Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Congrats on making it to the small business world!  As a viewer, I find the religious messages inflected into the business to be offputting.  You have to ask yourself if you are trying to sell your photography skills or your religion.  The religious part may be best kept to yourself.  Potential customers may be turned off by this because they do not want any religious agenda that you exude to be pushed on to them. 

Best,

Leah, Dylan (HostRail) is correct.  Your religion has nothing to do with your business unless you only want to cater to religious customers.  Similarly your "About Us" page tells me nothing about why I should trust you with my photographic needs.  It only tells me about your religious faith, which is irrelevant to business.

Your choice of text color is uninspiring.  You need more contrast from the background.  Personally I don`t like random snapshot slide shows.  Put your best portrait on the landing page and put others into albums.  (I like jAlbum for generating HTML albums).

Your SEO is lacking.  At the least you should put a little more information in the page titles.  Instead of "Home", put "SnapDragonz Photography Home Page", or something more descriptive.

What in the world is that big banner ad/link at the bottom of the home page?  Why should I click on it and what does it have to do with my decision to let you take photographs for me?



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Steve Mann
Internet Videographer
MannMade Digital Video
My Email

I`m going to disagree on the religion being included. If a business is selling standard products, then it`s true that a religious flavor could be problematic. But countless businesses are specifically targeted toward a religious aspect or community. In this case, Leah`s clearly stating that the site is directly associated with Christianity, even right in the tagline.

To that end, religion becomes a feature of the site---a sort of core value and mission statement. From there we have to examine the site with a Christian market in mind.

My first thought is that the grayscale image in the banner area is less useful than if it were color. Black and white photography has its place, is truly artistic, and can highlight shape and form, but it`s sort of "artsy," if you know what I mean. Not a good choice for the 4 seconds in which to capture a visitor`s attention, especially in contrast to the large baby picture in the center of the home page.

On a language level, I get a conflicted message between "snap dragonz" and the religious aspects. Somehow, dragons don`t fit in well with modern theology, despite St. George and the dragon slaying. :-D

The layout isn`t very good just yet. You`d do well to move your services (and prices) to a separate page with a tabbed link. Yes, you want your visitors to get a "call to action," but you don`t want to get them caught up in the details of services *before* they`ve had a chance to see your slide show and other examples.

The automated slideshow is too slow. I think it`d be better if people could click around, choosing thumbnails quickly, to get a sense of your style and perspective. I`d like to see your description of your style on the front page, rather than the service listing, y`know? Get me interested in how you see the world, and I`ll decided if it matches the way I`d like to be seen. :-)

Basically, selling photography services isn`t all that easy, what with everyone thinking they can be a pro photographer with any digital camera. So the site has to amplify your artistic talents, the photography, and at the same time your sense of business.

There`s an old saying in business that you should "hire to your weaknesses." Another one is, "Do what you do best, delegate the rest."

Both sayings require first that you have an objective understanding of your strengths and weaknesses. That means being introspective, contemplative, and having a strong personality to withstand seeing the bad along with the good.

It sounds as if you have that sort of objective view of yourself, in which case hiring someone to build a professional site will definitely help the business. ;-) You still have to be the driving force in terms of what you want to do, say, and offer the public though.

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Amanda Hope
http://www.GrannsGourmetApples.com
My Email

edit: Just noticed this is from Sep. 9th.

I really only read the first 2 comments on this topic, the rest seems like a debate, forgive me if I just re-iterate some replies..

At first, I thought it was a bit too strong too (I`m a Christian), I could see it driving away a lot of potential Athiest/etc. clients, especially clients of a different religion.

But, I felt really bad saying that and decided to talk to my mom about it (who is also a true Christian) and she brought up a good point after I read it to her: On the About Us page, it`s really not pushing Christianity on anyone, just giving credit where credit is due.

So, it`s really up to you but I don`t believe you should separate Christianity with your business; just target churches/etc. more heavily than other places (who really do need a lot of photography I think - pamphlets/flyers?). Also, watch out - people tend to prey on people like you a lot more than than most others, faith is often confused with stupidity and gullibility.

God bless and good luck. :)

p.s., I just noticed this is a website critique. I got caught up in thinking it was a debate about Christianity + business.

The website design isn`t good, not exactly bad but too plain. You don`t have to hire a professional web designer if you lack the funds, just experiment with free templates (Google "free website? templates" for a list of sites) a bit. Read a few tutorials (w3schools.com is good - (X)HTML/CSS), and ask on various forums like SitePoint for example, when you run into trouble.

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