Top do's and don't for websites

[paulr]

when i redid my site, some of you suggested that i look into search engine optimization strategies. there's a ton of info on the web, and it made a huge difference.

the only way anyone could find my old site is if they were looking for it specifically, but the new one is easy to find with relevent searches like "urban landscape photography," or ones concerning specific places where i've worked.

i recommend a little research into this for anyone launching a site. the only downside is that the search engines are pretty heavily biased toward text, so keeping them well fed might require more text than you'd otherwise want to put on a visual art site.

[Ed2009]

Hi Everyone,

Just read through this thread and found it very interesting, lots of useful points for us to consider regarding the intricacies of web design when building/maintaining our sites, and I'm sure there are still many more points we haven't even touched on yet.

However, we can all put lots of time and effort into building the best websites possible, but this will all be in vain if very few people get to find out about the site.

If you have a website one of the main points to consider is how you are going to let people know that your site exists!

If you can afford it you can obviously spend good money on advertising, however there is a lot you can do yourself, at no cost.
The main way you can help yourself is to get as many other sites as possible to link to you. Swap links with friends and colleagues, join web rings and submit your site to relevant online web directories. This will not only create traffic from the sites linking to you but will also improve your search engine ranking, especially if the sites linking to you are relevant to your site ie Photographic or your locality.

The most important directory to submit to is the Open Directory as many search engines use the data from this site - http://www.dmoz.org

If you search the web there are quite a few photography directories, and many photography sites have links pages.
Here are a few to get you started;

http://www.dmoz.org
http://www.PhotographyDirectoryProject.com
http://www.photo200.com
http://www.photodir.net
http://www.photolinks.com
http://www.prosphotos.com

Regards
Ed

[TenOx]

I cruise the web at night a lot. When I get hit with unexpected sound, it bothers anyone sleeping in the house. Plus it's always a big, usually unwanted surprise.

I like clear and easily visible organization. Leave the complexity for the imagery if necessary: sites that are difficult to navigate are often barriers to appreciating the art!

1 in 50 of the flash driven sites are not totally irritating, but are often interesting only for the flash, as in fun to play with or to dissect the code; again, acting as a barrier to the content. Of the 1 in 50 non irritating sites, only about 1 in 20 of them facilitate viewing and appreciating the content. That's a pretty sorry record.

/..

[QT Luong]

> Swap links with friends and colleagues

one-way links are the only way to go

[jdc]

> Swap links with friends and colleagues

one-way links are the only way to go

I'm not sure what you mean.

[darr]

I thought I might post this link for anyone that is interested in a bi-weekly column by Dr. Jakob Nielsen, principal, Nielsen Norman Group, (see http://www.useit.com/jakob/ for how he is regarded in the web site world). I find it to be a decent reading source for current issues in web usability. You can sign up for free bi-weekly alerts.

[jetcode]

Another no-no from a my perspective is a website that hijacks your brower and takes it full screen without your permission. I usually shut it down without a look. Pisses me off, it's like they are trying to cram it down your throat.


Kirk you listening?

It's even more fun when 17 pop-ups follow and a virus is installed in your email system. Nothing like spyware to make life fun and interesting.


I hate audio tracks too. This is a great thread. I was about to go forward with a table based web-site but now I have to investigate CSS to find out the capabilities. I program for a living but not websites.

[QT Luong]

Reciprocal links are discouraged by google

[jetcode]

Guys - I'm sensing a build up of defensiveness and resentmetn here about using web standards. Like I said, you are perfectly fine in using tables but you just may want to consider getting up to date with the CSS stuff for its added benefits. It's nothing personal - just a good idea to consider.

Is there much to learn in using CSS?

[Photomax]

I have been away from the board for a while and will probably be coming into this discussion a little late.

I would like to say thanks to Marko for his kind opinions of my work.

Web design is a HUGE topic for discussion: runaway tangents abound. But the theme for us here is web design for photographers, no? Web design for serious photographers is also a huge area for discussion. Most photographers, whether professional or serious amateur, would like to present themselves as advanced visual communicators. A website is probably the most powerful and affective method of presenting the photographer's craft and vision to a mass world wide audience.

I have looked at a LOT of photographers websites. There are some amazing shooters out there. But my conclusion is that there is a high percentage of lousy sites serving a lot of talented photographers. In general I can break this trend into two main groups: the "Software Camp" and the "Designer Camp". The "Software Camp" includes templates, commercial WYSIWYG programs and commercial online systems. The main problem is the "haven't I seen that somewhere before" feeling one gets when viewing these sites. The "Designer Camp" is often guilty of highlighting the designers fingerprint over the content, in "our" case the photographs. Usually Flash is the issue. Increasingly Flash sites are being regarded as "yesterdays" cool thing. Personally I dislike Flash sites. Why? Too often they represent the "flashy" work of the site designer (overshadowing the photographer), are bandwidth hogs ( just take too long to present the content) and offer awful search engine performance.

A lot of photographers don't care that their website is not cutting edge or unique. They just want an easy way to get their stuff online. Thats cool. Commercial web based systems or templates serve this category of users just fine. For those who want to have a totally unique custom look then there are two main options: built it yourself or hire someone to do it for you.

To my mind if all you need is one site and you are serious about it looking good then hire someone to do it. A lot of folks will spend $400 on Dreamweaver and spend countless hours just learning the program before applying it to their actual site. Knowing programs like Dreamweaver inside and out will not make you a designer though: all you have learned is software. It takes time. Some enjoy the process. Some folks like to brew their own beer but most just grab it off the shelf and pay for it.

I started messing around with pages and went through the clumsy stages of figuring out Frames, Tables, Cells, Spacer Gifs, and code targeted to specific browsers. Those days are behind us thank goodness. Today we have Modern Web Standards & CSS which is the best method of creating sites. The main feature of this method is the the total separation of content from the design. Using strict XHTML for the page markup and CSS for the presentation offers MANY incredible advantages. Even if the pages were created by someone else these XHTML pages are very easy to read and figure out as all the old font tags, javascript, browser specific crud, and table display is blissfully absent. These pages are light, search engine friendly and are easy to edit and maintain.

A lot of folks are moving to dynamic site structures with CMS (Content Management Systems) like Drupal or advanced blogging systems like Wordpress and Moveable Type. There are major advantages and disadvantages to these systems though. If you want a unique vision then you have major tinkering to do under the "hood", which usually means modifying or creating the CSS. Unless you need the ability to frequently create fresh content (like blogs) on the fly then building a good static site is the way to go.

Max