Please give me feedback on my website

[SussexJohn]

Hello everyone.

I started a new career in producing wedding video films at the start of this year. As the main plank of my marketing I designed and built my own website using Netobjects Fusion 7.5.

The purpose of the website is to sell my services to my target markets.

The site was launched in Feb 2007
I only have two incoming links, but I'm working on that.
Keywords are wedding / civil ceremony / oral history based, as well as geographic (south east)
The code is generated in the main by Fusion, but I would like advice on how to optimise in and outbound links
The target market tends to be (for weddings) 70% late twenties to mid-thirties, with mainly women driving the buying influencing
My approach is more of a collaborative, and documentary approach. I offer my services at a genuinely affordable price range, and I offer a "menu" pricing structure, so the customer can select the parts they want. I am also one of relatively few videographers to offer High Definition future proofing, by recording in HD but giving a current SD DVD version now with the option to re-edit in HD when the players become more common.
Usability is a major issue - I don't send out a show-reel, that is one of the main jobs of the web site.
I would like design input too.

Thanks to all who help me.....

John

[Peter Bowen]

Right - where's the link then?

[SussexJohn]

Sorry - it's www.dream-capture.co.uk

[Peter Bowen]

It looked great as it was loading - then suddenly those awful blue spots - kill the background it adds nothing to your message.

I'll take another look at the copy but my eyes are hurting from the "dots from hell"

Cheers

Pete

[Himore]

Hi John.

The thing is with websites, they must reflect your product as this is the first glimpse a customer will get of your business. I thought the website looked very *functional*, which as a potential customer, is not what I would want for my wedding video.

You need to sell the dream, the romance. It's not a corporate video, but you are capturing the most important day of people's lives.

Unfortunately for me, the website does not get this across. Don't get me wrong - it's a very competently designed website, but it just doesn't have that *something* which would make me want to use your services for a wedding.

I would pick some better quotes too. "There are some great pieces of editing in there" just doesn't sound like a quote from a bride who has been moved and stunned by the beauty you've managed to capture of her special day. It sounds like a movie buff talking about a new indie film just released at the Sundance Film Festival.

Don't sell in terms of features. What are the *benefits* for me as a customer? You say you have a 'fresh' style, but that's not coming across from your website.

Years ago I toyed with the idea of going into wedding video, but the costs just didn't stack up. You can make much more doing wedding photography, for a lot less work. I'll dig out some links of video sites which I thought were superb and captured the feel of what I thought a wedding video company should offer.

I'm sorry this post has sounded somewhat negative, but you've done the right thing by posting your link for comment. It's true that anyone can put together a website these days, but it takes a lot of work to get the design and usability right. Once you have a design you're happy with (and more importantly, that your potential customers are happy with) I would also recommend some usability testing. I'm not talking about spending hundreds or thousands on doing this professional, but just get some friends and family who haven't seen the site to sit down in front of their PC, load the page, and see what they do. Ask them to speak their thoughts as they navigate around the site and take notes, lots of notes! It's difficult when you've been working on a site for days/weeks to retain some objectivity. What looks obvious to you, may not be obvious to someone else.

I hope this reply has been of some use to you and, as I said, I'll dig out some links to example sites.

Nick

[Himore]

Hi John.

Here's the video company which impressed me the most when I was doing my research. They've actually updated their site design from what I remember. The video samples are of good quality too.

http://www.bluecoremedia.com/

Now, this is probably near to the top end of the market and would most certainly cost more than the £450 that you quote, but there's no reason you can't have a site which looks like that.

Another idea which I would progress would be to put together a brief PDF explaining the things people should look for when choosing a videographer. However, only send this to people when they subscribe to a newsletter (or similar). If you expect a lot of traffic, I would personally use an Auto-responder service such as

http://www.aweber.com/?221505

If you want to look at usability, a very useful book I found on the subject is "Don't Make Me Think!". Search for it on Amazon. It's worth it's weight in gold!

Happy to help with more advice if you find this useful.

cheers.
Nick

[SussexJohn]

Nick

Thanks so much for taking the trouble over your response. Far from being negative, that's the most helpful input I have had to-date regarding my website. I'll remove the dots immediately, and take up your other advice after due reflection and research.

Thanks again.

John