Hi everybody

Would you have a look at my website, i would like your views it seems to average 3-4 hits a day, it doesnt seem to generate much business, Iam hoping to get around 20 weddings next year,

Have been filming weddings for 4years now no complaints up to now,

any tips to up the anti for next year

www.thomasweddingvideos.co.uk

Thanks
Ian

Ian,

I suggest you carefully check the spelling of all text on your website. At first glance, I noticed three misspelled words. If you want to up the ante (not anti) for next year, you need to present a more professional image. I didn't spend more than 30 seconds looking at your site, because I was immediately turned off by the careless spelling. Makes potential customers wonder if you are just as careless with the little details that go into producing a wedding video.

Also, the cash register sound effect on the home page is very tacky and would lead some to believe that your top priority is getting paid. I'd remove that right away.

Just my two cents...

Bill

England English and American English differ slightly in spelling. If his audience is geared for England and not America, I believe his spelling is correct.

Enquiry=Inquiry
Programme=Program
Favourite=Favorite
Licence=License
Jewellry=Jewelry
Spelt=Spelled
etc.. etc.. etc....

England English and American English differ slightly in spelling. If his audience is geared for England and not America, I believe his spelling is correct.

But what about:

recieve
occassion
proffesionalisam (even though it's a quote from a client, it should be corrected)
dissapointment
:)

Bill

The fact that the fire page of the site is built entirely from flash is very search engine unfriendly. Also, and please don't take this in a nasty way as it is only my personal opinion, the site doesn't look particularly professional. There are a certain number of things you have done that I would consider no no's. For example the transitions for the menu items at the begining do nothing but slow down the users ability to access the information they're after.

In my opinion heavy or initial use of flash is only really acceptable when producing a stunning piece of flash design where the flash animations themselves are integral to the design.

For examples of what I mean check out these sites:

www.billybussey.com
www.2advanced.com

I'd recommend building the site using a similar style to the one you have, but using ASP.NET or PHP and create a basic CMS system for yourself. This will make your life much easier when updating the site and will also make it more search engine friendly. Also remember, web designers aren't just people who can code websites, they are artists in their own right and web design is an art form.

Another thing to consider is your use of tables within the HTML pages, your site is not accessible to those with disabilities. In the UK this is now considered illegal (although it is still a grey area), strictly speaking you should be using CSS to design and layout your page and should definitely be using things such as alt tags on images. Some of youre images do have alt text but a few don't.

Try running some of your pages through here, you will see what I mean re: accessibility

http://www.tawdis.net/taw3/cms/en

But what about:

recieve
occassion
proffesionalisam (even though it's a quote from a client, it should be corrected)
dissapointment
:)

Billand "quailty" too.

My advice :
yes, get rid of the flash intro. People don't like waiting for ANYTHING on the web - anything that delays (even for 1 second) getting people into the details will annoy them.

Get rid of the slightly silly sounds on the main page. (and yes... WHY the cash register?! completely inappropriate. sorry but it makes you look money-grabbing)

correct all typo's. Doesn't shout "quality" (or quailty ... ;-) in any way.

- On the wedding packages ...where are the *prices* ? I couldnt see them. Number one rule when selling anything in writing is include the price ! People may be surfing 3 or 4 wedding videographer sites and they want to compare two things : prices and quality of the product. Product quality can be shown with demo footage. Prices must be shown as again, people are inherently lazy and won't want to wait for this info by contacting you - they want INSTANT info and anything that slows that down (on any site - not just a wedding site) will just make them move on to another site.

I'd put a stunning showreel together and make it physically bigger on screen rather than the current smallish vidclip. I like using Quicktime for that sort of thing, but choose your own player.

For example, here is the 'showreel' page for someone i know wedding videos :
http://www.playaweddings.com/video.php

several 'wedding edits' there. For eg :
http://www.playaweddings.com/videos/ReenaLuke_weddingday.php
- Ignore the palm trees, and look at the editing, the variety of angles, the music, the changes in pace, the pre-ceremony shots - its all very stylish and makes people want to use that persons skills.
Here's another one :
http://www.playaweddings.com/DalieneJeff/swf_hi.php


see those, and .... with respect, I think you'll see the difference between that work and the clips on your own site. Make your own clips something which makes people say "BLimey thats impressive...". Include prices for all packages and full details of whats included and you'll be better set..

just my opinions..

Thanks everybody for your comments, i will get my website man to correct the errors and update it

Thanks Again
Ian

is it me or is the 4:3 pic on the package page squished??
Format page....3 formats but only 2 listed?? And the 16:9 pic looks squished...but maybe the guy is just thin??

Pic on the links page and about page look squished....

Just a few things to add to improve your website;

* I would not auto-start the samples you offer, but let the user start the movie he/she wants to see. Now they all start at once.

* You could offer the low-bandwith version with a scrolldown menu instead of offering the low-bandwith version as a seperate download.

* Don't use different fonts, as you do now. A 'Verdana'font intro leading to a Times New Roman website is not as stylish as it can be. The use of a stylesheet (CSS) can help.

* Indeed, fasten up the intro. Now it seems that your name is coming into the screen at 16 fps. Secondly, the buttons are already touchable without being visible. And for IE7 users there is another way to implement flash so that the visitor doesn't have to click to activate the flashmovie (which means they have to doubleclick a flashbutton before it responds). When you load your flashintro-page in Dreamweaver CS3, it automatically offers you to repair that specific code.

* The link to your webdesigner at the Corporate DVD part is wrong or doesn't work with me(http://www.pajmyorkservices.co.uk/, should be yorkwebdesigner.com). However, I see that the webmasters emailaddress end with @pajmyorkservices.co.uk

Good luck with updating it, I am sure all the suggestions will lead to a better website!

Regards,
Thomas (my first name though ;))

Hi Dave,

I'd recommend building the site using a similar style to the one you have, but using ASP.NET or PHP and create a basic CMS system for yourself. This will make your life much easier when updating the site and will also make it more search engine friendly.

Ouch! I sure don't agree at all that a creating a dynamic site with ASP or PHP is the way to go. To do it right, that introduces a whole level of complexity that is far beyond the level of expertise of the vast majority of web developers out there.

IMO, stick with well formed CSS.

Thanks Tim

we are making some changes, the spelling has been done hopefully and other changes shortly

thanks
Ian

The reason you are only getting 3 or 4 hits a day (this is a very low number) is because no-one can find your site when searching on the internet (e.g., Google)

It's easy to show. Go to Google and search:

link:thomasweddingvideos.co.uk

The result is zero.

I would guess that half those hits are from robots. In fact, Google has probably been there since this search:

site:thomasweddingvideos.co.uk

lists 9 of the pages on your website.

You need to get a greater web presence - so-called Search Engine Optimis/zation (SEO). Your web person should know all about this and do it for you. There are ways to do it for free.

You should also have your web person install "phpTrafficA" - it monitors all your web traffic including things like what search engine took them there, how long they stayed, where they are from etc. It's free and very useful.

I have it on my site and my wife's.

For my site: today - 142 hits, December - 3287, Total - 144283
For my wife: today - 0 hits, December - 72, Total - 5236

The difference - my wife doesn't promote her site (no need to). I promote my site. Some of the ways are indirect. If I type your web site address here: <your address> then it will appear when someone searches for, say, "greater web presence" because it will hit this thread in DVInfo. You have to do this responsibly, though.

In fact, already your original post here shows up in Google when you search under your website address. DVInfo and other similar fora appear very quickly.

Ask you web person to help. There's no point in a website if it's invisible.

is it me or is the 4:3 pic on the package page squished??
Format page....3 formats but only 2 listed?? And the 16:9 pic looks squished...but maybe the guy is just thin??

Pic on the links page and about page look squished....

It's not you. In fact... if you really want to see something funky, take a look at the demo page with Firefox!

Ian, if you really value opinions on here, if I were you... I'd lose those "demos" you have posted. That main one has a lot of things wrong with it, aside from the aspect ratio being out of whack, there's also some bad edits & some with flash frames. Just my opinion.

Hi, my web man has made some changes with some more to come, does it look ok

I think the home page is a lot better - but why are you distorting the picture by starting 'normal' and then squishing it - makes the B&G look elongated?

Also the headline is "Ian Thomas Wedding Videos" -then you have menu links to "Wedding", "Wildlife" and "Corporate" - but the main picture is of a wedding. So if you're not exclusively wedding - then you need to lose the "Wedding Videos" in the headline and taking that one step further - lose the wedding photo altogether. A better alternative would be to have a completely separate non wedding site.

Your 'Formats' page still states "3 formats" but only details 2.

I haven't even got my web site up yet so not 100% qualified to comment but hope the above helps.

Ian

thanks Ian

Yes still a few more things to do, thanks for the comments

Many of my clients find me through these wedding linksites were you got everything related to weddings grouped together, I found a few that allowed a free link to my website, their only request was to link back to them.

It has also been mentioned here before and I know it's not what you asked to be looked at but your videodemo is by far THE most important element of your site and it doens't look right. If you only change the music that would make a big difference, the music now gives me the feeling someone died. You state on your website that you have a high level of expertise but in de wedding clip at 39 seconds f.i. I saw the remains of another clip flashing for half a second? I think that looks quite sloppy from an editor point of view.

I don't want to sound harsh but you would be better off just removing the demo and posting frames of your footages instead. Just make another demo but try to take out the highlights which show more emotion, people waiting in front of a church or a car isn't very appealing. I think you would be better off starting a seperate topic and just ask what people here think about your video and ask for suggestions. Nobody likes to be critisized but you can be sure that the people on this forum all mean well and know what they are talking about.

Maybe a good suggestion would be to use wordpress as a system to manage your site, I see that you are also into wildlife and through wordpress you could share your experience in a better way. Eventhough wordpress is primarily a blog systems some users managed to create a more magazine like content managment system like: http://www.wpremix.com/home/ or http://www.darrenhoyt.com/demo/mimbo2/ which look like a normal website but have some great potential as you can use it as a video or photoblog as well. And they are very easy to maintain once it is set up and has great SEO.

y. Eventhough wordpress is primarily a blog systems some users managed to create a more magazine like content managment system like: http://www.wpremix.com/home/ or http://www.darrenhoyt.com/demo/mimbo2/ which look like a normal website but have some great potential as you can use it as a video or photoblog as well. And they are very easy to maintain once it is set up and has great SEO.


Are these Do it Yourself web page builders?

Are these Do it Yourself web page builders?

The wordpress engine installs in 5 minutes, it only requires an sql database on your server. Then it's just a matter of choosing a theme and your good to go. So it can function out of the box.The most interesting part is that it's open source and free, you have some paid premuim themes that offer more options but that's not allways the case, there are some very well build free themes as well.

There are also tons of plugins to choose from to improve functionality, also all free. A bit of knowledge of php helps and is often required but there is a hugh user base with plenty forums that are all willing to help you out really quickly.

Another option is Joomla which is more cms based but has also al lot of possibilities to add a lot of functionality, including blogs.

I use the mimbo template which gives me a normal looking site on the front and a blog hidden a bit deeper. For me it was most important that visitors first see my products and both theme's I mention above are perfect for that.

The wordpress engine installs in 5 minutes,

Installs fast but neither one seem to have anything resembling an "Install" icon. Forums and help features are like a black hole, knowledge and light cannot escape.

Forums and help features are like a black hole
Depends on what theme you install, some developers include very good tutorials but it's true wordpress does require a bit looking under the hood and a bit php knowledge if you want to make layout changes. Then again, setting up a website up is never easy, ever worked with dreamweaver? Another solution for a simple website is web page maker http://www.webpage-maker.com/ which takes wysiwyg very literally, easy as working with paint. Only in regard to functionality it's limited.

Then again, setting up a website up is never easy, ever worked with dreamweaver? .

I opened dreamweaver once upon a time and experienced an immediate nervous breakdown. You're right, nothing intuitive about it.

I opened dreamweaver once upon a time and experienced an immediate nervous breakdown. You're right, nothing intuitive about it.

That's what I use but only because it's what I have. Painful.