Top do's and don't for websites

[Photomax]

Is there much to learn in using CSS?

My suggestion is not to learn software, or pick templates or get into PHP etc. Others might disagree but right now the best web designers are all getting into Modern Web Standards. The practice here is to become a "minimalist" with writing markup and separating all the presentation from the pages and placing it into a CSS file.

This in the end makes things simpler for you. The essence is good valid XHTML, correct doctypes and CSS that works across all modern browsers. Learn how to do these basic things well and you will be all set for today and the future!

Some suggested reading:

"Stylin' with CSS - A Designers Guide" by Charles Wyke-Smith

"CSS Mastery - Advanced Web Standards Solutions" by Andy Budd

"Transcending CSS - the fine art of web design" by Andy Clarke

"The Zen of CSS Design" by Dave Shea

[QT Luong]

Max (this is not meant as a criticism, but a helpful hint): you are touting CSS as making your pages search engine friendly, but with regard to search engines, there is something *much more basic and important* that is missing from your photo galleries. Can some of the brilliant standard-compliants designers here spot it ? Like someone else said before, it's all a matter a priority.

[Marko]

Max (this is not meant as a criticism, but a helpful hint): you are touting CSS as making your pages search engine friendly, but with regard to search engines, there is something *much more basic and important* that is missing from your photo galleries. Can some of the brilliant standard-compliants designers here spot it ? Like someone else said before, it's all a matter a priority.

QT, this is not meant as a criticism either, but SEO and w3c standards are completely different aspects and specialties. Standards compliance (and other good web design practices) helps a lot, but that is only one aspect of it.

As for "brilliant standards compliant designers", I don't think there are any here - the really brilliant ones should have better things to do with their time than preach to the uninterested for free. They write books which other, less brilliant among us buy for good money.

Which, come to think about it, seems to be yet another area of similarity between photography and web design.

[Photomax]

I know my own site has major issues. I pulled a lot of images down that were old film scans. I have been rescanning a lot of my film stock: now have to edit (with Photoshop) about 300 images. I have just been too busy with clients and home repairs to get it all done. But, hey thats what Seattle winters are for!

I have been reevaluating my photography and my professional services. I am drifting into offering a combined custom photography and web design service, created as a package for small businesses etc. For now my main focus is presentational websites and not e-ecommerce shopping cart sites.

I just did a full scale redesign for a guy who owns three restaurants. His old site had no real local images of the locations or of the food. Instead the banner had a moving Flash file using generic stock disc images. The site had tons of javascript and PHP as well. I created a fresh color pallet, photographed location and food pictures and designed the site all using Strict XHTML and CSS. Even with all the added location and food photos I reduced the code weight by 50%. The menu (food) was a challenge but it loads fast (with three CSS classes) and does not use any PHP, scripting or server tricks. http://www.cactusrestaurants.com/

There are some great resources out there on Web Standards. Its interesting to note than in Japan about 50% of websites are viewed with hand held devices. Here in the US that figure is way lower, but with gadgets like the iPhone catching on this will change. Web Standards delivers content and presentation to these devices without having to create specific pages. The Netscape vs Microsoft browser war was largely responsible for a lot of the awful legacy coding practices still in use today. Version Four browsers and hyper inflated dot.com web budgets are a thing of the past.

Its an exciting time for the web. I like the marriage of web design and photography. Hopefully I can develop this service as a means of putting food in my face...

Max

[cyrus]

Is there much to learn in using CSS?

No. Trust me. I picked it up reasonably well after spending 3 days with one of those "Teach yourself" type books, while sipping a latte at a coffee shop.

Its not really fundamentally different than any other sort of HTML coding using tables, the point is that the "design" stuff is written separately from the "meaty" content stuff instead of having the content text and the design code mixed up together. The "design" stuff is written separately from the content stuff. That's all.

Other than that, its not much different than using tables. When you're using tables, you organize your web content in various table "cells". Using CSS, you organize materials into "divs" or "spans" however these can be moved around to pretty much where-ever you want them to go on your web page's real estate, and furthermore, you can minutely define how things look inside the div or span (set the background color, font size, background image, div dimension, location of the div etc.)

There's a wonderful interactive guide to css at
http://www.w3schools.com/css/

Give it a test. Try fooling around with fonts, for example

[Marko]

If you really want to see what's possible with CSS, take a look at CSS Zen Garden. It's a bit dated now, but it is still a great demonstraton resource.

The best aspect of it is that all the designs represented there use the very same HTML file, they only apply their own CSS to it. That would not be possible without clean, structurally sound markup free of font and center tags and other crud.

[C. D. Keth]

And #1 on the top 10 list of website DON'Ts- absolutely no music!!!

YES!!

The other thing I hate about many photo sites is the inability to use my back button, or the necessity of going back a million freaking times to get to the home page. I guess what I'm saying is use flash for your galleries so they're effectively one page for many images but don't use flash for everything so I can still go back with my own buttons.

[Winger]

My 2 cents (and thanks for all the things to keep in mind as I build mine):
Have someone else proofread it. Make absolutely sure there aren't any spelling or word use problems.

[jdc]

And #1 on the top 10 list of website DON'Ts- absolutely no music!!!

Unless of course the site is about music or in the case of this forum pictures set to music. The fact that the web can deliver so much is not an excuse to use it all. On the flip side simply because most of us don't have the chops to creatively and effectively employ all of the capabilities available does not mean those capabilities should go unused. There is also the issue of the user not having the intellectual tools or disposition to understand or enjoy what the designer has created. When we don't like it, find it unintuitive there is always the chance that we feel this way because we refuse or are unable to step out of our comfort zones. This is not to say all bad sites are good sites and we're just too stupid or dogmatic to know. The point is that we (the users) tend to dictate to the market. In the creative field it is good to have the artists challenge users.

In the early days I oversaw (mostly from the technical side) a website whose content was going to be short stories, poetry and articles of a fairly great variety -- essentially an eZine. The idea for some of the work was that it would be written from multiple vantage points, characters, viewpoints, etc and the users could switch from character to character, 1st, second or third person, etc. at any point within a story. Other ideas included graphic works (words and pictures, or animations) multiple readings/interpretations of poetry and music and other ideas that have since left my head. The over arching idea was that we were going to get ahead of the curve on this hypertext, multi/new media thing and squeeze the beauty out of the medium. The 'publisher' was able to get some fairly healthy talent onboard (all on speculation and enthusiasm) the VC was flush and had dreams of a stellar IPO. What we couldn't get were people willing to figure it out. In the 10 years that have passed with all the advances in technology I still haven't seen much that compared or any that have succeeded.

The medium may be flawed (and certainly we had our problems) or possibly the audience has some short comings.

[darr]

Photographer Websites: Work Smarter, Not Harder

Just arrived in my e-box:

Dear Darlene,

This month I'm happy to introduce you to our second "Focus Your Biz" guest, Grover Sanschagrin of PhotoShelter. Grover has done research that can help you tailor your website to the needs of photo buyers and this month he shares his findings with you. You may be surprised at what he found out.

I'd also like to announce a seminar that PhotoShelter is presenting called "Photography 2.0: The Business of Photography in the Digital Era". This series of town hall meetings, which take place across the country throughout the month of September, are offered at no charge, but space is limited and you must register in advance. These first ever town hall meetings are designed to bring together active image buyers and photographers from all sides of the business to discuss the impact of the Internet on the industry.

To learn more about "Photography 2.0" and to register for one of the events, please visit the PhotoShelter City Tour webpage. I will be on the panel for the Los Angeles event on September 28th, 2007.

We appreciate any feedback. Contact us if you'd like to be a guest writer for "Focus Your BIZ". Our goal is to help you succeed in your photo busines... and enjoy the process.

Thank you again, and good luck.

Cradoc



Photographer Websites: Work Smarter, Not Harder
By Grover Sanschagrin


Here's my theory: Photographers build websites for other photographers, and not for their true customers - photo editors and photo buyers.

I am in somewhat of a unique position. As a founder of both PhotoShelter and SportsShooter.com, I hear from photographers and photo buyers all day, every day. Both often vent their frustrations about the other, with me right in the middle.

Since the invention of the camera, photographers have been finding inspiration and ideas from the images of other photographers. As an artistic medium, this is to be expected and embraced. This is how photographers learn and grow. It's a good thing.

So when a photographer wants their own website, they usually follow that same process. "I want a website like the one that Joe Photog has," they'll say. This is not a good thing.

A photographer's website is a business tool. A successful one will be an effective and efficient self-contained marketing and image sales system. It is not meant to compete in a website beauty contest. It should be functional, and above all, serve the needs of the photographer's real customers - the people who pay money for images.

What do photo editors and buyers like, and dislike, about photographer's websites? Since most photographers didn't have the answer to this very basic question, I decided to solve this mystery myself. I asked 850 of them to participate in a survey. The first 100 survey's I received back were compiled and included in a presentation I've been giving called "Photographer Websites: Work Smarter, Not Harder."

Respondents included newspaper and magazine picture editors, advertising agency and design firm photo buyers, and photo agency and wire service picture editors.

I asked a lot of questions, only a few of which are listed here.

Q: Is it worth a photographer's time to have a website? Are you using the Internet to look for images beyond those offered in Getty, Corbis, and the Wires?
A: The answer was a big yes.

Q: How often do you search for 'unique' images (non-Getty, non-Corbis, non-Wire)?
A: The answers were encouraging, 68% answered frequently, and 26% said they rarely do. Only 6% said they never ventured beyond.

This means it is critical that a photographer's website makes it easy to find and buy images. Adding a properly constructed searchable archive to your website will solve the problem of image searchability once a customer arrives, but how do they find your personal website in the first place?

Q: Do you use search engines (ex: Google, Yahoo!) to find photographers?
A: The answer was no surprise, 79% said yes, and 21% said no.

This means that those photographers interested in assignment work need to make sure that their website is constructed in a way that pleases the search engines. It should include a lot of what search engines love the most: text. That's right, I said it - TEXT! Make captions and keywords on your images visible with the image. Use HTML instead of Flash, because HTML is text.

So what about people looking to construct a website for the main purpose of stock photography? Are search engines just as important?

Q: Do you use search engines (ex: Google, Yahoo!) to find images?
A: Once again, understandable results, as 70% said yes, and only 30% said no.

All that I've said about text also applies here. The more text on your website the better, because that's what search engines were designed to work with. Flash is a major challenge for search engines, and although websites built entirely in Flash look pretty, they're almost always constructed in a way that is not functional from a search engine point of view.

I wanted to know what photo buyers thought of Flash-based websites. Several photographers have made the assumption that Flash websites are just the thing to make picture editors want to work with them, and even command a higher rate. Is this true?

Q: True or False: Will a uniquely designed photographer website (one that looks and operates differently from any other photographer website) make you more likely to assign work to, or license images from, the photographer?
A: Interestingly enough, a large majority of photo buyers responded that Flash-based websites did NOT influence them in this way, as 73% of them answered false, and only 27% answered true.

Obviously, you're not getting extra style points from many of your customers just for using Flash. Since search engines don't like Flash, why lock yourself up into a Flash-only world?

There are some exceptions, because some companies, like liveBooks, produce Flash-based websites for photographers that have solved the search engine-indexing problem. Their system includes a text-only version of the site that the search engines can index. You can get the design benefits of Flash, and the index ability of text.

Moving forward, to a point where a photo buyer, with credit card in hand, has successfully found your site, and searched through your e-commerce enabled archive to find that perfect image, now what? Does all this talk of 'microstock' have you nervous?

Q: Which image sale/licensing type do you use most?
A: You can breath a little easier because 76% said that Rights-Managed licensing is what they use most, and only 15% claimed that Royalty Free was their most common method. 9% answered subscriptions and only 1% said they use Getty's still somewhat new "Rights-Ready" the most.

To sum up the results of my survey:

1) Photo editors and buyers are always in a rush, and are short of time - so your website needs to be simple, easy to understand, and fast-loading.

2) They are using search engines, and are looking for unique images, so your website needs to play well with Google and Yahoo!.

3) Once they find your site, they want to be able to find an image and pay you for it quickly and easily. Powerful search and e-commerce tools should be there when they need it.

4) Rights-Managed image licenses are still the norm. Thankfully, fotoQuote can be integrated into any website through its partnership with PhotoShelter. This makes the process of licensing Rights-Managed images directly from your own website instantaneous and easy.

Remember: Functionality first! The next time you want advice about a photo website, ask a person who pays money for images!

Grover Sanschagrin is Vice President of Marketing for PhotoShelter, and Executive Producer for SportsShooter.com. His experience with online productions also include major roles with ChicagoTribune.com, the Quokka Sports Network (which included NBCOlympics.com and FinalFour.net), Altpick.com, and web hosting company S2F Online. Sanschagrin studied photography and photojournalism at the Rochester Institute of Technology and Ohio University.

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Cradoc Corporation
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Pt Roberts WA 98281
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