HiveMinds

[adpalumbo]

Hi,

We just rolled out a new website for Jessica Verma Photography, at http://www.jessicaverma.com. I wish I could offer you all a view of the old site for comparison, but we've taken it down rather than backing it up to a live site. So if you can take a look at it and offer any and all suggestions, we'd really appreciate it.

Thanks!

Andrew

[Cshark]

It's very clean looking. I like it. Looks like you did some interesting scripting with the photos. Only thing I would change is the splash page. Seems kind of unnecessary, but it strikes me as the kind of thing that they might have asked for.
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[caddickj]

That's really a nice site. Nice photos, too.

I did notice a grammatical error on the Philosophy page. The last line should be "...and if you like my work..."

Other than that, very good job.
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[Michelle]

Very nice!

I like the photo mouseovers.

I really like the way that some of the pictures are on top of the vertical orange-ish rectangle. Also, very nice use of size variations.

There were two things I would change:

I would not use the picture of the little girl with her panties showing.

I would change the wording in the FAQ that says,

"For your additional peace of mind, I archive a copy of your images in case the copy you receive is ever lost or damaged. There will be no charge for replacing your images should anything happen."

I would make it clear whether she will replace the printed photographs or just the cd.

You have done an excellent job on this site!

[Michelle]

Oh, one more thing, I noticed that there is no link to your site or mention of who designed it, which might have been intentional, but I thought I would point it out in case you forgot to add that information (as I have done on ocassion).

[The Boy Hope]

Good job all round I'd say.

I *really* don't like the :hover effect you're using on the images throughout the site though, that could be a lot better. None of the text looks too good (XP Pro/any browser) and the FAQ page looks a bit half-finished (overly orange perhaps). Also, I'd rather see a contact form than a mailto link on the contact page. *wracks brain* Is that JV logo one she uses already or have you just invented it? You could maybe jazz it up a little bit—I like simple but maybe not that simple.

I think the layout might prove a bit restrictive for big changes later but, to be honest, you've so many great images to work with you'd have to try awfully hard to make it look bad.
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[The Boy Hope]

Clucking bell! Are we a linkfarm now or something?
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Let's all lobby for mandatory blood and urine testing of all politicians on a weekly basis. They have nothing to hide.

[dbmasters]

jebus I HATE "enter here" pages, it kills SEO and wastes the visitors time.

inside tho the site looks nice.
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Dan
dB Masters Multimedia - Google AdSense Tips - MonaVie

[KmsCage]

Nicely done!

Here's what I like:

- Clean and good use of white space
- Consistent navigation
- Looks like you optimized the images for size (a must for sites that are heavy in graphics)

Suggestions:

On the following page you have a link that says "Return to Wedding Rates", I would suggest that you place a similar link on the pages that follow to keep things consistent in this section of the site- something like "Back to the previous page" or something similar.

Page containing link:
http://www.jessicaverma.com/TravelPackage.php

Pages that may need a similar link:
http://www.jessicaverma.com/PortraitRates.php
http://www.jessicaverma.com/WeddingRates.php
http://www.jessicaverma.com/PrintRates.php

Also, it seems like there is too much orange on your FAQs page - see what you can do about that.

Overall, great job! Nice mouseovers and an "Enter here" page that seems appropriate for this kind of site.

- Kmscage

[adpalumbo]

The Boy Hope

I assume you're talking about my lack of response/thanks. I apologize. After posting my original message, I looked at the forum stats and got the impression that Hiveminds didn't get much traffic and that I wouldn't get any replies. Obviously, I was wrong. :)

Much thanks to all of you for your comments.

And anyway--link farming isn't even worth it to us. We derive traffic mostly from direct referrals, paid advertising/adwords. For our market, optimizing for the top keywords is too competitive and doesn't filter out enough of the people we don't need to field queries from. Since this is a small, local service business with limited scalability, we try to operate on a moderate-margin/moderate-volume model in order to keep it managable.

dbmasters

The splash page is a tricky thing. It's more than a standard for the (wedding/portrait photography) industry--it's practically a rule. The only industry sites that you might not see it on are the very corporate and impersonal studios that operate on low margins and high volume. The rest, especially those in Jessica's league all have splash pages--many of them animated (which drives me insane).

If I were to speculate on why all these photographers use splash pages, it probably has a lot to do with their content. They want visitors to see their work as soon as possible, and not get slowed down by text content or confusing interfaces. On the other hand, they want to make sure that these pictures are tightly bound up with their brand image/name. So they keep it simple by presenting the user with "You're about to see my work-->now, go do it."

I'd be happy to participate in some discussion and brainstorming on better ways to meet these goals, if you have some ideas. The splash page does slow people down and is an exit for 20-30% of our incoming traffic (but that's probably for more reasons than its annoyance or uselessness). However, the site really doesn't look right if we were to just dump '/' into that first portfolio of pictures. The visitor mentality ends up being "uh, wow, nice pictures... um... oh geez, I guees I should figure out who did these... is it a business? hmmm..." rather than "oh, a portrait photographer... and look at her work!"

[The Boy Hope]

[Jason Gross]

TBH - not everything web involves being king of the hill of SEO. Certain sites don't need or care about how they rank in search engines - as they're visited from other results. Word of mouth, print media, whatnot. Busting your chaps to design for search engine optimization is counter-productive. You design with the goal in mind, not search engines.

[The Boy Hope]

So? If you're going to have a splash page you may as well make the most of it. I'm not trying to suggest a redesign for the sake of search engine ranking.

If the homepage doesn't "look right" when you arrive directly at it, then it needs re-worked, whether or not the splash page remains.
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Let's all lobby for mandatory blood and urine testing of all politicians on a weekly basis. They have nothing to hide.

[zontar]

Splash pages are so 1998.

SEO considerations aside, they just add another "hop" that users have to make before they reach something interesting and/or useful.

Note: I've not actually VTFS, that's just my take on splash pages in general.
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