future step because at the moment I don't have loads of different types. I have been looking at the leading studio in my area and it has that kind of layout.

Thanks for the tips, I do agree with the text lenght but was using JCE editor and had problems finding a way to do it, I could always do it manually I suppose. I will also see about the text size and using rems. I am tempted to try and do something with the links, I am a bit worried about child links though because I don't know if you noticed on the family dropdown but the hover isnt working on this menu all the time and you often need to click the parent element to expand them.

1. I'm guessing you had to go on the RPS website to find the details if the costs, this isnt something everyone knows about. 1a. I am currently working on my distinctions and having training with the RPS, which suggests to potential clients that I am always progressing with my photography. You don't need to pay anything to do these, the additional subscription gives you a right to cheaper training, gallery information, publications and promotional material which includes the use of the crest. 2. Unless I feel that the crest is giving a negative impact for any reason it stays where it is.

Frankly I have no idea what you're going on about, but thanks for the advice; I guess?

Yes I am a member how did you guess? I have the right to use that crest on my website so why wouldnt I use it?

I couldnt go this far because I do both commercial and domestic stuff. I will have to separate it somehow which is why I have tried to create an area for the family stuff which is out the way of the businessy area.

Yeh but if Google isnt happy with it, then that's not doing you any favours.

Thanks for the tips, do you think if i add the photography categories as sub menus that they will have the same inpact? or will they become ignored? I will check out the zenphoto, another reason for the new one I got is that you can add galleries to normal articles which is good for my blog which may contain many images from events etc. The way the old one worked was that I had to assign the gallery to a menu item and the SEO stuff was terrible.

Ok I have removed the call me back, let me know what you think. I will sort something out with the vouchers later. With regards to the images, as I said I was using a much more fancy viewer before which was able to resize them accordingly. I had to find a different one because with the old galleries assigned to menu items, the page metadata was coming from the galleries and it was messing things up. I intend to go through and resize the pics like I did for the ones I added last night under shipton fete in my blog.

I thought it might help if I add a list of concerns or known issues so here they are: *Just changed to new picture viewer- Now many of the image sizes are too large and taking a long time to load, I am working on it. *Meta data coming from different places- This is because I have different elements on each page and it struggles to get the hierarchy correct, although I have partially solved this by removing the last gallery plugin and replacing them with articles but I am not 100% confident. I think I have managed to get the info to mostly come from the menu setup. -I am going to remove the call back form later and try to sort the vouchers out somehow.

The idea with the form is that I wanted to make it as easy as possible for people to get in touch, if that meant me calling them back then fine. Do you definately think I should just remove it? I am trying to get my head around the keywords still, I am being given conflicting advice as to what I should do but I am worried that if I don't have enough, that my content may not be structured correctly for Google to use the right information. I don't understand your suggestion for the navigation. I have never sold a voucher, but then the site has been online for 2 weeks, I have heard of photographers doing well with them so by adding the payment processing the idea was to make it as easy as possible. I do understand that the basket should be moved. I am taking all of the advice on-board but I am also looking for some tips on the technical stuff, I need to know that the pages are setup correctly and that it will look OK to Google, I am aware that it needs to be user friendly but I also need to focus on areas other than the UI.

I am using Joomla, with Google analytics, the standard Joomla counter/visitor status and an added page counter. The problem is none of them match, they all give completely different readings. Google might say I have 5 people online, Joomla will say 1 plus me and the third party add-on might say 3 but with only 1 visitor today in total :-S I honestly don't know what to believe! The reason for the third party add-on was that I wanted a widget on the home page that only I would see when I log-in, so I can get a quick idea of how many visitors are online and how many I have had so far.