submit — Fri, 17 May 2002 19:10:55 +0000

I'd change the photos myself. Find a good looking bride in a close up. Rude as it may sound, it's true, people wanna see nice looking people. The pictures are grainy and too far away for anyone to 'capture the moment'. I would think what you are selling is a lifetime memory so the photos should make that kind of impression..

Or.......... I'm an idiot and missed the whole point of your website.

The Webmistress — Fri, 10 May 2002 06:57:50 +0000

Pictures/graphics make instant appeal and help to give sites an identity, the same with a graphical logo/header. Done right neither photos or graphics will slow the site down too much and if a site is nice to look at straight away then visitors are more likely to stick around. If you can't code your own then a template should be a good way to get an interesting site design/layout.

Using the domain minessotaweddingminister.com will help with the search engines as you have your main keywords in the name, make sure that you follow that with a good title of up to 6 words, about a 15 word meta description that will grab attention in the SE's results listing and a good first line of text on the index page (this is what google uses as it's result listing) all containing your main keywords.

Busy — Fri, 10 May 2002 05:43:09 +0000

you concern for bandwidth etc is a good one but you can go up to and sometimes over 40kb per page before suffering delays. if you want to add more pictures make use of thumbnails (smaller pictures you click to see fill size). also the 40 word max thing doesnt sound quite right, to little text have be worse than to much. when writing, add a summary type paragraph at top, then add the details etc in the following paragraphs, if people are at your site they are there for a reason and want information. The KISS is a good thing to work by, but again to simple can be worse than to busy.
There is a lot of info on the web, some good, some bad, some just down right confusing, read around and take what you think is best or comparer to what you see on the web, I bet the articel about 40 words per page didnt have just 40 words on it. YOur selling a service so you need to get them interested, you need to sell yourself, if you can do this in 40 words then great but work on a message you want to get across rather than the limit.

gavin681 — Thu, 09 May 2002 15:44:05 +0000

Best templates on the web: http://www.templatespro.com

Tomkin — Thu, 09 May 2002 15:41:18 +0000

This is amazing! What a great group. I tell you, a person can only go so far on their own, no matter how much they research. What a great online community. It's funny, I planned the site as much as I could ahead of time, (then re-worked it over and over again, of course), but looking back, I wish that I knew then what I know now! Oh well, we do the best we can.

Before I built the website, most of my business was word of mouth, and I thought of the site as merely a spot where my current couples could get more information. However, I was able to list with a lot of referral agencies and search engines, and now the purpose of the site has changed to getting new viewers to call me to be new clients. This goal is totally different than my first one!

So, while I started out with a free geocities address and a free hotmail account, I've quickly outgrown both. SO - while I've fixed some of the easier mistakes (thank you!!!) now I need to make the larger achitectural changes people have suggested. I've been thinking about the problem, and my current thought is to:

1. Buy a simple, classy, beautiful template. I'd like to keep the black text on the white background, with blue links changing to red (ala Roger Black - yeah, I know many people think he's outdated, but as a beginner I'm sticking to the principle of KISS). I can design the site using FrontPage and then load it onto the Geocities site. I've been surfing, and I don't suppose anyone knows of a particular template offhand, but, of course, if anyone HAPPENED to know of a perfect one, I would certainly be interested! : )

2. I definitely need to get a new email address with a new domain. The hotmail account is quickly becoming filled with spam, for one thing.

3. I should create a mirror site on minnesotaweddingminister.com, so I don't need to link to my old geocities site. Slowly, I can add or change my address to the more appropriate url on search engines and referral services. I also have mnminister.com, minnesotaminister.com and mnweddingminister.com, but I find those urls to be confusing, even if they are shorter. All the simple, easy to remember urls seem to be taken.

3. I'm leery about buying or creating a title for the site, since graphics often load so slowly. Approximately 10% of my clients are viewing the site from home on 56K modems, and in their case, I want my title text to load first, (in the interest of having people know what the site is about as quickly as possible). Maybe I can find a commonly used, beautiful font for the title. Any ideas?

4. I'm also leery about adding more text to the simpler pages, in keeping with Black's theory of 40 words/page being the optimum. I find that many of my clients just glance through the pages before calling me. Only a few of them really dig into the information, and that's why I created the text-heavy FAQ. Is the FAQ too big?

5. I want to add more pictures, but that's slow-going, as very few clients want their pictures on the net. More pictures is definitely my long-term goal, though. What do people think - should I include pictures of things other than past clients? (Wedding rings, flowers, etc.) I'm not sure it's worth the bandwidth to show images that aren't of my actual past clients, but maybe the visual appeal of them would be worth it. What are your opinions?

If anyone has more ideas or comments, I'd love to hear them! I just wanted to give some feedback about what I'm thinking...wow, what a great group.

The Webmistress — Thu, 09 May 2002 07:35:38 +0000

I agree that there really isn't much need to go spending money on templates and logos. Just some rethinking on the layout and a simple logo ina nice font will improve the site but keep it clean & simple.

Busy — Thu, 09 May 2002 05:39:56 +0000

I think Tomkin has done a good effort for his first site considering a lot of people go for all the bells and whistles, his approach is that of a good one - clean and simple. (would stay away from yahoo web builder)
when people want to get married, they want minimum fuss, less to do as possible, and this site reflects this, but probably to little.
things like a banner/logo or even some boxing wouldnt hurt. as for buying a layout, I think that is unneeded as the layout is just off target with being a little to simple.

any thoughts so far Tomkin

nicora — Thu, 09 May 2002 02:08:58 +0000

I can relate to the "pre-coffee" feeling, lol.

I still don't think that there is anything is wrong with the design, a few clutch graphics and table colors would bring out the sound architecture.

taff — Wed, 08 May 2002 19:52:40 +0000

Quote: Originally posted by nicora
I don't think he should go "back to the drawing board" with the design at all.

Ok, I was a tad crusty this morning. You can always tell my "pre-coffee" posts

I still maintain that there really is no design so the drawing board isn't that far away.

gavin681 — Wed, 08 May 2002 19:18:23 +0000

The quickest, simplest and most affordable way to get a more professional looking site would be to purchase a template from http://www.templatespro.com and just add your content. (If anyone here knows where to get better looking templates pls. let me know)

You might want to get a very affordable but very professional looking logo designed: http://www.logo-design-logo-design.com/

Good luck.