Hi, thanks for letting me join the forum. I am a self employed photographer and am getting pretty tired of people saying I have a 'good website' when basically I constantly question how good it as as it does not bring enough business in as I would like.

 

If you could be kind enough to take a peek at my website and offer some constructive criticism then I promise you that the good karma created by your kindness will help you do awesome things either later on today but definitely before the end of the week. If you offer a good critique of my website and karma gets you laid tonight, you can think of me- but please don't do this while you are in the act!

 

Here is my website,

 

http://www.matthewsimsphotography.co.uk/

 

Kindest regards,

 

Matt

Hi Matt,

 

Welcome to WDF, I'll take a quick look.

 

What sort of feedback are you looking?

 

I'll start with the landing page.

• I would normally expect this to be the websites home page, which is found at a different location (/wedding-photography-in-wincanton).
• The landing page doesn't really tell me what the site is or what it's about, ( search engines, don't read pictures ).
• Regards to the page speed it takes 7+ seconds to load with 79 requests to the server for content totalling 3.2mb of data, this is a little excessive for a home page. If you wanted to do something like this you'd be better off lazy loading most of the content.
• Google Page Insights also has some suggestions to improve your page, might be worth a look.

You have a dead link on the about page to your portfolio

 

Generally the site doesn't look to bad, but there are some serious performance issues.

 

You'd be best looking at ways of concatenating your javascript and css files and minifying them as well to help improve page load performance. As well as looking at image compression.

Edited March 29, 201610 yr by richardmountain

Richard, sincere thanks for your feedback. I have just optimised all my images and sorted the other parts you mentioned. I am not sure how to deal with the load time issue so have emailed squaresspace for some guidance, they are normally really quick at responding so hopefully will have this sorted by lunch time tomorrow.

 

Apparently 95% of my web traffic is on mobile devices so have tweaked the layout to make it fit better.

 

Thanks again for your feedback.

 

Does anybody else have 30 second to take a quick look at my site?

 

Many thanks, Matt

What is purpose of the site?

 

I'm assuming you hope it will be a lead generator. If that is the case the it fails in many areas.

 

Bin the whole homepage - nobody wants to read all that. What prospective clients want are examples of your work. So put the portfolio on the homepage. And then link each image to a page telling the story of the photo(set). And caption each of the images in the portfolio.

 

And then put your contact details and the contact form on every page. Put your phone number in the header as well.

 

Bin the blog link but not the content. The posts will be the basis of the links from each of the portfolio images.

 

If you are not going to bother updating your SM pages remove them from the site. In anycase, SM should drive people to the site not the other way round.

 

Reconsider using squarespace. It will restrict your growth and limit your options with the site.

 

PS. It's not that good on a mobile. Again it's the limitations of squarespace and their themes

Edited March 29, 201610 yr by fisicx

Fisicx, many, many thanks for your post.

 

I have tried a few different providers in the past and with the limited coding knowledge I have SquareSpace has enabled me to make a good showcase of my work and my justification (let me know if you think differently) for this is that Brides will like the 'prettyness' of Squarespace sites and associate this with my work. I did pay someone to make me a bespoke website once and they made something so fancy that it was all about being 'coding-clever' and not about drawing in clients. From your experience, if I were to ditch SquareSpace, who would be a better alternative for the kind of lead generating website I am after?

 

I also hate the text on the first page! I felt dirty just writing it all! My reason for that was to hopefully inject some text to make home page more SEO effecient, I really like just having an engaging image as a landing page but from what I understand this will not perform well with regards to SEO. Please let me know if I am misunderstanding something here.

 

I love the idea of the contact form on each page, cheers for that!

 

I have googled what SM pages are but still not sure, please can you clarify this comment please, thanks.

 

You mention to bin the blog link, do you mean from the navigation bar or from the text I have put in the pages?

 

Sincere thanks Fisicx, you clearly know your topic and your input is much appreciated.

 

Thanks

 

Matt

Very little of that text on the homepage is going to help your ranking. People tend to search Google by location so you need to make that a primary feature of the site. You do this by adding posts and categorising them. You link via the images and assocated captions. You also make sure you have a blog feed on the homepage.

 

SM = Social Media. You haven't posted since 2015. That makes it look like you are out of business.

 

Remove the blog link from the navigation (or call it something else). The links to the posts should be from the portfolio pages.

 

This is a site I helped with a few years back. Tom has retired now but he still gets enquiries even thought the last portfolio post was in 2014: http://www.tompollockphoto.com

 

It's a wordpress site using the albedo theme.

You should definitely add more pictures on your front page probably by using a slider.

Fantastic advice, sincerely thank you!!!

 

I have made the adjustments that you have suggested, take a look, what do you think? I need to do a proof read later but in terms of structure and layout do you think I am now on the right path- I certainly think the website is much much better, I cannot thank you enough for your comments so far.

 

Is there anything else that you think is worth a few minutes of my time to alter? Fixing up a website is quite addictive when you can see that it is going somewhere!

 

I cant wait to see what other feedback I get!!!

 

Kindest regards,

 

Matt

 

Here is the link again

 

http://www.matthewsimsphotography.co.uk/

Edited March 31, 201610 yr by MSP

Much better. But each image should take me somewhere. The top image looks great but where was it taken? Are there any other images in the set I can look at?

 

Where are you based? Doesn't say on the page.

How can I get in contact? I could fill in the form but I'd rather call you to see if you are free on the day.

 

Make the form simpler. One field for the name, ask for telephone or email, subject isn't needed but you do need the date of the wedding and the location. Rather than 'message' change this to 'special requests'.

 

The sliders on the portfolio pages need to go. Scrolling if far more natural, especially on a tablet.

 

And you need words. Google can't see the images so you need the words to go with them. locations are really important.

 

I'd still reconsider your platform. You are going to be limited in what you can do with squarespace and the longer you leave it the more difficult it will be to more to a more suitable CMS.

Thanks again fisicx.

 

I have implemented most of the changes but have a few questions if that is ok?

 

You mention the pictures should link somewhere, where should they link to? Please can you give me some examples?

 

The sliders disppear on when the gallery is viewed on a tablet, but I agree the PC version on the gallery does suck! I have been tempted just to put the images in a vertical line, do you think that would be better?

 

Thanks again in advance,

 

Matt

When I click on the image it should take me the the blog post or whatever so I can see all the images, read about the bride and the location and read the testimonial. Tell me a story.

 

Maybe the images would look better as a vertical scrolling page - its; something you would need to test - that way it will be the same on all devices.

 

The captions are a good start but the wording isn't good. What was the name of the bride and groom? Did you win the award on 2015? If not then the information is irrelevant. It's a bit like saying I entered for the BBC Photographer of the year - so did thousands of others.

 

This page isn't helpful: http://www.matthewsimsphotography.co.uk/wedding-photographer-reviews/2016/3/30/getting-married-in-somerset

 

Who were the people in the picture? Where were they taken? Where are the rest of the images? Why do you keep telling me your name?

 

At the moment you are fiddling with the edges, what hasn't been fixed is the core structure of the site and I'm not sure how you are going to fix this using squarespace. This is the sort of thing you need: http://www.tompollockphoto.com/cheshire-wedding-photographer-%E2%94%82-joanne-james/ Tom didn't want to have a CTA at the bottom but it's something you should have. And not use the form you have at the moment, see my last post about what it should be like.

 

Tom also had the guest login. He handed out cards at the event with the password so people could see a gallery and order prints.

Compared to many of the people on this forum I'm a novice when it comes to website development and design, but I've been a member of photography forums for 9 years and currently run a photography forum with some friends.

 

That's just to tell you where I'm coming from....

 

I didn't look at your website before you made the changes and only have time for a brief glance today. Sorry. My initial impressions were that it's not bad but the photos and text size need to be bigger.

 

I agree with the comment about not saying that you entered a contest unless you won.

 

IMO Squarespace is fine for a simple brochure site (see note above about me being a novice, but I have used Squarespace.)

 

I also feel that a photography site is one of the places where a slideshow IS appropriate because it's a way to showcase multiple photos.

 

I'm going to give a link to the directory of our forum, although only a handful of our members have bothered to be listed there. I'm sorry if this seems spammy or if I'm trying to promote our forum... it's just that I'm short of time and it's the quickest way to give you a list of links to some websites of photographers whose work I admire. And I think it may give you some ideas. http://www.focusedphotographers.com/directory/wpbdp_category/all-photographers/

 

[Although with my web design head on, rather than my photography head, I can see plenty of things in those sites that could be improved. Please could I ask that the non-novices on here do not tear these people's sites to pieces though, as they have not come here asking for a critique. ]

Edited April 2, 201610 yr by Jane B

I also feel that a photography site is one of the places where a slideshow IS appropriate because it's a way to showcase multiple photos.

What device do you use to look at websites?

 

I'd put money on prospective clients (ie brides) using a tablet to look for photographers. And the natural flow on a tablet is vertical scrolling. Same on a phone.

 

The other problem with squarespace sliders is linking the images to portfolio/photoset pages. This applies to all photographer sites not just Matt's.

Personally, I use a desktop PC but I take your point about brides maybe using a tablet.

 

You can link images in a Squarespace slider to pages if you want to. I'd say that most photographers don't do that but it's an idea.

 

I'd put money on prospective clients (ie brides) using a tablet to look for photographers.

 

Good point but though brides might just belong to the "tablet-segment" the total tablet traffic is just about 14% in UK and only 5% worldwide

http://gs.statcounter.com/#all-comparison-ww-monthly-201503-201603

Mothers / mothers in law also tend to be very active in wedding planning and if you are over 50, mobile screens are just too damn small to watch pictures on.

So you will most definitely see a lot of other devices. I would imagine many users would prefer larger screens when browsing photo portfolios. But it should be fairly easy for OP to pull statistics for that.

Edited April 2, 201610 yr by Nillervision

 

Good point but though brides might just belong to the "tablet-segment" the total tablet traffic is just about 14% in UK and only 5% worldwide

The problem with stats like those is they don't have enough granularity. Those stats include all business users which skews the stats in favour of desktops.

 

But if you look at various other studies they show tablet use at home has overtaken desktop use. One report I read least year suggested 72% of all internet browsing is now done on mobile devices.

 

http://www.smartinsights.com/mobile-marketing/mobile-marketing-analytics/mobile-marketing-statistics/

http://www.statista.com/statistics/249124/tablet-penetration-in-the-united-kingdom/

http://media.ofcom.org.uk/news/2015/five-years-of-tablets/

 

Which is why if you are building a B2C site you should optimise for tablets/phones before working on the desktop version.

 

You can link images in a Squarespace slider to pages if you want to. I'd say that most photographers don't do that but it's an idea.

And that's because most photographers focus on the look of their site and not about how effective it is at getting new clients.

 

PS, my parents are over 70 and they use an iPad for just about everything as do many of their friends.

Edited April 2, 201610 yr by fisicx

I'm not really with it today as I spent most of yesterday walking round and round the gadget show at the NEC with my son, so I'm pretty exhausted. But you seem to be saying that this site is a good example of a photographer's site, but also that the portfolio should not have a slider ... but this has a slider... http://www.tompollockphoto.com/portfolio/derbyshire-weddings/

Edited April 2, 201610 yr by Jane B

Me and Tom disagreed on a lot of things - the slider being one of them. It was something he added after we set up the site. What I was trying to point out to Matt were the portfolio pages (blog posts) as they are the ones that generated most of the traffic.

The problem with stats like those is they don't have enough granularity. Those stats include all business users which skews the stats in favour of desktops.

And social media skews the stats in favour of handheld devices so...

As I said the best thing to do is for OP to do is to take a look at his own stats rather than having us guessing what devices are used (no matter how qualified our guesses are )

Wow, some great help coming from you all, thank you so much. I am working through the advice I have had, I plan to get this finished off tonight. One thing I am struggling with is to create good image descriptions. For sure I could just say "x and y got married at Venue, in London".l and repeat this so that it is factually correct for each image. Is this 'best practice'? Would you advise I be more creative? Eg "here is a and b getting married at venue, this black and white image shows a timeless style to their wedding photos"? I always throughy I should get some key words in there. What kind of thing would you write?

 

The stats for my website are heavily swayed to mobile devices, over 70% Of traffic is on mobiles.

 

Thank you for the link to other photographers, I will check it out, it sounds like it could be worthwhile for me, thanks for sharing it.

 

Back to work, I think it will be a late night for me, lots of editing to do!!!!!

'Brenda and Barbara got in contact last year looking for a photographer for their wedding as Crumbly Castle in Cambridge. They wanted a 50s style wedding with lots of big skirts and a rock and roll theme. They had hired a big Cadillac for the days so we planned some great outdoor shots... yadda yadda yadda.'

 

You don't need to caption each picture. You need to caption the images on the homepage and location pages and link these to the gallery relating to that occasion.

 

Organise your site first. Get everything uploaded and categoried, write the blog posts (one for each photoshoot) and create the pages to lead people to these posts. The category/location pages are going to be key to your marketing so you need to lead people to them.

 

Plan the site properly before doing anything online. Spend a week writing and organising and cataloging and then upload. Don't try to fit the new content into your existing pages, start all over - it's far easier.

 

So make sure you have a blog post for each photoshoot with the full description and lots of sample images. Use category/location pages to link to these blog posts. Use the homepage to link to recent photoshoots and the category/location pages.

 

It's going to be a lot of work. maybe months getting it all properly organised, optimised and promoted.

All done!! Please come and take a look!

 

 

http://www.matthewsimsphotography.co.uk

Text is still a bit small IMO.

 

But the main issue, I feel, is that the portfolio images are being displayed at a bigger size than they are saved at, which is affecting the quality.

Hi, thanks for your feedback. I agree the text is small but unfortunately the template I am using restricts my ability to change this, I can make things appear larger by making them 'bold' but I am not sure this is any better.

 

With the image sizes, my aim was to improve load times and keep a decent image size so I have resized them to 800px wide. A vast majority of my website usage is through a mobile browser so hopefully this is ok on those devices. Have I got this wrong? I suppose I could up the quality on pages where there are not too many images.

Move the site. The longer you stick with Squarespace to harder it's going to be for you in the long term.

 

It's looking much better. The homepage still has a lot of waffle before you get to the images on a phone. And you are trying too hard on the optimisation, you don't need to say 'Wedding Photographer' on every post (Google doesn't like this sort of thing).

 

But it's starting to come together. Just need to make sure you have images on all the posts: http://www.matthewsimsphotography.co.uk/wedding-photographer-reviews/2016/4/6/tracy-park-wedding-photographer

 

And if you have access to the theme files all you need to do is tweak the CSS to increase the font size.

Squarespace has a place for inputting css rules so, yes you can change the size if you want to. I agree making it bold is not a good plan.

 

I'd say that images should be as wide as they are going to be displayed. That doesn't sound very grammatically correct but I hope you know what I mean.

Well, i will suggest you these things.

1. Show the full width banner on your site.

2. Increase the resolution of images.

3. Try to short the content on your homepage because visitors prefer images rather than reading a huge text.