New Website and Marketing Concept

[Jerome Love]

I met with a graphic designer and developed a marketing plan around my name. Check out the new site and let me know what you think.


www.jeromelovesyou.com

C&C welcome

Best

Jerome

www.jeromelovesyou.com
www.jeromelove.net

 

[Asher Kelman]

I met with a graphic designer and developed a marketing plan around my name. Check out the new site and let me know what you think.


www.jeromelovesyou.com

C&C welcome

Best

Jerome

www.jeromelovesyou.com
www.jeromelove.net

Congrats on the new rush of enterprise. We all need to keep a fresh outlook. Some immediate ideas. Avoid having your name mentioned repeatedly in full. Use he or Jerome the next or 3rd time. Next beware of flash. It takes time to load and is not indexed by search engines as effectively.

Consider the colors being borders to a text box, the grey color of Adobe Bridge but the outer color would be the modern choices you have.

This all can be done without flash.

Consider a moving GIF if you want something moving on the page in the transition from one page to the next. In any case, people don't have the patience to watch flash load. If I have a choice I go elsewhere but everyone has their own preferences and others might be in love with flash effects. What's more important is content.

Good luck, that's my $0.02 and I'll look again later.

Asher

 

[Ken Tanaka]

1. It's a mistake, in my opinion, to coin a cutesy expression from your name if you want to be considered seriously by commercial agencies (per your goals).

2. Personal pet peeve: people who write their "About Me"s in the 3rd person voice in a lame attempt to seem accomplished or self-important. If your bio was written by your gallery or an agency it would seem fine. By you, or your Web site designer, not fine.

 

[Nigel Lew]

I am finding it difficult to read your subsection links because they are so small.

I agree with Ken on all points as well. You would be much better served with something clever done with the letter J for instance. Understated is always a good thing.

That said, these days I am not opposed to straight eye candy(flash) but it has to knock your socks off to work for you. This is due to the fact that all your pages are really just one page of code.

You don't currently have the ability to place page specific meta data. This is going to cause some indexing issues with Google.

hope that helps, I am not trying to be a stick in the mud. I have seen much worse

Nigel

 

[Alain Briot]

Eventually, the value of any marketing effort, be it website or other, rests in its effectiveness.

So, does this site work for you? Does it allow you to reach your goals? Does it provide you with the income you desire? If yes, who cares who says what about it. If not, its time to make changes.

 

[Asher Kelman]

Eventually, the value of any marketing effort, be it website or other, rests in its effectiveness.

So, does this site work for you? Does it allow you to reach your goals? Does it provide you with the income you desire? If yes, who cares who says what about it. If not, its time to make changes.

Alain,

It's rather too early to answer these questions about goal fulfillment since Jerome has only just made the site as it is! But, obviously you're so right; who cares if the money keeps rolling in and one has to buy ink cartidges for the Epson 9600 in bulk to keep up with the demand, LOL!

Jerome,

Given the overall sense of the feedback, it seems appropriate to revisit with your designer! Focus him on your professional goal to be taken seriously as someone offering excellent photographs within your chosen market. Does the website present you in this way? Can search engines find you? If someone gets to your website, how fast can they be hooked to what will make them a customer or a repeat customer? Ask your web designer to give you answers and show you other website where he/she was able to get the job done. If you are serious, then your proposition to the web should be equally serious. Nice does not make it!

I'm trying to answer in a serious vein since business requires everything else is put aside. Either one can get folk to but, or one fails. Business does not require making things, (you can always get someone to do that for you). Business is more than making a great photograph. It requires selling, delivering and follow through for more sales.

If your website is critical for your sales, and perhaps it is not, in your market, then spend whatever it takes to get your site done professionally. As long as you are really ready, the cost of the website is just part of the cost of setting up.

Good luck!

Asher

 

[Alain Briot]

Another important point is that web designers are not necessarily marketers. Their job is to design beautiful and functional websites, not create marketing tools.

At this point, I recommend hiring a marketer to help you with that part of your site. Who cares if it looks good, is well put together and is beautiful if it doesn't bring in sales!

 

[Alain Briot]

Alain,

It's rather too early to answer these questions about goal fulfillment since Jerome has only just made the site as it is! But, obviously you're so right; who cares if the money keeps rolling in and one has to buy ink cartidges for the Epson 9600 in bulk to keep up with the demand, LOL!
Asher

Definitely. However, what I am also saying, implicitly, is the necessity to test the site to see if it achieves the goal. Without testing we are left to impressions about what we may or may not like. What matters most here is sales effectiveness, not aesthetics or discourse.

 

[nicolas claris]

Summarization…

Ken Tanaka

1. It's a mistake, in my opinion, to coin a cutesy expression from your name if you want to be considered seriously by commercial agencies (per your goals).

2. Personal pet peeve: people who write their "About Me"s in the 3rd person voice in a lame attempt to seem accomplished or self-important. If your bio was written by your gallery or an agency it would seem fine. By you, or your Web site designer, not fine.

Nigel Lew

I am finding it difficult to read your subsection links because they are so small.
…Understated is always a good thing
You don't currently have the ability to place page specific meta data. This is going to cause some indexing issues with Google

Alain Briot

web designers are not necessarily marketers. Their job is to design beautiful and functional websites, not create marketing tools.
At this point, I recommend hiring a marketer to help you with that part of your site

BUT
Nigel Lew

I am not trying to be a stick in the mud. I have seen much worse

Asher Kelman

Congrats on the new rush of enterprise. We all need to keep a fresh outlook. Some immediate ideas

I agree with all these…
I would add what is the goal of the website at the very first question… A marketer question, that is!

As an example, we, at Claris, do not try (for now!) to sell from our website but to have a vitrine to showcase our work(s).
The website comes in second in the chronological use of tools. This means we mainly use it when we do have a prospect which is far from us, then we can point him to where on the website we think we show our strength toward his needs…
It is also a pretty good tool for branding ourselves.

However it happened that we got direct enquiries from the website for high budget from unknown persons, and it worked, but I must admit we get more job enquiries than jobs.
If I'd like to sell prints to the public (and why not!) I would have our website differently organized and would certainly use a commercial selling platform instead of reinventing everything, some can even be embedded into the website…

Hope it helps!

 

[Alain Briot]

I would add what is the goal of the website at the very first question… A marketer question, that is!

I agree. I did not ask because I assume the goal is to generate sales, or leads. I may be wrong -- the goal may be something else altogether!

I have found, from working with students, that defining goals is a challenge. Mistakes fall into several categories such as:

- no defined goals (student wants to "wait and see what happens"...)
- vaguely defined goals (student is "not sure what they want right now")
- answering the question "what is your goal?" with a description of what one does, not of what one wants
- extremely long term goals without medium and short term goals along the way (leads to discouragement as there is no reward for extremely long periods of time --years usually.)
- goals without a plan to reach them (somehow things will "fall into place"...)
- no deadlines (for most students, no deadlines means nothing gets done)
- setting goals and getting discouraged when success does not follow in a timely manner
- setting goals without accurately assessing the difficulty of the task ahead

You can use this checklist to see how well you are doing in regards to your goals. Ask yourself if any of the above applies to you. If the answer is "no" you run a pretty good chance of reaching your goals. If the answer is "yes" you need to take care of the item(s) that apply. These stand in your way and will prevent you from succeeding.

Keep in mind that success is uncommon and that failure usually precedes success. Among those who finally succeed, most have previously failed several times.

The number of failures is usually related to the difficulty of the task. Therefore, accurately assessing the difficulty of the task is extremely important.

 

[Jerome Love]

1. It's a mistake, in my opinion, to coin a cutesy expression from your name if you want to be considered seriously by commercial agencies (per your goals).

2. Personal pet peeve: people who write their "About Me"s in the 3rd person voice in a lame attempt to seem accomplished or self-important. If your bio was written by your gallery or an agency it would seem fine. By you, or your Web site designer, not fine.

Summarization…

Ken Tanaka


Nigel Lew


Alain Briot


BUT
Nigel Lew

Asher Kelman


I agree with all these…
I would add what is the goal of the website at the very first question… A marketer question, that is!

As an example, we, at Claris, do not try (for now!) to sell from our website but to have a vitrine to showcase our work(s).
The website comes in second in the chronological use of tools. This means we mainly use it when we do have a prospect which is far from us, then we can point him to where on the website we think we show our strength toward his needs…
It is also a pretty good tool for branding ourselves.

However it happened that we got direct enquiries from the website for high budget from unknown persons, and it worked, but I must admit we get more job enquiries than jobs.
If I'd like to sell prints to the public (and why not!) I would have our website differently organized and would certainly use a commercial selling platform instead of reinventing everything, some can even be embedded into the website…

Hope it helps!

Wow! This is a lot, but I am glad that I have gotten such thorough feedback. Thank you all so much for the time you've devoted to commenting on my site. It is much appreciated.

First off, as for the font, subsections, about me and other minor things, I will take care of those ASAP. They are easy fixes.

Ken,

The coining of a phrase was an attempt to break free of the typical bludomain, livebooks look. Obviously that did not go it's intended route.

Alain,

Thank you so much for your insight. I think I had put too much faith my web designer's skills as a marketer and designer at this point. I will be revisiting with him to see if we can do anything to help resolve the present issues. I also appreciate your constant reference to setting goals. I have begun to see that this is where I struggle. I have ideas of where I want to be but no timelines, plans of action or deadlines to reach them. Is there anything you'd suggest to read or experience in learning how to do this effectively?

Asher and the rest,

Thank you for your warm feedback and help. I was not trying to overstate myself in any way. I thought it was a clever idea to coin my name. Any other suggestions? I'm open to ideas at this point.

Jerome

 

[Alain Briot]

"Is there anything you'd suggest to read or experience in learning how to do this effectively?"

The best is to practice. Most people have dreams, but few set goals to make these dreams come true. Ask yourself what you really want to do with your life, then set goals to achieve this. That's how I did it and it worked. The previous caveats I outlined apply of course. I failed many times before I found a way that led me to success. All this is explained in details in my essays "Being an artist" and "Being an artist in business". Reading those would certainly help. They are available for free on my site and on several other places on the web.

In regards to marketing my suggestion is to hire someone who has a proven track record in successfully selling the product you are selling. I have web "marketers" calling me all the time, and I always ask them the same question "can you show me how much the income of your customers increased after you worked with them?" To this day I haven't had a single one provide me with that information, so I haven't worked with any of them. However, I have hired consultants regularly to help me. I wouldn't be where I am now if I had attempted to reinvent the marketing wheel on my own! Part of learning how to be successful is knowing when help is needed and who to ask for help!

 

[James Newman]

I don't have a website but I sure do visit a lot of them so I know what works and what does not work for me. I may notice certain things that other people may not. Or, I may be bothered more by certain things than other people. Whatever the case, one thing that really stands out to me, whether it is on a website, in a magazine article, or perhaps in someone's resume that I might be looking over, are things like misspelled words, incomplete sentences, grammatical errors, and so forth. In everyday things like forum postings, who really cares? However, if like I said, I am looking to hire someone for a job, and the first thing that stands out to me is a misspelled word, a completely missing word, or some obviously incorrect sentence structure, that really makes me wonder whether I am in the right place or not. I always feel that if they are that careless in what they are putting out as their own advertisement vehicle, what are they going to do if working for me and being paid by me? 99% of the time that is where my involvement stops and I will go no further. Something as important and upfront as a commercial website, where most people will gather their very first impressions of you and your business, should always be free from these kinds of basic mistakes. Someone should be proofing all of the text and making sure it is correctly written before it is released on the public. That of course is only my opinion and I have been known to be quite anal in such matters so take it for what it's worth, if anything.
One other thing, and remember I have no website and don't know anything other than how to get to them, but when I look at your portfolio, all of the images have a pixalated look to them and are not very clear at all. I see square looking artifacts in all of them and that is off-putting as well.
James Newman

 

[Alain Briot]

I don't have a website but I sure do visit a lot of them so I know what works and what does not work for me. I may notice certain things that other people may not. Or, I may be bothered more by certain things than other people. Whatever the case, one thing that really stands out to me, whether it is on a website, in a magazine article, or perhaps in someone's resume that I might be looking over, are things like misspelled words, incomplete sentences, grammatical errors, and so forth. In everyday things like forum postings, who really cares? However, if like I said, I am looking to hire someone for a job, and the first thing that stands out to me is a misspelled word, a completely missing word, or some obviously incorrect sentence structure, that really makes me wonder whether I am in the right place or not. I always feel that if they are that careless in what they are putting out as their own advertisement vehicle, what are they going to do if working for me and being paid by me? 99% of the time that is where my involvement stops and I will go no further. Something as important and upfront as a commercial website, where most people will gather their very first impressions of you and your business, should always be free from these kinds of basic mistakes. Someone should be proofing all of the text and making sure it is correctly written before it is released on the public. That of course is only my opinion and I have been known to be quite anal in such matters so take it for what it's worth, if anything.
One other thing, and remember I have no website and don't know anything other than how to get to them, but when I look at your portfolio, all of the images have a pixalated look to them and are not very clear at all. I see square looking artifacts in all of them and that is off-putting as well.
James Newman

Personally, I know that not being afraid to make mistakes is key to success. Over-analysis leads to paralysis. Not being a native speaker, and having an accent, I make "mistakes" every time I say something. This is true both in English and in French at this point, since I have an accent with both languages now.

What I have learned is the necessity to be able to step out of your comfort zone in order to succeed at what we do. I am nearly always outside of my comfort zone, and doing so has become a way of life.

I am not afraid to make mistakes, and that has made all the difference for me. I have also found that people who constantly find wrongs with others are frequently people who don't take any chances themselves, who do not step out of their comfort zone whatsoever. On the other hand I found that people who are trying to do something that is difficult, or that has not been done, are much more understanding of other people's "mistakes".

It's important to keep in mind that whatever you want but do not have is outside of your comfort zone. If it was within your comfort zone you'd be able to do it and it would be yours. Hence to get these things you want, whatever these may be, you have to step out of your comfort zone. You have to take a chance, and you have to make mistakes. And many of these difficult things we have to do to succeed go way beyond grammatical errors!

 

[James Newman]

So there you have it. I will redo my resume and insert some spelling and grammatical errors. Maybe that will change my luck at finding employment. I knew I had to be doing something wrong. Perhaps people are shying away from me because I am too perfect.

What I said had absolutely nothing to do with what you said Alain. At least I did not intend it to be saying what you seem to think I was saying. Perhaps that is attributed to the language differences. He is taking a chance and probably getting outside his comfort zone just by attempting what he is attempting and putting his website out for all to see. It is hard enough just doing that. He does not need to compound the number of things against him by just overlooking the very easily attained things such as a proof read and edit by a second party. Now you have generated a special need for me to go inspect your website as well. I will say right now, up front, I doubt very seriously that I will find the same kinds of mistakes in yours as I did in Jerome's. I would hope not anyway. I will report back with my findings.

James Newman