Rate My Website

[Keethjon]

I just published my website and would like a little feedback. The right hand column is blank for future affiliate advertising

Thanks for your time

Keith
Easy Basic Photography

[michelsondl]

The first two things I noticed are:
1. The blue text on grey in the nav bar is too hard to read. I would go with something with more contrast.
2. The dark area to the left of your main content area is kind of odd. ( I circled what I mean in the screenshot)

Overall, to be real honest, I feel like the site looks a little dated. There are quite a few different font sizes and styles going on there. I would also change the linked text to something other than blue. I think overall the site feels a bit like it's one of those sites set up mainly to get traffic through the ads to make $$. Also, as far as the concept of the site itself, I think you might want to consider what you are putting into this website that makes it different than the 998,345 other sites out there with beginner photography tips. Maybe if you are going to be writing a new, original, article every week, then showcase your "Article of the Week" section at the top? As it stands now, the site doesn't seem appealing to anything more than a beginner who just happens to land at your site through a google search (which would likely not happen because something like DPS would more likely dominate your site in a google search for "photo tips" or something similar).

Sorry if it's harsh, but it's being honest and not coming from a bad place. I went through a few versions of my site and got my fair share of harsh criticism, but overall I think as long as it's constructive, it leaves you with a better end result.

I will say that you definitely succeeded so far in not going the route of so many others with an over load of flash and other annoyances.

[michelsondl]

ok, just to clarify, I pulled that number of sites out of thin air. I did go and google search "easy basic photography" and ended up with 2,470,000 results. I skipped through about the first 30 pages and by page 30 it was still sites about basic photo tips. Lot's of competition in that dept, so my suggestion is that you better be bringing something original to the table if you want to get traffic to the site.

Again, it's not coming from a bad place, just being honest.

[sybren]

I agree with Michel, a unique selling point for your website is very important. Think about what you want to do - if all you want is a place to put your cool and well-written articles, perhaps you could write to the DPS admins and write for the DPS blog instead. That'll give your articles a lot more exposure

[OsmosisStudios]

Dont take this personally, but that site belongs in the 1990s. The early 1990s. It needs a lot of work to be up to date. It's also no different than any other, as others have said, so it offers little to nothing that's new.

I dont mean to discourage, but to be honest. If you'd like, I can go into a bit more in-depth detail, but as it is, it's on the rough side.

[BigFuzzy]

I don't want to pile on, but I think it's important to know how many feel about it, and I most strongly agree with those that say it has a very 'dated' feel to it. The thing that really stood out to me is the plain text which feels very, well, plain... especially in the title. That should certainly be replaced with an image of your logo/name.

I also feel the same about content... make sure you're ready to really produce quality and quantity of content.. something I myself am working on trying to achieve.

If it helps any, I created my website by purchasing a wordpress theme through themeforest.com and have personalized it.. well, I'm still personalizing it as I've not finished it.

I know very little to no coding and I think i've been able to at least create something that's not generic nor too dated and it didn't take much more than creating my own background file with my logo on it and uploading it into the theme template.

If you wish to do a blog as well, i highly recommend looking into a wordpress based website as it's also (in my opinion) a pretty good content management system.

Good luck and I'm willing to help best I can (though pointing you to wordpress/themeforest may be the best I can do).

Cheers,
Al

[Peter Ahrens]

Originally Posted by BigFuzzy

If it helps any, I created my website by purchasing a wordpress theme through themeforest.com and have personalized it.. well, I'm still personalizing it as I've not finished it.

I know very little to no coding and I think i've been able to at least create something that's not generic nor too dated and it didn't take much more than creating my own background file with my logo on it and uploading it into the theme template.

I think Al is on the right track here (I checked out your website). Wordpress is easy to tailor to your needs. There's a lot of support on their forums, if you ever need help. I think I read that around 8-9% of all websites are run on Wordpress.

[elkidogz]

Yahoo site builder is older. Use something more mainstream like others have suggested wordpress, there are plenty of nice templates that are free and even better templates that are cheap. if your bound to use the yahoo site builder, 1 work on your borders, 2 work on your logo the text does not need to be italic and underlined and multicolored. again word press / Joomla or something else might be better for your needs.

[Keethjon]

Hey folks,
Thanks again for your replies. Besides DPS, could you guys refer me to a couple of sites that are considered "current"?. I also Googled Easy Basic Photography and the 3rd most popular site on page 1 is Basic-Digital-Photography.com. I don't think you can get any more basic and plain than that site. I strongly believe that site must be so high in ratings due to content and not design. What do you guys think?

Thanks

Keith
Easy Basic Photography

[michelsondl]

Keethjon, I saw that site too, and think it looks dated. Maybe they get tons of traffic through that site, who knows. Like I said, though, that site only really appeals to a small group of photo people. Once they read those few articles, they are done with the site. Wouldn't you rather have a site in which people return to it over and over? Also, my comments about site design and google rankings were meant to be totally separate ideas. To me, Basic-Digital-Photography.com looks like crap and it just has that feeling that it is full of ad links that I wouldn't want to click on. My comment about having so many sites come up before yours in a google search was to illustrate that your concept of a "basic photo tips" site is an extremely common type of site, and you have little chance of succeeding without something unique to offer that no one else offers. The comments on the site design were only observations on the looks, not meant to be related to any google search rankings. It's true that if you were to offer unique content that is good enough, then the site design won't matter as much, but in the end that's your call. I'd say more important is content, as I see that being your biggest issue right now. Get some good unique content in there then worry about aesthetics.