I recently re-constructed my website using iWeb. I have found this to be a very easy solution to maintain the site. I didn't want a lot of frills in the design, just wanted the photography to be up front and center.
I still use Bridge CS3 for file organization and Photoshop CS3 for editing. However I transfer finished images to iPhoto for easy transfer into iWeb.
Please let me know what your think.
Looks pretty good and clean overall.
As Jake says, the navigation aspect of the site could be improved. Larger, more obvious links would help, as would keeping the navigation links constant across all pages (i.e., have the same links on the home page as on the other pages). Having the image on the home page click through to the galleries would also be worth considering.
In your galleries, it'd be nice if you could turn off that reflection thing that pops up when in the slideshow window. A wider selection of your photos would also be nice to see.
The text on the info page is quite small. While small text looks nice, it's a pain to read. The picture of you is also showing twice on that page.
Overall, I think you have a very clean and workable site that should be easy for you to keep up.
Lon
Posted by TACHE@PA.NET on July 29, 2009 at 9:47 AM
Matt,
I shot in Hawaii for three years and never took anything that nice. Great photos.
If you are trying to sell photographs, I recommend that you put your contact information on every page. Don't make the buyer find your picture and then have to go looking for information on how to buy it. Remember, they may google in to something beyond your intro page.
I would spend a little time researching Search Engine Optimization (SEO). I reviewed your code, and there are a couple of simple things you could do to make your pictures more likely to show up when someone types in "Hawaii photography." Google searches text--although they are working on text embedded in images, I'm told--and the words "Akaka Falls" are not in your code for the webpage that shows your picture of Akaka Falls.
There is a "Title" option for each page. Your front page title in the code is "<title>Welcome</title>," which does not exactly make you stand out from the crowd. Consider helping Google help you by replacing "Welcome" with something like "Hawaii photography, scenics, landscapes, tropical." Do this for every page.
Your title page, and I will assume your other pages, do not have <description> tags. Search engines use description tags to figure out what your page is about. It is often what shows up on the actual search results.
I will do a little poking around and get back to you on other stuff. I am being dragged through this briar patch myself at the moment, so much of it is fairly new to me as well.
Nice site. I would get rid of the reflection thing in the slideshow, too. Makes it look like maybe part of the image is being cut off unless you go look at the thumbnails. My feeling is that the images in the slideshow should be much larger. As long as I am on that, perhaps you could include a way to view images larger. A buyer will want to see the detail better. Protect your images - get rid of the right click copy or (Mac) drag and drop. While i do not place watermarks or copyright on my images (that's just me and probably stupid of me), I do have a copyright statement on ALL my pages. I also include an email address on ALL my pages at the bottom. A click through on the main page image that takes you at least somewhere would be nice. Wonderful images though. Keep it up!
Thank you all very much for the feedback, I really appreciate it. I have made some efforts to improve based on some of your suggestions. There is a new navigation, and I changed the title keywords to hopefully garner some more search engine hits. IWeb is very easy to use. However, when you want to make simple changes to a page such as replacing a photo, or whatever; once you publish this page you lose any work that you may have done to the html code. So, what I do now is manipulate the page code in Dreamweaver directly on my iDisk (server). Kind of awkward, but it is the only way I can maintain my navigation drop down menu. Thanks again, Matt
Discussion
8 repliesI recently re-constructed my website using iWeb. I have found this to be a very easy solution to maintain the site. I didn't want a lot of frills in the design, just wanted the photography to be up front and center.
I still use Bridge CS3 for file organization and Photoshop CS3 for editing. However I transfer finished images to iPhoto for easy transfer into iWeb.
Please let me know what your think.
www.graggphoto.com
Thanks,
Matt
As Jake says, the navigation aspect of the site could be improved. Larger, more obvious links would help, as would keeping the navigation links constant across all pages (i.e., have the same links on the home page as on the other pages). Having the image on the home page click through to the galleries would also be worth considering.
In your galleries, it'd be nice if you could turn off that reflection thing that pops up when in the slideshow window. A wider selection of your photos would also be nice to see.
The text on the info page is quite small. While small text looks nice, it's a pain to read. The picture of you is also showing twice on that page.
You might want to protect your photos by disabling right click or watermark you photos.Nice photos!
G Robert
You might want to protect your photos by disabling right click or watermark you photos.Nice photos!
G Robert
Simple, clean, easy to navigate and the images are showcased well - as they should be and as you wanted. I like the simple white.
Here's a few thoughts. Maybe you've changed the navigation size, but I'm fine with the current size. However, I personally would like to see a consistent, or constant navigation menu. In other words, on your entry page, you have "The Portfolio" and "Info." Clicking on "the portfolio," the nav menu is now images, info and other places... If you're going to call out your images as Portfolios, then stick with that throughout. Although you can get to the "home" page by clicking on your name, you might want a "home" link. Also, you should most definitely include at a minimum © Matt Gragg on the bottom of every page (much more important than "Made on a Mac"
I would go as far as having a page/link specifying a copyright statement. Lastly, lose the page hit counter. It was fun a decade ago and IMHO only does two things: tells people you don't get a lot of traffic (379hits) OR if you had 3,259,873 hits last week, it's a nonsensical ego button.
Overall, I think you have a very clean and workable site that should be easy for you to keep up.
Lon
I shot in Hawaii for three years and never took anything that nice. Great photos.
If you are trying to sell photographs, I recommend that you put your contact information on every page. Don't make the buyer find your picture and then have to go looking for information on how to buy it. Remember, they may google in to something beyond your intro page.
I would spend a little time researching Search Engine Optimization (SEO). I reviewed your code, and there are a couple of simple things you could do to make your pictures more likely to show up when someone types in "Hawaii photography." Google searches text--although they are working on text embedded in images, I'm told--and the words "Akaka Falls" are not in your code for the webpage that shows your picture of Akaka Falls.
There is a "Title" option for each page. Your front page title in the code is "<title>Welcome</title>," which does not exactly make you stand out from the crowd. Consider helping Google help you by replacing "Welcome" with something like "Hawaii photography, scenics, landscapes, tropical." Do this for every page.
Your title page, and I will assume your other pages, do not have <description> tags. Search engines use description tags to figure out what your page is about. It is often what shows up on the actual search results.
I will do a little poking around and get back to you on other stuff. I am being dragged through this briar patch myself at the moment, so much of it is fairly new to me as well.
Still, great photos.
KR/w
Nice site. I would get rid of the reflection thing in the slideshow, too. Makes it look like maybe part of the image is being cut off unless you go look at the thumbnails. My feeling is that the images in the slideshow should be much larger. As long as I am on that, perhaps you could include a way to view images larger. A buyer will want to see the detail better. Protect your images - get rid of the right click copy or (Mac) drag and drop. While i do not place watermarks or copyright on my images (that's just me and probably stupid of me), I do have a copyright statement on ALL my pages. I also include an email address on ALL my pages at the bottom. A click through on the main page image that takes you at least somewhere would be nice. Wonderful images though. Keep it up!
Troup