DESTROY THIS WEBSITE!! not this one.....obviously!

Hey all,

It's been a long time since I was last on here and I've finally had some time in my full-time career which has been uber busy to get back into my other exploits.

I'm looking for a little bit of critique on my website which I designed but I feel needs work. I'm missing something and I want to make it more popular/inviting.

This is my Portfolio, Blog and Online shop. I'm getting mediocre traffic and a fair amount of bounce from my site according to my analytics with little to no marketing, It's all direct traffic.

Now my career is levelling out I want to develop this into something a little more and I want people to stay and explore a little, or god forbid share the site.

Tom Adams Photography

Can you critique this to death, what would make this more appealing to you?
 
Honestly, first impressions count and as harsh as this is going to sound, I've seen better free templates, let alone paid options.

Go to one of the many template sites and take a look at a 'photography' website, it would be far quicker than us listing the issues imo.

Tiny images when clicked aren't exactly great either and if I'm being completely honest the photo's just aren't that good imo (I've been doing photography, not to mention my 3D rendering for work, as a hobby for over 25 years for 'experience')
 
Honestly, first impressions count and as harsh as this is going to sound, I've seen better free templates, let alone paid options.

Go to one of the many template sites and take a look at a 'photography' website, it would be far quicker than us listing the issues imo.

Tiny images when clicked aren't exactly great either and if I'm being completely honest the photo's just aren't that good imo (I've been doing photography, not to mention my 3D rendering for work, as a hobby for over 25 years for 'experience')
well, that's all fine but I need to know what to change, why not list the issues? I need to know what would make a good template/theme. It is not critique then, it's just bashing :LOL:

And which page were the 'Tiny' images on?
 
Slooooow....

All I see when I land is a black image with your name. Below that some pictures that look like that came off a stock image site.

what is the point of the site? The shop shows me adverts, the blog is pointless and I’m not at all sure what is you do.

Bounce is high because you don’t seems to offer anything of value.

Looked at one of your products was underwhelmed. There is no story, no incentive to buy and confusing information for a layman (no idea what giclee printing is).

Decide in the purpose of the site and create the appropriate content.
 
Slooooow....

All I see when I land is a black image with your name. Below that some pictures that look like that came off a stock image site.

what is the point of the site? The shop shows me adverts, the blog is pointless and I’m not at all sure what is you do.

Bounce is high because you don’t seems to offer anything of value.

Looked at one of your products was underwhelmed. There is no story, no incentive to buy and confusing information for a layman (no idea what giclee printing is).

Decide in the purpose of the site and create the appropriate content.
Awesome, Thankyou.

Speed and re-adjust the landing and probably divide content a bit more.

Don't know why there are ads on the shop site so I can adjust that shortly.

That's fine, I can add some bumper to it with some meat on the bones. (Giclee is a print technique for higher resolution on higher quality papers).

Thanks fisicx.
 
Before you do all that, decide on the purpose of the site. If it’s a shop then make that the homepage. If it’s a brochure for your portfolio then show the images and drop the shop. I’d bin the blog as it doesn’t fit with either of the above.

Either way you need a lot more images. Hundreds ideally so you can properly categorise.
 
Before you do all that, decide on the purpose of the site. If it’s a shop then make that the homepage. If it’s a brochure for your portfolio then show the images and drop the shop. I’d bin the blog as it doesn’t fit with either of the above.

Either way you need a lot more images. Hundreds ideally so you can properly categorise.

I'd like to include them but focus on a portfolio. A friend of mine who's seasoned has a good mixture of all three because of his workflow, but he has a greater foundation.

I'm aware of the lack of images, my catalogue has had to slow down over the last 3 years because of work so that will be lacking.
 
I know this isn't what you want to hear as you're after a critique of the site, but I just don't think some of that work is technically good enough to put up.
Some of the images I think you would struggle to sell on stock images sites, and I know because I've been there and tried it myself. It's one thing to do it
as a sideline to your design work, but another to sell yourself solely as a photographer.
 
I'd like to include them but focus on a portfolio.
A portfolio for what? To show to your friends? To bask in self glory? Or are you hoping they will lead to client work? That's very unlikely if you are a full time squaddie.

This is what I mean about deciding on the purpose of the site. At some point you will need to invest in marketing so you need to be very clear about who you are targeting and how you plan to get them to convert.

The key to effective web design is planning. Sort out your marketing plan, then create content that supports this plan. The theme you use doesn't matter. But you do need to move to a UK host. 1and1 (ionos) are the pits - one of the worst there is. You also need to fix all the things Google advises: https://web.dev/measure/ A score of 3/100 is about as bad as it gets.
 
well, that's all fine but I need to know what to change, why not list the issues? I need to know what would make a good template/theme. It is not critique then, it's just bashing :LOL:
Like I say I've literally seen better templates aimed at photographers, if you look at them you should be able to see most of the issues yourself... the first and arguably most important thing on a 'photography' website is the work and as such most of them focus on the imagery, unlike your site which focuses on the tiny logo up the top.

I still think the photography isn't really up to par for someone doing it as a business and that will be a major issue for a lot of other people too, honestly look at instagram accounts for 'professional' photographers if you want to see how much 'better' you need to be.

And which page were the 'Tiny' images on?
The homepage when you scroll down a bit and you click on them.... they're like 640x640 which is tiny, even instagram supports 1080x1080 these days.


Can I just point out something, not sure others even noticed this.... In your blog you have a post about your new website, it has an image attached to it and the post implies by association that the image being shown is of your website.
That image (I've directly linked it) shows a much nicer concept for a website than the website you've gone and created....

8B1EF9DB-45A1-4372-81CE-FF0CD7467653.png
 
Slow load, navigation elements contrast is not good. The homepage content is nothing just the image, so there no personality to the website at all. Tons of console log errors. About page red on black, not good. Ads on the sidebar distracting. Image quality I realize you may have kept low to stop people poaching the images - there are better ways to do this via javascript. I would start to overdo some research (heck get a light template even) have a look at other sites and slowly start building something. I almost feel this was just rushed. Either way and I mean this as no personal offense my take is the website which is a creative element is also a reflection of your products the images a creative element if one looks bad so does the other.
 
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