I have set up a basic site www.bespokephotobooks.com I would like to make it more professional looking, I would also like to set up a secure section to allow trade to download price list etc... Any help advice is greatly recived

Hi, I think you need more graphic from now.... about photo site maybe using black color for background is OK

There is minamilist and then there is empty, and this site falls into the empty sector, the header is sparse and the image of your name looks like it has been over enlarged as its poor quality, I would suggest removing the navigation from the header and utilising the header space to contain an eye cathing header, as your site is short on content you can well afford the space to have your navigation sat underneath the header.

 

The product area looks identical to the home page, and you have to load up the pdf to even view the albums which when alls said and done is the reason for the sites existance, so I wouldnt really expect to go hunting for pictures of the albums, I would want to click on the products page, and bam there they are.

 

Your contacts page is very basic too, It would be an idea to use a contact form, the benefit is people can then give you direct feedback on their user experiance and you can also put in a brief questionair to help develop your products further, this will allow you to build a more accurate picture of your target market.

 

Your site does not validate you have HTML errors which is not good for SEO and accessibility, it is also based on tables, Tables are an outdated way to layout a site, the recommendation from the W3C is that tables are only used for tabular data and not layout, so at some point I would switch your design to a div based layout.

I agree with every thing thats been said. The Logo looks unprofessional and it looks like it was made in mspaint. It would be worth investing in someone to make a logo for you if you're not of a graphical bent. I like the simplicity of the menu, but It could do with some tweaking. You really need to read up on CSS as your code is wayyyyy out of date. html dog have some excellent tutorials on css and html for beginners.

I like simplicity, but your site looks unfinished and thrown together in a afternoon. Consider gradiant backgrounds for an added depth.

if you want to make it look more professional, and do it yourself, spend some time looking through css galleries for inspiration. there are a lot of design and coding tutorials out there as well.

Thanks for the input, I'm not a web designer so have learnt things as I go along, And have looked at the site so many times that it is hard to look at with fresh eyes.

 

Thanks for the input I will read up on CSS and try to put a better site together over the weekend.

 

Thanks

Right I have updated the site www.bespokephotobooks.com it is still not 100% as we are waiting on some new pictures and also I need to write some more text i.e the News page and I am also going to change the download graphics

 

But any advice would be welcome.

The way the grey spans across the top doesn't look that great, I think because it is just a flat colour, if you tried adding a shadow under it so that it looks lifted off the white it probably wouldn't look so bad.

 

The text on the header image fades into the image too much, plus in my opinion the font choice isn't that great

 

The quote that you have under the header looks like you have stretched the texts with, so it looks really unprofessional and quite odd....actually flipping through the pages all your quotes look like they have been either stretched be it width or height, so it just makes the text look wrong. If it is just the font rather than something you have done yourself I would strongly suggest that you look for a better font.

 

The way the text content is placed makes me not want to read it. There isn't much text but it just goes on and on because you have opted to have it quite narrow, which is something I really don't understand.

 

 

PDFs should be opened in new windows not in the same one as the web page, studies have shown that because the browser changes a lot when the pdf is opened that it isn't that good on a usability stand point to have it opening in the same window.

 

Also nothing really goes together, its like you haven't thought of the site as a whole your have just thought of what needs to be on the site and then placed them on. So the reason it looks plain is because nothing is really working woth each other to make a design, it is just sat next to each other.

 

Here is where I think the main problem is. The site is for these lovely crafted books to celebrate life and happy moments, in the broacher there are some really nice images of the books. However on the website you have all these really dark quite nasty looking images of printers...and the colour choice just makes the site feel dull and a little morbid rather than giving off the life and spirit of the site.

 

 

I think you have looked at it and thought right I need to create a site that is professional and has a business feel to it, and from that you have got bogged down with quite a corporate looking site and you have forgotten what the product is that is trying to be sold.

 

My advice is, this site really does the books no favours, they look like nice bright well constructed books, so try and bring that to the site, think of the happiness and joy that people will have when they look through the photos and try and capture that spirit into this site as well...

 

Sorry that this has all been negative, I just feel that this project you are doing could be so much fun to do, and there is so much you could do with it, what you have is ok, with a few little tweaks it could be better. I think my problem is that its not really ok for what the product is as you are not showing the product to its full potential.

Thanks for the feedback. regarding the pics of the books new ones will be going on we are just making the new books at the moment, as soon as they are done , the new images can be put up.

 

Regarding the quotes I think I need to redo them. and make sure I keep the same font size in all of them as otherwise it jumps about to much.

 

I think I will make the text that is read sit in a wider coloum so it does not stretch so far down the page.

 

 

I agree with the PDF's but how do i make them open in a new page?

 

 

I think the header image also needs to be nice and colourful, as this would bring the whole page up, I think a nice picture of the books would be better.

 

I'm hoping to bring some more colour into the site with the new pics of the books.

 

You have to remember I'm not a web designer I'm learning this as I go along so any advice is welcome.

Your site does have the calling card at the moment of a new web designer, just because it looks like how new designers think a professional site should look...with practice you will make this site look good as there were some elements of nice design to it (even though I only told you the negatives )

 

 

As you are using a transitional doctype you all you need to do is add this bit of code into the links that open your PDFs

 

target="_blank"

 

I look forward to seeing the site when you add more colour and bring it to life. Just remember to have fun with it

Thanks for your help.

 

I'll add it in tomorrow, I was going to pay some one to do the site, but they wanted Far to much cash. So thought I'd have a go myself. the site before was really basic!

Your top Image is not too good and not attractive. A lot of space in footers is blank. You should remove this space and adjust your footer contents within one or two lines.

site is cute, you need only specific marketing strategy. And You will run quickly on your project...