Need your insight people

[bucz]

Hi guys,

I am tweaking and adding stuff to my website www.stradphoto.com and I would like to know your opinion. Is there anything you think you would change? I have seen it so many times that I can't be objective and I need fresh eyes to look at it. Can you tell me what you think when you open it for the first time? Thanks in advance.

 

[Kodiak Qc]

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Looks ok and functions are quick: passed!

 

[bucz]

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Looks ok and functions are quick: passed!

Thanks for your input.
I think what I would like to know is how it feels (or how it makes you feel perhaps) when you open it for the first time. Does it make you want to stay and see more or do you have enough by seeing only the home page? Thanks again.

 

[Kodiak Qc]

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I know so many well design websites that are inefficient, yours works.

 

[afasoas]

I've had a quick shufty. Overally I'd say it displays nicely on a desktop browser and has a nice, if traditional feel about it. Generally a nice selection of images on the slider - there's a portrait of a family against a rocky background I'd possibly lose.

On a security note, the client area shouldn't be so obvious. I'd leave the link off and hand my clients a card with their unique URL printed on it. The customer sign-in page should be served over HTTPS. And customer names shouldn't be listed. Considering there are things on the client area menu dated back to 2013, it also suggests you aren't very busy as a photographer.

You wp-admin page also needs to be served over SSL as to protect your login credentials. You should possibly also consider changing it's name. There a plugins to help you do this.

The overall page load time is over 7 seconds - which is on the high side.

The title seems to repeat "Glasgow Wedding Photographer" twice. And it's there again at the start of the site description. Once is enough. You should find an alternate way of phrasing it. Over optimised sites are no penalised by Googles indexing.

I think you've made good use of space in the first half of the page shown above the fold.
Recent blog posts - I only realise by mistake that each of the thumbnails was a link to a blog entry.

I don't think the layout works too well for mobile.

Nothing grabs me enough to make me want to read the copy on the front page. And when I did read it, you've blatantly embedded your key phrases in it reducing it's reading ease. Which in turn may be detrimental to your SEO. I think your copy on the home page needs to be shorter, and more enticing. You are running Google analytics. You need people to click rather than just leave the site. Keeping your bounce rate low is important.

The list of archives is less enticing. Need to see titles that arouse curiosity.

 

[afasoas]

Oh, facts tell. Stories sell.
Your home page needs snippets that start a story and links through to pages that complete said story.

On another note, when you click on the blog, it's difficult to navigate. I'd expect to see a list of most recent posts with a good excerpt from each of them below. And then another set of links that let me drill easily down into the blog category I'm interested in.

 

[bucz]

I've had a quick shufty. Overally I'd say it displays nicely on a desktop browser and has a nice, if traditional feel about it. Generally a nice selection of images on the slider - there's a portrait of a family against a rocky background I'd possibly lose.

On a security note, the client area shouldn't be so obvious. I'd leave the link off and hand my clients a card with their unique URL printed on it. The customer sign-in page should be served over HTTPS. And customer names shouldn't be listed. Considering there are things on the client area menu dated back to 2013, it also suggests you aren't very busy as a photographer.

You wp-admin page also needs to be served over SSL as to protect your login credentials. You should possibly also consider changing it's name. There a plugins to help you do this.

The overall page load time is over 7 seconds - which is on the high side.

The title seems to repeat "Glasgow Wedding Photographer" twice. And it's there again at the start of the site description. Once is enough. You should find an alternate way of phrasing it. Over optimised sites are no penalised by Googles indexing.

I think you've made good use of space in the first half of the page shown above the fold.
Recent blog posts - I only realise by mistake that each of the thumbnails was a link to a blog entry.

I don't think the layout works too well for mobile.

Nothing grabs me enough to make me want to read the copy on the front page. And when I did read it, you've blatantly embedded your key phrases in it reducing it's reading ease. Which in turn may be detrimental to your SEO. I think your copy on the home page needs to be shorter, and more enticing. You are running Google analytics. You need people to click rather than just leave the site. Keeping your bounce rate low is important.

The list of archives is less enticing. Need to see titles that arouse curiosity.

Thank you very much for this! I appreciate the effort. I will make the changes as soon as I find some free time. You are spot on about most if not all the things. Thanks again.

 

[bucz]

The customer sign-in page should be served over HTTPS.
You wp-admin page also needs to be served over SSL as to protect your login credentials. You should possibly also consider changing it's name. There a plugins to help you do this.

Not sure how to make the sign-in page to be served over HTTPS. Also not sure about the second sentence too. Can you maybe explain a little more as I'm not a web designer. I built my website based on Prophoto which makes things fairly easy to do, but there are limitations. They will update soon to version 6 which as they say will make things better so I will see if I want to update once it's released.

 

[afasoas]

To be honest, acquiring all the knowledge you need takes time. Which is why it pays to hire a good web developer.

To serve pages over https you will first need to obtain a certificate. They cost from about £10, depending on where you buy them from and level of trust. They also need renewing every year. No doubt someone else will be along in a minute who can suggest where's best to buy a certificate. Once you have done that, you upload the certificate to your hosting control panel. TBH your host should provide guidance on their website.

You can then use this plugin to make select pages or all your pages load using https. I've used it, but quite some time ago.


There's an article here on changing your wp-admin/wp-login URLs: https://managewp.com/change-your-wordpress-login-url
That's just one of the first hits I found, I'd suggest doing your own research.


And always back the site up before making major changes.


Is Prophoto a wordpress plugin/theme?

 

[bucz]

To be honest, acquiring all the knowledge you need takes time. Which is why it pays to hire a good web developer.

To serve pages over https you will first need to obtain a certificate. They cost from about £10, depending on where you buy them from and level of trust. They also need renewing every year. No doubt someone else will be along in a minute who can suggest where's best to buy a certificate. Once you have done that, you upload the certificate to your hosting control panel. TBH your host should provide guidance on their website.

You can then use this plugin to make select pages or all your pages load using https. I've used it, but quite some time ago.


There's an article here on changing your wp-admin/wp-login URLs: https://managewp.com/change-your-wordpress-login-url
That's just one of the first hits I found, I'd suggest doing your own research.


And always back the site up before making major changes.


Is Prophoto a wordpress plugin/theme?

I just realised that I probably don't need https as in the password protected gallery there are no high res files and all are watermarked anyway. I provide high res files to clients on a USB drive. The gallery is for them to share all the photos from the shoot with family and friends if they want to but most end up uploading most stuff on social media anyway .

I will read more about changing the URL though. Thanks for the link.

I think my site is being backed up daily by my host.

Yes, Prophoto is wordpress plugin but not like any other out there. It is much more advanced and it really is superb with the stuff you can do with you wordpress site. Can't wait to see what new they will bring with the newest update as they plan to redesign the whole thing with major change where websites will resize properly with all the screen sizes.