Moved To Squarespace

danny_bhoy

danny_bhoy

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Danny
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Just moved to Squarespace in, what I hope, will be the last move for a long time. I've tried Zenfolio and Smugmug and neither really fit the bill for me.

I'd be muchos grateful, if you have a spare minute, if you could have a quick look at the new site and tell me what you think on terms of look and layout. Any glaring errors or things you might to differently in terms of structure or SEO.

I've only got round to blogging one wedding (which was a very short, low-key affair, hence the short post), the others will be on ASAP when I find a moment to myself.

You'll find it below in my signature or if you're on the app it's www.dannybirrellphotography.co.uk

Cheers :)
 
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Most obviously the logo is aliasing horribly, because its a 1500px PNG being served up at 200-ish pixels. Resize it and then replace it.

"Wedding Photographer based in Newcastle, County Durham, Northumberland & beyond." - doesn't make sense, I'm guessing you're based in Newcastle but cover those other areas.

About page - photo looks quite underexposed, also typo 'privileged' - to be honest I'd consider rewriting this page as there are lines lifted nearly word for word from another photographer's site

Pricing Page - the description of each item Has Every Word In Each Sentence Capitalised - doesn't look at all right
 
jpw said:
Most obviously the logo is aliasing horribly, because its a 1500px PNG being served up at 200-ish pixels. Resize it and then replace it.

"Wedding Photographer based in Newcastle, County Durham, Northumberland & beyond." - doesn't make sense, I'm guessing you're based in Newcastle but cover those other areas.

About page - photo looks quite underexposed, also typo 'privileged' - to be honest I'd consider rewriting this page as there are lines lifted nearly word for word from another photographer's site

Pricing Page - the description of each item Has Every Word In Each Sentence Capitalised - doesn't look at all right
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply John.

First up, sorry but I'm not very techy so the work 'aliasing' is lost on me. Will resizing solve this?

The 'based in' phrase should probably include the word 'covering' between the Newcastle & Durham in order to make more sense.

I'll fix that pic, should prob be a bit smaller as well, possibly a bit narcissistic as it is :) However I was very careful not to deliberately plagiarise, I'm terrible for browsing on other photographers sites so you'll probably find it's a mish-mash of stuff I've picked up and liked from elsewhere.

Yeah the capitalisation is a bad habit that every school teacher & employer I've had tried to knock out of me.....agree it should probably be changed in the interest of good grammar.
 
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Hi Danny.

in your pricing section, under the pre-wedding shoot, you've left the d out of discuss.

Also, the contact page, think it would be useful for potential clients to have a field to leave a contact number.

Best of luck.
 
johnnypanic said:
Hi Danny.

in your pricing section, under the pre-wedding shoot, you've left the d out of discuss.

Also, the contact page, think it would be useful for potential clients to have a field to leave a contact number.

Best of luck.
Click to expand...

Thanks for taking the time to have a look John, much appreciated.

Typo amended.

As for the contact number, that's a really good shout and something I hadn't considered. I've also raised a ticket with Squarespace customer service to see if it's possible for me to add another field to the contact form.

Thanks again John.
 
Hi Danny

My preference would to have the photo's scroll from right to left with the middle photo popping out large & left and right of it smaller & greyed out instead of having to keep scrolling down the page without any breaks between photo, food for thought :)
 
Digisatman said:
Hi Danny

My preference would to have the photo's scroll from right to left with the middle photo popping out large & left and right of it smaller & greyed out instead of having to keep scrolling down the page without any breaks between photo, food for thought :)
Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestion Shaun. I think the main problem with the pictures on the blog is that they're too big - they probably need re-sizing and uploading again. As it is, you're right, it's a fair old slog to get to the bottom.

As good as Squarespace is, as far as I know it only allows a limited amount of customization in that area so it'd either be the format I have (but with smaller pictures), a gallery style page, or a slideshow.
 
danny_bhoy said:
Thanks for taking the time to have a look John, much appreciated.

Typo amended.

As for the contact number, that's a really good shout and something I hadn't considered. I've also raised a ticket with Squarespace customer service to see if it's possible for me to add another field to the contact form.

Thanks again John.
Click to expand...
Danny,
if you can't get an extra field, I'd suggest renaming subject to contact number.
 
My thoughts are :

  1. The home page only has one photo. Not sure if that's because you are mid-website edit or not.
  2. Your 'latest work' section has only one wedding on it. If I were a customer I'd want to see more. The work there is good though. But for a photographer trying to charge £795 I'd want to see someone clearly with experience.
  3. "Hi, I'm Danny and I love making pictures!" Pictures.....really? Think this sells yourself short. It's also at odds with the next bit which is explaining your reportage style...capturing emotion etc. All packaged up into "pictures".
  4. Pricing, personally I'd change/remove the "I'm yours for as long as you want me". Been there done that. You'll end up stood at a hairdressers at 9am yawning with tummy rumbling and still be there at 10pm taking "pictures" of drunk people. I now set a time limit of 10 hours. It's of course then my discretion to vary that if I want to.
  5. In terms of SEO you are not consistent. Your first page which is the most important barely has any text. Certainly nothing of real interest to Google. Google loves content and on your first page there's not much. It'd be OK if the rest of your site has plenty of high quality content but that's not there yet either. On the home page you say you are a wedding photographer in Newcastle then on your latest work you are a wedding photographer in the North East. My suggestion is concentrate on one search term before moving to another. I'd suggest Newcastle as I don't think many couples will be typing "Wedding photographer in the North East" into Google.
Overall a solid start and certainly better than mine used to be.
 
Your blog is throwing too many images at once. Plus, 1500px on long edge is too large for many devices and mobile bandwidth allowances.

Change it to show a one image and text preview with a jump.
 
gadgeteer said:
My thoughts are :

  1. The home page only has one photo. Not sure if that's because you are mid-website edit or not.
  2. Your 'latest work' section has only one wedding on it. If I were a customer I'd want to see more. The work there is good though. But for a photographer trying to charge £795 I'd want to see someone clearly with experience.
  3. "Hi, I'm Danny and I love making pictures!" Pictures.....really? Think this sells yourself short. It's also at odds with the next bit which is explaining your reportage style...capturing emotion etc. All packaged up into "pictures".
  4. Pricing, personally I'd change/remove the "I'm yours for as long as you want me". Been there done that. You'll end up stood at a hairdressers at 9am yawning with tummy rumbling and still be there at 10pm taking "pictures" of drunk people. I now set a time limit of 10 hours. It's of course then my discretion to vary that if I want to.
  5. In terms of SEO you are not consistent. Your first page which is the most important barely has any text. Certainly nothing of real interest to Google. Google loves content and on your first page there's not much. It'd be OK if the rest of your site has plenty of high quality content but that's not there yet either. On the home page you say you are a wedding photographer in Newcastle then on your latest work you are a wedding photographer in the North East. My suggestion is concentrate on one search term before moving to another. I'd suggest Newcastle as I don't think many couples will be typing "Wedding photographer in the North East" into Google.
Overall a solid start and certainly better than mine used to be.
Click to expand...

Thanks Martin - that kind of advice is eaxclty what I was after.

It is in a bit of a half-finished state at the moment.....I intend to blog the last few weddings once the clients and thier families have had fair opportunity to view them.

The SEO steer is great too, thanks. I don't want a huge amount of text on my homepage as I'm trying to make it as clean looking as possible.......but you're right, that's no good if no sod can find your site :) I'll expand on it a bit with a few more keywords.

I'm getting a trickle of enquiries through, hopefully the more I blog and show what I've got, the steady enquiries/bookings will follow.
 
Kris said:
Your blog is throwing too many images at once. Plus, 1500px on long edge is too large for many devices and mobile bandwidth allowances.

Change it to show a one image and text preview with a jump.
Click to expand...

Cheers Kris, I'm hopeless when it comes to resizing for web - what size would you suggest is optimal? And is it best to rezise in Photoshop then re-upload rather than let Squarespace resize?
 
I use 1024 on the long side with 70% compression in LR. After it's exported I run it through ImageOptim to squeeze every last kb out of the filesize. I use mac though. I'm sure there must be alternatives for Windows. Most of my filesizes are around 100Kb - 200Kb
 
gadgeteer said:
I use 1024 on the long side with 70% compression in LR. After it's exported I run it through ImageOptim to squeeze every last kb out of the filesize. I use mac though. I'm sure there must be alternatives for Windows. Most of my filesizes are around 100Kb - 200Kb
Click to expand...

Great stuff - I'll give that a shot when I get home from the nine to five.
 
800 or 1000 is a decent compromise size, whether nicely centred on single column or a little tight with a sidebar.

I like Lightroom's .jpeg exports; compression no higher than 70% or so. I wouldn't let any third party CMS manage my images.

Also, I hate the minimal padding around images on blogs - I think yours must be just a few pixels. I prefer images to breathe. But that's a personal choice.
 
My artistic humble opinion only:

With re to the blog post, I think that you could have benefited from a little fill flash on the gentleman.

He has rather sunken eye sockets, and I miss the sparkle in the eye.
 
Kris said:
My artistic humble opinion only:

With re to the blog post, I think that you could have benefited from a little fill flash on the gentleman.

He has rather sunken eye sockets, and I miss the sparkle in the eye.
Click to expand...

You're spot on Kris, that was pointed out when I stuck the images up for crit. I meant to lighten them a bit in post before blogging them but, in the madness that is my life, totally forgot......there's another job for the list tonight :)
 
Danny,

Please accept my apologies if you consider my comments too picky.

On the About page the ellipsis 'do it justice...... should be do it justice ... ( i told you I am picky:))

Latest works page should be at places not as

Pricing I would prefer intrusive rather than obtrusive

Contact page Your details

Charles
 
ChasG said:
Danny,

Please accept my apologies if you consider my comments too picky.

On the About page the ellipsis 'do it justice...... should be do it justice ... ( i told you I am picky:))

Latest works page should be at places not as

Pricing I would prefer intrusive rather than obtrusive

Contact page Your details

Charles
Click to expand...

No such thing as too picky Charles :) I'm very grateful for any and all feedback. Some of my mistakes are just sloppy, stuff that would put me off as a prospective client, so I'm glad of a second pair of eyes.
 
Looks good, but you may really want to address the following:

1. Where is your porfolio? I can see a few images in 'latest work' but that is about it.
2. A more formal portrait in about section. It looks far too hip and may scare off some clients like myself. (An obvious question is - will you turn up like this on the big day?)
 
daugirdas said:
Looks good, but you may really want to address the following:

1. Where is your porfolio? I can see a few images in 'latest work' but that is about it.
2. A more formal portrait in about section. It looks far too hip and may scare off some clients like myself. (An obvious question is - will you turn up like this on the big day?)
Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback - appreciate it :)

I'm in the midst of adding more work to the 'Latest Work' section - hopefully farm the kids of to the grandparents one afternoon this weekend and get cracking!

I did consider getting another local photographer to take a more suited and booted portrait. Never considered that a more causal one might be a deal-breaker though......definitely something to consider :thumbs:
 
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