Relaunched my website - would love feedback

Quackles

Hello folks..

I've relaunched my website at http://www.dillon-malone.com .. I'd really love some feedback. I've added functionality, like the ability to rate or comment on pictures, an email form, embedded chat room, not to mention behind the scenes stuff that makes it easier to update. Any advice or crits would be appreciated! I've been looking at it for so long I'm not really 'seeing' it anymore..

Many thanks,

Deirdre

Gave it a quick look there.Great layout,very easy to navigate.Good rating system on the images and nice galleries too.The only problem is with the large images,some of them seem to be very pixelated.The giraffe in Fota island for example and some of the darker photos.There's nothing wrong with the photos themselves but with the processing of the images I think.Great site otherwise and some fantastic wildlife shots there.

jameshayes

Very nice... as above, very easy to navigate...

Clicked a few of your google ad's to help out with the financing as well...

Quackles

Deleted User wrote: »

Gave it a quick look there.Great layout,very easy to navigate.Good rating system on the images and nice galleries too.The only problem is with the large images,some of them seem to be very pixelated.The giraffe in Fota island for example and some of the darker photos.There's nothing wrong with the photos themselves but with the processing of the images I think.Great site otherwise and some fantastic wildlife shots there.

Balderdash, forgot to fix that!! The problem is that I took the lazy way round and got lightroom to resize the pictures from my old site instead of digging out the originals.. some, like the giraffe, were made larger than they should have been!! Thanks for the reminder! That's tomorrow's project sorted

ThOnda

Looks good. Really good.

By the way, portrait lenses are not wide, they are 135 mm equivalent. The wider lens the more deformation of the face. But it is only my opinion :-)

Quackles

ThOnda wrote: »

Looks good. Really good.

By the way, portrait lenses are not wide, they are 135 mm equivalent. The wider lens the more deformation of the face. But it is only my opinion :-)

I know, ideally you would like to stand well back from your subject and zoom in, but unfortunately, my 3 bedroom semi-d which acts as my studio isn't very big. I used a 50mm f/1.8 recently to try and shoot pics of my little sister going to her debs, and I was seriously frustrated by the fact that I could only get her and her date's heads into the shot.. So while it's not a portrait lens per say, that's still why I want it.. But yeah, will change the wording there

rymus

Looks good, nice and fast too. If it were me, I'd ditch the google ad's. They may contribute a few cents a year to your hosting bill, and theyre well integrated with the layout, but I dont think any pro or even semi-pro website should be littered with them.

mikeanywhere

rymus wrote: »

Looks good, nice and fast too. If it were me, I'd ditch the google ad's. They may contribute a few cents a year to your hosting bill, and theyre well integrated with the layout, but I dont think any pro or even semi-pro website should be littered with them.

I agree with Rymus on the google ad's, defo not worth it!!

Culann

It looks like a nice website. Your 'about' photo is a bit dour looking though, was it taken on a bad day?

Quackles

Culann wrote: »

It looks like a nice website. Your 'about' photo is a bit dour looking though, was it taken on a bad day?

Every day is a bad day Ah no, I just hate getting my photo taken If I had a nice smiley one I didn't look horrendous in, I'd use it! Besides, I always have a worried look on my face, I'll have serious wrinkles by the time I'm 30.

As for the google ads.. I'm not a pro, not even a semi pro - I've no intention of trying to make money with the site, it's just there to share my photos.. If I can recoup some of my losses, all the better.. if it turns out it's pulling in a fiver a year, I'll take them down again Just thought it was worth a shot! I put them down at the very bottom and only one per page to make them as unobtrusive as possible.

Thanks again for all the feedback,good or bad, it's always welcomed Uploaded some new photos today - so much easier to update this site than my last one, I may actually stick to it this time!

rahtkennades

Quackles,

I like the site. The layout is very simple and clear, there's nothing obstructive or 'in your face', it's consistent throughout... good work.

RE the google ads, maybe it's a sad reflection on most websites these days but I didn't notice them until somebody else pointed them out!

Just to flag to you though, the "next page" graphic in your galleries isn't loading properly (for me anyhow).

Quackles

rahtkennades wrote: »

Quackles,

I like the site. The layout is very simple and clear, there's nothing obstructive or 'in your face', it's consistent throughout... good work.

RE the google ads, maybe it's a sad reflection on most websites these days but I didn't notice them until somebody else pointed them out!

Just to flag to you though, the "next page" graphic in your galleries isn't loading properly (for me anyhow).

Flip, thought I sorted that earlier.. thanks, will get right on it!

rymus

Quackles wrote: »

if it turns out it's pulling in a fiver a year, I'll take them down again Just thought it was worth a shot! I put them down at the very bottom and only one per page to make them as unobtrusive as possible.

Depending on what amount of traffic / visits you have coming into the site, you can see immediately if it's worth them being there. If you're anything like 100/200 visits a month I wouldn't bother. I know a couple of people that get anything up to 10,000 hits a month and it's almost worth their while keeping their ads up. Spose all you can do is see how they work for you though.

440Hz

Some display issues here and there in Safari and Camino (didnt check any other browsers), just FYI.

Looks good though, nicely done.

Cabaal

mikeanywhere wrote: »

I agree with Rymus on the google ad's, defo not worth it!!

I'd also have to agree, says me with the google adverts on my site
I'm going to re-design it one of these days!

Cabaal

rymus wrote: »

Depending on what amount of traffic / visits you have coming into the site, you can see immediately if it's worth them being there. If you're anything like 100/200 visits a month I wouldn't bother. I know a couple of people that get anything up to 10,000 hits a month and it's almost worth their while keeping their ads up. Spose all you can do is see how they work for you though.

I have a site that gets 200-300 hits a day, since the 28th October I've made like $6,

Its not alot but the hosting costs me $6 a month so it covers everything and to be honest the site has only been updated a hand full of times since 2002 so I couldn't care less about having adverts on it

adsense shows like 7,000 hits but only 70 clicks