I know many of you are pretty up to date with website design and many of you gave me some great advice and critique on my old website. I was wandering what your thoughts are on my current one and if you can see any areas where I could improve it.
I am currently changing areas and will be dropping a couple of the galleries for new ones.

Home

A few quickies

The design looks nice – good work if this isn’t what you do for a living (building sites)

Get rid of the cookie message. It’s no longer needed and the average user doesn’t understand what the hell it means.
Get rid of the right click message. Totally pointless and it doesn’t protect your photos in the slightest. If you don’t want people being able to take your photos – don’t put them on the web.
Contact form could do with the layout tidying up a little to make it more usable.
I don’t get the difference between your galleries, client galleries and portfolio.

andybanks, I was led to believe it was law to have the cookie sign but if not I will certainly omit it. I will look into the contact form. As for the galleries. I have my main set of galleries of my landscape work. client gallery is a password protected gallery for events and the such like. The portfolio page is split up into different section for my other genres of photography, publications and blog style images sets.
Most have been positive about that section.

Get rid of the right click message. Totally pointless and it doesn’t protect your photos in the slightest.

I’m all for that as well, I find it very annoying and it doesn’t really protect your images from someone who wants them. I was also worried that it may restrict google images from indexing your images but it doesn’t seem to have at all and in fact indexing seems to have worked well for you so far.

I dislike not being able to see a big full screen image (which I guess you have done because you would rather not watermark). I would rather see a watermarked big image than a small one. I would also worry that google may start to prioritise the larger images in it’s search although I haven’t seen that happening yet.

Get rid of the cookie message. It’s no longer needed and the average user doesn’t understand what the hell it means

Cheers for that – just turned of the daft thing on my site 😉

The cookie legislation was the worst thought through legislation I’ve come across in a long time. Nothing stipulated what you had to do and there was no requirement to put a specific notice on your site.

It was badly thought through and wooly and guidance on it was changed within months of it’s introduction.

Have a read of this – http://www.creativebloq.com/industry-trends/cookie-law-dead-1122855

leffeboy, the whole watermark debate is a tough one. I found that the majority would rather not see a watermark on the images. Many say it distracts from the image. It is a real tough one, maybe never to be right or wrong.

Content rather than style. On you bio you start with:

?My name is Anthony Pease and I am lucky enough to live in South Wales, near both the Brecon Beacons & the Black Mountain. ??I’m an electrician by trade but when I’m not working I spend my spare time in the hills and mountains around Wales.

I think it would be worth mentioning that you do photography too. I know it seems obvious but mention it anyway so if someone cuts and pastes bit of your text they are aware. It can be as simple as:

I’m an electrician by trade but when I’m not working I spend my spare time in the hills and mountains around Wales with my camera.

WorldClassAccident, that is a fair point, thank you. I wrote this early last year and a lot has changed since then. I didn’t really feel like a photographer then and a little shy to say that I was.

Well, if you weren’t then, you are now! The only observation I’d make is that the site needs ‘monetised’ (sorry). If I want to buy a print there’s no obvious way of doing so. Just a wee Buy it Now button is all that’s required.

Have you looked at your website on a phone? It just doesn’t work.

johndoh. I know its not the best on a phone. It works fine on a tablet. It is hard to cater for everything when building a website on limited funds and knowledge.

This /\

Edit: too slow. I get the drop down and the bg. Can’t select categories though on ip5

User-removed has got it. I like the site, the photos are good, seems nice so now I will …

… Well, not sure really. You seem a nice guy and I like your photos but what is the purpose of the website?

I assume you want if to make new visitors want to contact you or buy existing stuff. Plan those users visits and help them buy or contact you, remember the gift shops at the exit of every castle and historic building ever? They did work.

If you wan existing clients to see their stuff and share ugly with friends then they need to be taken down a different route. Easily done and you password protected stuff sort of does that. Does it lead to Howell and cross sell of other stuff? Personalised Christmas and birthday cards, canvas prints, momento snaps…

You have the talent as a photographer but you need to also be a salesman, pr expert and business man.

WorldClassAccident I appreciate all of that. I had a big issue in that I couldnt get the theme to work with a shop. I had to get someone to rewrite some code behind the scenes to get it to remotely work. I may change the theme again in a year or so if it doesn’t evolve into what I want. I will be adding calenders and cards etc this year. I am working on a few ideas.
As for the site, it’s a portfolio of my work. An area for people to see my work and follow my outdoor life. I want to work more with my blog and I have a few exciting projects this year. I find people contact me direct to purchase and I tend to push my limited editions and hand framed work more than the standard prints I offer in the shop.
I also use twitter and facebook to take people to the website and ultimately buy from me or use my services.

https://www.facebook.com/AnthonyPeasePhotography

@pease971

All these comments are useful though as everyone sees things differently and there are many more experienced out there than myself.

leffeboy, the whole watermark debate is a tough one.

Completely agree. I use Smugmug and there is always an ongoing discussion about whether you should right click protect or watermark as RCP may block Google from picking up images. However in the end if you end up having to restrict the size of your images to protect them that that may be worse. What you have at the moment is probably okay though as you can actually see your images even if they aren’t as big as I would like.

Good stuff ❗

Website isn’t working here.

There is a full stop after the Limited Edition Prints heading, but no the others. Same after clicking it on the subsequent page. A very minor point, but one that all the OCD types will notice!

thegreatape, Very true that!! No real reason for it to be there.Added the page more recently so must have not been paying attention. I shall change it 🙂