Website critique please - all help appreciated

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Joe B

Joe B

PFG, Picture Framing God
Joined
Mar 29, 2008
Posts
5,986
Loc
Blaine, Minnesota
Hello Everyone,

Just got my web site up and running and would appreciate if you all would critique it and give me some constructive comments. I am quite thick skinned so don't be afraid of hurting my feelings.

You can get to my site at www.jbframing.com

Thanks one and all.

Joe B
 
It's a good start. Out of the gate you avoided so many pitfalls that claim others. It's not to wordy, it has images, its not to page heavy....

It's not amazing but with some work I think it could be improved greatly.

It looks like a template. Is it a wordpress template? If so you can still tweek the images and text in such a way to remove alot of that template feeling.

I like that you have different image on different pages but they are rather poor quality. Almost all of them are cuts from other pages and plopped into yours. I'd use better quality images and process them in such a way that it looks like part of your page rather than added to you page. It looks like you tried that with the PPFA logo. Although I don't think that was a successful graphic, that's the idea! Also your main image at the top. That needs alot of work. Again it looks like a low quality image that was cropped poorly and dropped onto the page.

The way I view your page is that it is a great paint job. The real work starts after the paint is sprayed. Now you need to wetsand it and clear coat it. It's far from done now but the foundation is sound.

Good luck!
 
Thank you Jay, that is the type of critique I am looking for. It will take me some time, but I will do some changing. Photos of my framing is going to be the hardest. I may have to get a few of my photography friends to come and take some better shots - I'll buy the beer and wine of course. Again, thank you, Joe B
 
I am browsing your website in Chrome.
The Header looks like the bottom of the frame got chopped off.
The frame also looks like it was stretched and out of proportion.

Not quite sue why you have a calendar on the right hand side.
It's better is you put your hours and address instead.
Also, the "number of visitors" in the left side bar is a thing of the past.
I would only display it if I have hundreds of thousands of visitors.
I agree with Jay H's comments about the images.
People read from left to right ( at least here in the US ) so put the most important info on the left side.
I would also move the left sidebar navigation to the footer.

I just quickly browsed through the content and did not see (I could be wrong) where you are located.

My 2centavos
Troy
 
The calendar sez it is the 4th.

Is the singular of Wall Buddies, "Wall Buddie" or "Wall Buddy"?

Definitely you need your address and contact info on the first page.

I would also say something to the tune of "Joe has been framing for __ years and he keeps himself up-to-date with the latest techniques by attending classes, etc."
 
By no means am I an expert, but here are some thoughts.

1. The whole thing is quite dark. I dont know why, but this is turning me off a bit.
2. I would suggest that you have your navigation links at the top not fade to black (thereby blending in) when you hover over them.
3. I took a look at it like the spiders would (the things that search the internet looking at sites) and there is nothing that it finds on your site. That's bad because you want it to have the ability to get good organic rankings in the search engines. Go to this site and plug in your web address and tell me what it sees and then do the same excercise with Troy's site. His is what it should look like. If you do this same exercise with the big franchise brands (TGFU and FastFrame) you will see major differences in how they do it as well that show you what to do and what not to do. One is clearly thinking things through better than the other. It's an interesting look at things. If the spiders don't see the content that they are looking for, they will pass you by and you will not get the rankings you want.
4. Why do I want to sign up? Are you offering a drawing for free custom framing? Are you going to send me savings? I don't know that getting updates on new posts is enough to get my e-mail.

Just my two cents
 
Okay...here goes.

- no need in the header to mention 'jbframing.com'. at that point, people have already found your website, no need to mention it.

-Home page; too much clutter

- Picture of the month; maybe it's own page/tab

-To the left; find answers to challenges; you then expect to click on the question and find an answer, so maybe insert links with answers?

- It seems like you only do military, medals etc. Is that true? If so; good, if not, you might want to rethink that page as that was my impression

-Framing tips; seems you only talk about mats. Furthermore, the 'facts' that you mention as the truth are merely opinions (except for it raising the glazing from the art.
Wider mats are preferred by some, but might feel off putting to browsers...you state this as such an opinion, it might make people feel awkard to visit your store if they had something else in mind.
Don't express opinions on your website.

Somewhere I found the sentence; permanent un repairable damage. Which made me think 'duh!'. Just stick with permanent damage, sounds better.

I don't like black backgrounds. More pictures, less text.

Home page should state your name, address/contact information and a big photo of your shop, inside/outside, whatever works.
A home page should be inviting, not cluttered, not too much information.
As a customer, I tune out as soon as I see more than one sentence... you might try different fonts to break it up a little.

Glad you started your website though!!!!
 
Thank you all - looks like I still have a lot of work to do on the site. I am happy that it is up, now thanks to your comments, I will have a better idea on how to change it around and clean it up.

Thanks again
 
I have done some a lot of the changes to my site as some of you suggested. I know there is more to do but I feel like I am getting closer to what I want it to look like. Are there any other suggestions that can be done to help the look. I know the pictures aren't the best and I am going to be working on those. I appreciate all of the comments. Joe B
 
Joe, I think it might have been mentioned, but your "Custom Framing" page, though it mentions several types of things that you frame, implies that you only do, or at least specialize in, military framing. "A picture is worth a thousand words" comes to mind.

The fixed right hand column of "Find Answers to Framing Challenges" seems a bit tiresome after a few pages. I would consider having a page for just that, along with the answers.

On the bright side, it sounds like you may have already done some tweaking - I didn't look at your site until today - but I think the overall impression is pleasing, not dark or cluttered as some have said.
 
It’s a good beginning. It is attractive and easy on my eyes.

Two suggestions: it appears that framing medals is your primary focus. I would add a few more treatments e.g. standard print, poster, cross stitch.

On the right you have “Find Answers to Framing Challenges” with a bullet list. I would like to see each of these questions linked to an answer so you don’t have to hunt over several pages to find them. I didn’t find the answers (although I didn't look all that hard). I think links would be more interactive to the site visitor.
 
rosace said:
IMHO.
The background color does not match with the header color
Click to expand...


That is a good thing. It makes the header stand out more.

The only thing I would change after looking at it real quick is, I would move the page links to under the header instead of above it. Other than that, looks good.
 
Thank you all for the costructive comments about my web site. I have made many changes thanks to the comments and will be making other changes as time goes by - sometimes it is really hard to find the extra time.

Jerry, thanks for the comment about moving the links under the header, that will be my next change when I return from Vegas. I knew there was something wrong but I just couldn't put my finger on it, it took another set of eyes, thank you.

Julie, sorry, I can't help you. I am lucky enough to have a photographer friend/client who is very good with computers develop and is maintaining my web site. We trade services and believe me, I'm getting the better end of that deal because I'm a real idiot when it comes to computers. I will ask him for you though or have him read the question. I'm confident that he will have the answer if someone else doesn't answer the question first.

Again, thank you all for the comments.

Joe B
 
Julie Walsh said:
I've just had a chance to read this post and I'm interested in how to populate the spidered text section of the link: http://www.webconfs.com/search-engine-spider-simulator.php
Can anyone help answer this??
Click to expand...

Julie, I would suggest that you do a search on "Search Engine Optimization" or SEO to get some idea on what should be on your webpage that will yield a higher ranking of your website in your location. A quick look at your webpage's source code showed me that you have nothing that the search engines will pick up on that will lead to higher rankings. A few basic things to add are meta keywords and meta descriptions. Also, adding more information and keywords to your title line will help a lot because it's one of the first things the spiders look at. A title like "Home" is not very descriptive to your business. I've listed some of the information I have on my home page (www.whiteoconnellphoto.com) to give you an idea of what you can add. Hopefully you have a program that will allow you to edit your website. You might want to think of a redesign too. There are many templates available, and there is also Wordpress that has many templates too. This is what I use for my new framing site (www.fabframing.com) Good luck!

Here is my meta info and title info:

<title>Children, Family, Pet, Business, High School Senior Portraits by Photography by Susan White and Mark O'Connell - Norwell, Hanover, Boston, Pembroke, Raynham, and the South Shore</title>

<meta name="keywords" content="Susan, White, Mark, O'Connell, Children Portraits, Baby Photos, Newborn, Maternity, Family, High, School, Senior, Pictures, Business Portrait, Business Headshots, Business PR,Pet, Graduation, Photos, Portraits, Norwell, Hanover, Pembroke, Raynham, South Shore, Boston, MA, Mass, Massachusetts, Child, Children's, Babies, Photographer, Photography, Pregnancy, Studio, Quincy, Plymouth, Kingston, Rockland, Taunton, High, Fashion, Glamour, norwellseniorphotos.com, southshorechildphotography.com, hanoverphotography.com, norwellfamilyphotos.com, norwellbabyphotos.com, southshorebabyphotography.com">



<meta name="description" content="South Shore Massachusetts Photographers Susan White and Mark O'Connell. Serving Boston, Norwell, Hanover, and surrounding areas with beautiful portraits of Children, High School Seniors, Families, and Business People, oconnellphotography.com, susanwhitephoto.com, oconnellseniors.com, oconnellstudio.com, norwellseniorphotos.com, southshorechildphotography.com, hanoverphotography.com, norwellfamilyphotos.com, norwellbabyphotos.com, southshorebabyphotography.com">



<META content="Mark O'Connell - www.whiteoconnellphoto.com" name=author>

<META content="Copyright 2010 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Photography by Susan White & Mark O'Connell" name=copyright>

<META content=all name=robots>

<META content="5 days" name=revisit-after>

<META content=general name=rating>

<META content=http://www.whiteoconnellphoto.com name=identifier-url>
 
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