I looked through your site some more and really like it. It is also really easy to navigate from one area to the next. Your images are awesome. I really enjoyed the wildlife sections. I could not really find anything that I would change so far.
On a side note would you mind if I borrowed some of the verbage you have on your Buy Prints page?
Thank you for the comments! PM me on the verbage thing.
Matt Philbin wrote:
Jan...
Your site is about as close to perfect as I've seen! Very, very tastefully done with excellent work there as well. I wondered if you chose not to allow showing your images in large sizes to prevent unauthorized use or if there was another reason? Nice job!
Matt - thanks so much, happy that you like it!
Unauthorized use was indeed the main reason for choosing 800 px width of my photos. Also, by keeping the images small, I'm in complete control of sharpening and compression of each one.
I had help from David Wolf doing stuff like the drop-down nav bar and contact form, excellent guy to work with. I generally wanted a website that was as simple as possible (no commenting, rating, guestbook, feeds, titles/descriptions, shopping cart or anything like that) and have been very happy with the result. I may consider adding a news section, though. I'm also currently working on a new logo
Jan,
Was David someone you found through DGrin? I haven't been on there in a while (built the site a while ago) but may have to go back and start studying things again. I would really like to do the drop down bar like yours.
Matt Tilghman wrote:
Ben- AHA! You are one of the elusive few who has that 'duplicated banner' problem. My brother, from his work computer, is another. They run IE there but he doesn't know which version. I have the newest IE and there's no problem. Also no reported problems with any firefox version.
What browser/version are you running?
I am on IE at work. Not sure what version. I will check it again from home.
Matt Philbin wrote:
Jan,
Was David someone you found through DGrin? I haven't been on there in a while (built the site a while ago) but may have to go back and start studying things again. I would really like to do the drop down bar like yours.
Yes, I found David in the DGrin customization forum. He's one of the regular customizers-for-hire. He was excllent to work with and it although I might have been able to do the whole thing myself, I would no doubt still be at it
Thanks for everyone's input! I've changed several items on my site to address most of the issues listed above.
Matt, Thanks! I changed everything that you mentioned. Hopefully, it stays this way. My wife likes to mess with the items that are displayed on the homepage while I'm at work. Not a big deal. I didn't even realize the email didn't work. It was really weird. When I was in "owner" mode of smugmug, the email worked fine but, not in "visitor" view. I changed it to the Dgrin simple clickable email scheme and now it works. Just concerned about getting spam. I must say the Smugmug staff has been very helpful and patient with me. I very familiar with computers, just not the HTML & Java stuff.
Does anyone know if getting a Domain name from someone like "Go Daddy" would help to be indexed? I spent too many hours trying to figure it out already. I rarely see sites from smugmug get indexed.
Much better. Now I'd just work on an artistic banner of sorts. Something that gives you that "wow" factor that everyone is going for.
The email link that you now have in place triggers Microsoft Outlook on my machine when I click on it. I think on your end, that means you have connected it to a phrase that resemles "xxxx mail to xxxx". The other way is to set up a page in it's own gallery (a gallery with no photos) for a mail forwarding system. Try this for starters, and visit DGrin to get help on setting it up. http://www.emailmeform.com/
You mentioned your familiarity with web codes and such... I'm in the same boat. I learn relatively easily for a 37 year old, but had no exposure to any of this prior to doing this.
As far as being seen on the internet (or being found), there are threads on Dgrin that cover this to a point. If anyone had all the answers and could set up a bulletproof method, they'd be loaded. Google and Yahoo work a little differently, as do the other search engines. All you can do is maximize your position on the search lists when they come up. Without spending a lot of $$, this is tough to do. You have to determine who your ideal client is. Put another way, when someone searches and enters a certain phrase, what is that phrase that will allow you to come up? For me, it's things like keywords related to Chicago and Chicago Photography that I'm shooting for. Here are a few threads that I had saved. They're probably worth reading...
Also consider using something like Google Analytics. I'm using it and it's pretty cool what it finds and tells you. Things like the number of hits in a specific time period, how long each person stayed on the site, what country they live in, and whether they came through a search or some other way to your site. It may also help to "put you on the map".
I have the GoDaddy domain name that I created. PJ Matthews is a goofy variation of my name backwards. One of the criteria the search engines judge on (don't recall if this is just Google or if it's others too) is how long you have had your domain name and how long you have committed to it in the future. Sites with 1 year leases on domain names don't score quite as highly.
Last but not least, run your site name through this tool and see what it says. It should offer you a multi-point analysis of your site and how it could improve in terms of search performance. It's free, and safe.
I'll definitely work on the website more this weekend. The setting up a a mail forwarding page makes a lot of sense. The clickable email was set up using the same info but, spread apart so spammers wouldn't catch on but, it didn't seem to work properly.
One of first items that I set up was Google Analytics. Surprisingly it seems to work fine. I also have had the site verified but, still not indexed. I'm spent over 8 hours trying to figure out if the robot info is correct.
I appreciate all the suggestions and will continue to update.
Great work everyone. I have a lot more respect for web developers!
I like the layout so far. It's easy to get around and will most likely stay that way once you get some of your work on there. For me, I tried to do as much as I could to eliminate the look of a Smug Mug site. You may not feel that way, but if you do there are a couple things still there that could be eliminated if you wanted to. Also watch for centering issues on the main page. I like the banner and the choice of colors (some may not like the red, but it works for me). Keep going and remind us to look again later! Nice!
As I sit here and try to find words to describe the images I just found on your site, I can't think of what to say, other than "unbelievable!!" Never mind what the Smug Mug site looks like, your work is amazing. I bookmarked the site and will take more time to go through it later. Just gorgeous work!
All comments/complaints/suggestions welcome. I wanted to create something simple, easy to navigate and easy to maintain.
I love the clean, simple nature of your site. It's easy to get around, and the front page is nicely designed. My only nit would be to fix the dust spot (clone it out) in one of the photos in your front page slideshow. I'd think these should be among your very best work to be here...
