Forums > Critique > London Photographer Website Critique

Photographer

Pro London Photographer

Posts: 12

London, England, United Kingdom

Hello everyone

I am a London based photographer and I just launched my new website : http://www.prolondonphotographer.com/

Please have a look and tell me your most sincere opinion.

Thank you !

Apr 02 14 11:59 pm Link

Photographer

J Haggerty

Posts: 1315

Augusta, Georgia, US

Remove the breadcrumb navigation.

Home page: center the images and text.
Portrait: Eliminate all but you're top 10-15 images overall. Keep one or two from the first set but break up the presentation.
Studio: Remove the image of the chair, it doesn't flow with the rest showing people and is redundant with the girl in the next frame standing next to it.
Wedding: I'd recommend you build another website - even make a subdomain with the current url - to optimize seo. Make it pretty and frilly to appeal to couples.
Family: Can fall under Portrait, but it seems like this album is more about infants and children. Title it newborn or make another subdomain to optimize SEO for new mommies.
Events: Cool, but again you're killing your seo and the presentation of the website overall screams jumbled and non-specialized.
Product: It's been all about people so far, this is way out of place here. Send it to a new website.
Retouching: Get rid of it. Your portrait/family clients know you'll retouch but don't want to see the "horror" before the magic. Hide this unless it's asked for.
Prices: To each their own for displaying prices but keep in mind that in the creative field the workload and details are different for each and every project. You may undersell yourself for weddings and events. At the price you have set now for weddings and events, you may change your tune very quickly when the workload piles up and the clients will be turned off if they see one price one day and a drastically higher price the next. Know the project and know you creative minimum pay before you set a fixed price.
About: Because you have so many styles and skills on this one website, the about page reads very impersonal and detached. A couple wanting a wedding photographer is going to be looking for something that says it's all about them NOT the photographer. Mommies of newborns want to connect with a photographer who is as excited about their new baby as they are. Product clients won't give a care about you but what you can do.
Contact: Center it.

Overall: The layout is super wide, narrow it a bit to remove the excess space inside your content tables and allow breathing room around it. Make subdomains to portray specialized skill sets. Consider purchasing a dynamic WP theme so this will be easily view-able on multiple devices.

Good luck!

Apr 03 14 08:27 am Link

Photographer

Pro London Photographer

Posts: 12

London, England, United Kingdom

Thank you! big_smile I will try to follow your much appreciated advice.

Apr 03 14 12:15 pm Link

Photographer

epsilon images

Posts: 147

Bellevue, Washington, US

I totally agree with the subdomain idea.  Somehow portraits and products don't belong in the same page in my little mind.  It also bothers me that the portraits section has multiple portraits of the same person.  A couple would be OK -- to show versatility of your treatment of an individual -- but more than that, especially if they are wearing the same outfit, looks redundant.  Just my uneducated opinion, though.  Great work overall.

/d

Apr 05 14 10:09 am Link

Photographer

Pro London Photographer

Posts: 12

London, England, United Kingdom

Hi there people,

I changed a few things on my Pro London Photographer website, please have a look now and tell me your professional opinion http://www.prolondonphotographer.com .

Thank you!

Apr 08 14 02:13 am Link

Photographer

Drew Smith Photography

Posts: 5214

Nottingham, England, United Kingdom

Pro London Photographer wrote:
Hi there people,

I changed a few things on my Pro London Photographer website, please have a look now and tell me your professional opinion http://www.prolondonphotographer.com .

Thank you!

First thing that strikes me is the name 'Pro London Photographer'. It sounds like you are 'pro' London, as opposed to being 'anti' London. It's a small thing.

next is the Home Page - I think you miss an opportunity to 'connect' personally with your traffic. There is nothing there to 'welcome' me in. I know you have an 'About' page but you Home page is where I landed first.

Hope this helps. smile

Apr 08 14 02:35 am Link

Photographer

GoneAway

Posts: 561

Tombouctou, Tombouctou, Mali

Based on the view that most people visiting a website will move on very quickly if they don't see what they want I'll give my opinion based on a quick 30 second flick through your pages.

1. Good photographers invariably base their brand around their name. "Pro London Photographer" at a quick glance makes me think you might just be a loosely based organisation which subs work out to other photographers on an ad-hoc basis whilst charging a commission. I would be concerned about that as I want to know exactly who I'm hiring and what they'd do for me. As a result I went straight to your 'About' page to establish more about your organisation instead of visiting your portfolio.

2. Your body of work looks and feels VERY model portfolio/editorial orientated. It does not feel as if they're real, day-to-day people enjoying a portrait session or family occasion. If that's your intended market (as indicated by your pricing structure) I don't think your images are marketing you towards it. They're too sterile, 'clean' and unrepresentative of that market IMHO.

3. Whilst I'm not a fan of over-complicated websites the style and feel of yours is very basic and 'straight out of the box'. The design and marketing aspects of it need a bit of a lift I think.

Hope that helps a bit.

Apr 08 14 03:56 am Link

Photographer

Pro London Photographer

Posts: 12

London, England, United Kingdom

Thank you all, your are all helping me a lot to understand how manage my website and my images.

Do you think my blog part of the website is useful for my seo ?

http://www.prolondonphotographer.com/blog-2/

Apr 08 14 04:14 pm Link

Photographer

J Haggerty

Posts: 1315

Augusta, Georgia, US

Get rid of the Portraits and Couples sections, take one photo from each of those 3 sets and add them to Studio - which you should rename to portfolio.

The Home page needs some work. As your call name "Pro London Photographer" says 'organization' instead of 'individual' place an intro that states your photographic intentions and put in a slideshow of your strongest work.

WP Themes can be $50 and look nice, check them out.

Blogs can be great for SEO, but you're going to need more fleshed out content for it to actually work. Install an SEO Image plugin and add your terms there.

Apr 09 14 08:48 am Link