Posted by Wayne Simpson on December 30, 2011 at 5:02 PM
I'm wondering if a few of you could do me the favour of visiting my new nature site and letting me know what you think. The site is what is called a "Scaler" site from Livebooks. I'm really questioning the speed of the site. If you could share your impressions on loading speeds and image sharpness I would really appreciate it. Here is the site
www.wsimpsonphoto.com
Posted by Eva McDermott on December 30, 2011 at 6:29 PM
Hi Wayne - I have checked it out. Gorgeous images no doubt. It does appear to load very slowly (Flash site?) at first at least on the first few clicks. Speed seems to be variable when you visit.
BTW - If that bothers you, have you checked out Zenfolio or Smugmug. I prefer Zenfolio for ease of optimization.
Posted by Wick Smith on December 31, 2011 at 9:08 AM
Wayne,
You've got great photography there. I love the scenery & how you've captured it. It does take a bit of load time, given that it is based in Flash and graphics heavy. Does the provider also have a non-flash version for those browsers without flash? If search engines are important to you, just know that they cannot read flash or the flash menus. Also, iPads & iPhones will be unable to view your site without a non-flash version. Again, that may not be important to you.
Love the photos!
Posted by Lance Warley on December 31, 2011 at 10:16 AM
The only thing wrong with your site is that it's not my site.
The flash loads a little slowly at the start, but so what?
The images are gorgeous, sharp as a tack but absolutely not over-sharpened. The site design is great - all about the images, no foo foo crap.
I love it.
Posted by Bud Friesen on December 31, 2011 at 10:25 AM
One problem I found was when I clicked on Contact I could not find a way to get back to the Home Page. I may have overlooked the obvious. The overall site I think is well organized and you have great photography. The kind I like. Bud
The site loads fairly quickly on my DSL connection in IE9. The 'Purchase Prints' link doesn't go anywhere; not finished, yet? The link to your blog is inactive, as well. It would be nice to have a e-mail contact form on your Contact page. Having your e-mail address posted is a sure way to get tons of spam.
For SEO you need text content. As was mentioned, search engines won't see Flash. I suggest that you either add some introductory text to the home page (best), and/or create a Bio page that contains keywords that search engines will see.
The images are gorgeous.
--P
Posted by Tony Colvin on December 31, 2011 at 12:45 PM
Nice images. The Flash issue has already been mentioned. When I click on the Purchase Print option, my Pop-up Blocker sends me a message and doesn't show anything until I say it's o.k., but when I click on the Info option, I can choose pricing from the drop-down menu. This may just be my settings. Also from the pricing screen, where you give your other websites address, it would be more convenient to clients if it was a clickable link, instead of them having to re-type the address or copy and paste.
When I was on the Contact page, I didn't see a Home Page selection, so I clicked my Back Button on my browser and it sent me off of your site, and back to what I was looking at previously.
Except for these little picky things, (they may just be from me not being too computer saavy) your site is well organized and the photography is outstanding. Looks very good.
Posted by Hali Sowle on December 31, 2011 at 8:53 PM
I like the way it looks, and for me, running a cable connection and Firefox it loaded fairly quickly. As you've heard the flash issue could be a problem with some people. As has been said before the images are gorgeous!!
Posted by Basil Greber on January 1, 2012 at 5:57 AM
I think it looks great, and the photos are great in any case. However, flash might be on its way out, so having a non-flash version of this site may be useful at this time, and may become critical at some point.
Posted by Wayne Simpson on January 2, 2012 at 11:25 AM
Thanks for your comments everyone, I really appreciate the input! The site does have a ghost html site which is only seen if someone does not have flash. I'm going to see if I can manage to size some of the images to a more manageable size in hopes of things speeding up a little.
Posted by Andy Richards on January 2, 2012 at 2:48 PM
Wayne: I would add my two cents on the "flash." I used a flash based site for about a year. Its slowness to load was the biggest complaint I got from users during that time. It was a great site and site host, but the flash was eventually a deal-killer. When I look at my site stats (website and several blogs), what strikes me is that even though there are a large number of site visits, the average time a visitor remains on a site is very short -- amazingly so. We have become a short (cyber) attention-span society and I would worry that people who are browsing the site may not have the patience to wait. Once you get beyond that, the setup is good and the photography is splendid!
Posted by Gary Gulash on January 15, 2012 at 12:15 PM
Professional and esthetically beautiful site. I didn't notice that the site was particularly slow loading, but perhaps I'm not as discerning. Wonderful photography, the site shows it off very well and that's huge in my opinion.
Discussion
11 replieswww.wsimpsonphoto.com
BTW - If that bothers you, have you checked out Zenfolio or Smugmug. I prefer Zenfolio for ease of optimization.
You've got great photography there. I love the scenery & how you've captured it. It does take a bit of load time, given that it is based in Flash and graphics heavy. Does the provider also have a non-flash version for those browsers without flash? If search engines are important to you, just know that they cannot read flash or the flash menus. Also, iPads & iPhones will be unable to view your site without a non-flash version. Again, that may not be important to you.
Love the photos!
The flash loads a little slowly at the start, but so what?
The images are gorgeous, sharp as a tack but absolutely not over-sharpened. The site design is great - all about the images, no foo foo crap.
I love it.
The site loads fairly quickly on my DSL connection in IE9. The 'Purchase Prints' link doesn't go anywhere; not finished, yet? The link to your blog is inactive, as well. It would be nice to have a e-mail contact form on your Contact page. Having your e-mail address posted is a sure way to get tons of spam.
For SEO you need text content. As was mentioned, search engines won't see Flash. I suggest that you either add some introductory text to the home page (best), and/or create a Bio page that contains keywords that search engines will see.
The images are gorgeous.
--P
When I was on the Contact page, I didn't see a Home Page selection, so I clicked my Back Button on my browser and it sent me off of your site, and back to what I was looking at previously.
Except for these little picky things, (they may just be from me not being too computer saavy) your site is well organized and the photography is outstanding. Looks very good.