new web site and help needed please

H

heff

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Ian
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Hi all
Our situation at home has recently changed and now me and my wife have switched roles, being a stay at home Dad i am trying to break into the photography world, i have a few bookings but need a bit of help with my website design etc. The site was used for my family to view photos i had taken im wondering if i should change it all now and focus on what i need it to be doing and thats bringing in a bit of business for me.

Im trying to keep the prices low as i am no longer the main bread winner and just need a few pennies for me and the children to enjoy life a bit more. Any ideas would be greatfully received.

thanks Ian
 
Yeah, I think I might separate things up and have 2 different sites, one for personal and one for business. The actual format of your site is just OK, a little bit cluttered for me, I prefer something quite simple where the photos take centre stage iykwim.

Also, I would guess at £20 for a DVD of edited images you will be losing money. Make sure you don't cut yourself short. You are travelling to peoples homes, spending time shooting, editing, corresponding with people, etc. Are you insured? You will need to be. Take everything into account. I know you say you only want a little extra for you and the kids but you will wear yourself out and you will really struggle to make a profit.
H x
 
I actually like the general look of the site and it has some nice content (only skimmed it though). I would certainly get rid of all the ads and the paypal donate button too, its a bit too personal at the moment but all minor tweaks.

As helen has said don't sell yourself short, whilst it maybe just to earn a few pennies now if you ever decide to pursue it full time (you never know whats around the corner) you will find it hard to increase your prices to cover costs and will basically have to start over as not many clients will stay around after a 50% price hike. Plus the fact as your a stay at home dad do you really want to working like a busy fool for very little return or work a good few well paid jobs where your time is more rewarded.
 
I have to agree with all of the above. Ian don't forget to factor in insurance, wear and tear/depreciation of gear, in a few years time you will want to upgrade your kit and that costs money, don't be afraid to increase costs, you need to make it pay rather than just funding an expensive hobby.

I was in the same situation as you five years ago, my business has now taken off and this has allowed my wife to work part time. I have never looked back, just have faith in your product and try to offer something different to the competition.
 
Just to add with prices, its easier to start high, gauge the reaction then come down in price if you have to, works well when starting out to find the level in which is acceptable to most people and is still profitable. Once you go in at the low end of the scale you can't push the price up and could end up losing money on a job.
 
Hi all
thanks for the replies, they were the remarks i was hoping for as its what i have been thinking for the past couple of days !. It means a re design and then start over again but i think it will be worth it in the long run. I think i was thinking the more jobs i got the more business i would get and was trying to attract this by a very reasonable price.
I will have to search about for some examples of pricing and go from there. Any ideas about marketing myself ? would leaflets do the job or concentrate on things i am trying like facebook etc.
I didn't realise about the insurance side of things, i still have public liability cover from when i worked at the AA will this do or can you give me pointers on what sort i would need ?.
Its a good idea about having two sites one with a blog on and one for business, so many things to consider :)
thankyou
Ian
 
pitkin2020 said:
I actually like the general look of the site and it has some nice content (only skimmed it though). I would certainly get rid of all the ads and the paypal donate button too, its a bit too personal at the moment but all minor tweaks.
Click to expand...

Yup, do away with any ads, the stat counter (have a look at Google Analytics if you want to keep stats), donations, etc. If the intention of the website is to sell photographs, do just that.

As a general criticism, though it looks nice enough, it's a little cluttered. The attention span of your average internet user is minimal. So straight to the point is key. Anything secondary, keep it out of the way, in it's own little corner where it won't distract. When I'm looking for stuff on the web, I'll often open ten tabs at a time while I'm searching through google. I'll spend about 3 seconds, if that, viewing each one, and if I don't see what I'm looking for in that time, it's closed..

And good luck :)
 
Hi all
Been busy updating my website thanks to the advice given here, have a look and see what you think. I've moved things around a bit and hopefully it will be easier to find what people are looking for. Any advice or criticism accepted as I'm here to learn the business side of things.
Thanks in advance
Ian
 
I like, much cleaner now and easier to navigate. The only thing i can add is some of your text is having the bottom of p's, g's etc cut off when they are next to a bullet point on some of the pages. The wedding page for example, the top black intro text is fine, but the outline text for the packages is getting cut off.
 
Yes the font side of things has been driving me crazy trying to get it right ! I will have a look at it later on and see if I can do something about it, don't know why it won't aline properly on my website? Thanks for the comment
Ian
 
classic website mistake .... OK I am looking for a wedding photographer.. I find your website (amongst thousand sof others).. if I am a bit savvy I can guess your in the UK from the domain name... but are you in scotland? wales? england? where are you?.. even your contact form makes it look like you want to be anonymous.. Make your location easy to see (not part way down the wedding section) as one of the first thing someone looking for a photogrpaher needs to know is if your even a viable option location wise :)

The fact that your asking us for website help yet offering your skills as a paid web design service on said website is a little iffy IMHO
 
Hi thanks for the input I will put a section on the front page to get my location easily found, this is a project I am hoping to run from home as a house keeper just to get a bit more income for my family as times are hard !. The website design section is for personal websites and I don't claim to be a website guru or anything like that just to give people in the real world an affordable and friendly service.
People haven't got a lot of money out there today. Maybe I'm going down the wrong route but to me making people happy is what I'm about and not ripping folks off. I have been myself we paid £1500 for a wedding photographer and the time and effort put in to the final package was something my grandmother could of thrown together, I want to take my time with each customer and do a good job with a bit of heart in it rather than take the money and run. That's my little rant over with. By the way the problem with the bullets was loading a custom made graphic so that has been fixed.
Thanks for your comment anyway
Heff
 
it's all well and nice wanting to make people happy but you are not going to make yourself and your kids happy if you are working your butt off for next to no money!! Contrary to popular belief, most photographers are not evil money-grabbing monsters with a collection of yachts.

Seriously though, factor in insurance, tax, national insurance contributions, software costs, wear and tear on your equipment, travel costs, etc etc and just be very careful you are not cutting yourself short.

H x
 
Hi Helen
Thanks for the response and advise, all things have been taking into consideration and I guess as a newbie I have so much to learn, I'm learning that this can be a frustrating business to be in but at the same time it's something I love and hopefully my passion for photography will see me through before my house gets taken away from me !. I think I'm going to offer a few free shoots just to get a bit more content on my site and to develop some word of mouth around the area.
I've changed the design as all those dark colours were even make me feel depressed !
Thanks for your help
Ian x
 
Ian,

I've only had a quick scan of your site but think it looks pretty good. I'd like to echo the comments you've already had and add that semi-pedants (like me) will be put off by the poor spelling and grammar ... it projects an unprofessional image or makes me think you're a school kid :D

I would recommend that you have someone proof read the text on each page.

Good luck with your new venture :clap:
 
Hi thanks for your opinion and notes are being taken, I will read through the site again, I think I was trying to keep the site family friendly and more fun for people to look at but I think your right. Grammar is not my strong subject and I say things how they are, guess I need to go back to college and do some English courses again ! I was hoping that my personality would win through as it has done all of my life but until somebody knows or meets me then I need that first impression to come from something else.
I'll have a look at other people's web sites again and try to get more of an idea, I shot a playgroup last week with twelve children under three and received fourteen orders for prints so I'm happy and confident that at least people want to buy my work.
I appreciate your feedback and it is being noted. Ian
 
Some of your meta tags are unecessary like the robots tag - that's only useful if you don't want search engines to follow or index pages within your site.

Also your titles should be between 7-10 words to get noticed by Google and other search engines.

You should check Google webmaster central:

http://www.google.com/webmasters/

for invaluable info about getting noticed by Google.

You might also find it more useful to create PHP pages instead of html pages - assuming your host accomodates PHP - it makes updating a lot of pages much easier.

And I must say your prices for web design are quite unrealistic and would give you no profit at all - apart from the fact that the design of your own website does not really speak off professionalism - personally I would not offer anything you cannot do properly - selling some photos is one thing - designing a website for others is something else entirely.

I'm not trying to be nasty just making some observations added to what others have already said.

And as already noted spelling and grammar must be correct to give a professional look to a site - I know that I would have very serious reservations about booking someone whose site did not look totally professional.

.
 
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Hi Peter
Thank you for your advice and it has been noted, I offered the web design service just to see what kind of reaction I would get from a business point of view and it had a good response, I have took the service down now but at least people who know me know that it is there if they need a simple website built for themselves.That was all I was offering, I may not be a web guru and know coding that well but some people can only just about turn a computer on but still want a web site for their business's ? I come from a civil engineering background so my grammar may not be that good but it's who I am that counts surely ?

sadly we are not all granted university degree standard educations in this life, I was out digging holes and providing a service for this country and maintaining the infrastructure of our large cities, hard work just so someone can turn the tap on and have a drink ! Sometimes 90 plus hours a week, my point is to the working class people they can relate to working class. You only have to look at the biggest medium we all have at the moment " social networking " how many folk using those sites actually use proper grammar ?

Anyway thank you for the link and I'll have a look and try to make some understanding of it all, Maybe you can send me a link to your website so I can have a look how the pros do it ? Hope my little rant above won't be taken personally but that's just my opinion. The best advice I have ever been given is that people buy people and I sure have a lot of person to give ha ha sorry for my grammar x

Best go out and take some photos and stop concentrating on other things, thank you for you valuable time in posting a reply to me
Ian
 
Well it is an unfortunate fact that the standards of grammar and spelling are very low in this country but since you are offering a professional service you must appear professional.

And when you charge for services you are in a whole different ball game since you are responsible for those services and any shortcomings of those services.

I don't set up websites for a business but I have set a few up in the past and one I'm creating at the moment (just for myself) is here:

http://www.macro-photography.co.uk/

it's unfinished but the general layout is there.

It's written in XHTML and uses CSS and PHP.

I'm not a great designer and it is a variation on a free web template which I got off the 'net and re-coded for myself.

.
 
Finally I have come to my senses and totally agree with you. I have taken my web services from my web page and decided to concentrate on taking photographs. I agree with you on the education in this country and feel ashamed that I never had the chance to further my studies when I was younger. I guess it was all about getting out there and earning money, my children are going to have more of a chance in life that is one thing I am sure off and hopefully can spell and speak better than their daddy.

I've change to the final look of my website and finally I am happy with it, had a look at your site Peter. Love your macro shots it's on my wish list to get a canon 100 f2.8 lens but I'm nearly finished saving for a 300 f2.8 so the macro fun will have to wait. I think the thing I would love about macro photography is the fact you have a thousand subjects in your back garden everyday waiting to be found.

Thanks for your advice and hopefully you will see the difference in my website.
All the best
Ian
 
heff said:
Finally I have come to my senses and totally agree with you. I have taken my web services from my web page and decided to concentrate on taking photographs. I agree with you on the education in this country and feel ashamed that I never had the chance to further my studies when I was younger. I guess it was all about getting out there and earning money, my children are going to have more of a chance in life that is one thing I am sure off and hopefully can spell and speak better than their daddy.

I've change to the final look of my website and finally I am happy with it, had a look at your site Peter. Love your macro shots it's on my wish list to get a canon 100 f2.8 lens but I'm nearly finished saving for a 300 f2.8 so the macro fun will have to wait. I think the thing I would love about macro photography is the fact you have a thousand subjects in your back garden everyday waiting to be found.

Thanks for your advice and hopefully you will see the difference in my website.
All the best
Ian
Click to expand...

Well you don't need the 100mm Macro to take macro shots - you can start for about £10-15 with a simple set of close up lenses from ebay (that's how I started) which fit onto your kit lens - you can get surprisingly good results from that combo.

Or go for a set of Kenko DG AF tubes - with these you can get closer to your subject and they fit any lens.

If you add to that the Canon f1.8 50mm lens you can get great macro shots and the lens is great for indoor shots of kids etc.

These shots were all taken with that combo:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/20926615@N05/sets/72157625975281497/

But one thing I don't understand is why you're buying the 300mm f2.8 lens which is an expensive lens when you would probably be better off getting an intermediate lens like the 28-135mm IS USM lens at a fraction of the cost - assuming you need a reasonable lens for weddings etc.

.
 
Hi Peter I've got the new canon 70-300 L which is great for walking about and does a half decent job as a macro. Sometimes I need that little bit of extra speed I like shooting aircraft and motor sports in my spare time and a 300 2.8 has been a dream lens that I have wanted for a long time. I have a sigma 30mm 1.4 and a 50mm 1.4 both of which I love also a sigma 8-16 to cover the wide side of things so a 100 macro would make a great final addition to my collection, of course that 300 2.8 would be the lens that would be used most during the week !.

I have considered some tubes, do they effect how much light gets let in ? Do you lose any stops ? I guess though shooting macro you would need to be shooting at least f8 because of the shallow depth of field ? I have never really had a go at the macro world so it's all new to me.

Thanks in advance
Ian
 
heff said:
Hi Peter I've got the new canon 70-300 L which is great for walking about and does a half decent job as a macro. Sometimes I need that little bit of extra speed I like shooting aircraft and motor sports in my spare time and a 300 2.8 has been a dream lens that I have wanted for a long time. I have a sigma 30mm 1.4 and a 50mm 1.4 both of which I love also a sigma 8-16 to cover the wide side of things so a 100 macro would make a great final addition to my collection, of course that 300 2.8 would be the lens that would be used most during the week !.

I have considered some tubes, do they effect how much light gets let in ? Do you lose any stops ? I guess though shooting macro you would need to be shooting at least f8 because of the shallow depth of field ? I have never really had a go at the macro world so it's all new to me.

Thanks in advance
Ian
Click to expand...

Well tubes do reduce the light getting in and you do need to use a quite small aperture because the DOF is very small the closer you get.

But the 70-300L should give excellent results with the tubes because I have used the ordinary 70-300 with tubes:

http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=313888

One good thing about this arrangement is that you can photograph insects without getting too close and scaring them off.

.
 
heff said:
Yes the font side of things has been driving me crazy trying to get it right ! I will have a look at it later on and see if I can do something about it, don't know why it won't aline properly on my website? Thanks for the comment
Ian
Click to expand...

At the moment you are using a serif font. Get rid of it. Serifs are for print. San-serif fonts work better on the web.

Some popular san-serif fonts are:

Arial
Verdana
Tahoma

There are many more of course.

Have a look at "Century Gothic" though. It's a very broad, round, moderately thin font that really just has a nice feel to it.

You can preview it here:

http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/agfa/century-gothic/

Actually, I think I might just swap out my current font use for that on one of my sites. :)
 
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