Hello all just had a huge learning curve upgrading and transferring host for my Blog.

Although I’m a photographer who loves his work (don’t we all) but lousy at marketing. The goal is more than showing off my work, the most important thing is to entice brides to make contact. I would love some feedback on the design and how it functions. And, do you think it will entice brides to take the next step and make contact, or is there too much information.

I look forward to hearing your feedback, Gary!

New Site

I don't hate it. It looks good, it works. Plenty of info for those who want it. Also, you misspelled raves. You're missing an "e" and there's no apostrophe. If you botched a title, I suggest reading over everything again just to be sure.

Thx Swoop

The site seems to be lacking a portfolio -- a collection of, say, 50 photos that showcase your best work.

There are also some smaller issues like grammar, site organization etc that probably would not turn off clients altogether, but might leave a questionable impression about your brand.

Thx mate, You are right about adding a portfolio. I have added a landing page slideshow and will also include a wedding portfolio as one of the menu options. Will look into proof reading the site to fix any grammar issues, as you can see not one of my strengths.

Thx again Gary

Thanks so much for the help so far!!

Made a few changes, include a landing page with images.... also an album section with 2 wedding album designs. Do you guys think with these 2 sections of images and the Blog post is an sufficient amount of images on display or should an extra gallery be included?

I’m not sure if viewing lots and lots of extra images will entice bride’s to make contact or reading latest blog posts with other bride’s family and friends interacting Having both might be the answer, just don’t want to overkill, just have enough info and work displayed to get bride’s to take the next step. What's your thoughts on this, the more the merrier, or less is best?

Gary

Your top goal is to get brides to hire you, right? Then that should be the main part of your home page. Tell brides why they should hire you, then put a nice CTA (call to action) to get them to make that first step.

You do need to feature your work, but only after communicating what you do and what they should do! You are selling your services after all, not your photos. Your photos will help you with that, don't make them the star of the show or you'll burn peoples attention looking at your photos, not taking steps to hire you.

Check out this site, I love the way its organized. It features the service nicely, yet makes it clear what and how you can buy it or keep in contact about it.

http://www.alfredapp.com/

Other nitpicks:
-ditch the gear section. The don't know and don't care. They assume you use pro gear. They have no idea what a wide aperture is. Don't confuse them or show off with technobabble.
-the way the about me section drops down into the current page is a bit odd. Not a fan.
-navigatoin is a bit redundant. Archives is part of the blog, so is recent work, yet both are on the main nav. I'd make it just Recent Work and then in that section provide navigation to the older content.
-web forms are good, add an email address and phone number if you want more people contacting you.
-sample albums need navigation. People don't want to sit through a slide show of unknown duration

Ultimately, best bet for your business is to hire a web developer/designer to do the website. There is a reason people hire photographers, same for web developers.

I would stay away from slideshows that auto-scroll through pictures. Let the user navigate the slideshow on his own time. There are plenty of decent slideshow softwares out there...SlideshowPro being the eminent paid software, and there are a lot of free ones such as Galleria