Thread: Allow Me to Brag: My New Website!

First thought: It's really beautiful, Lisa. I love the colors. Congratulations!

Second thought: If you're going to have a Twitter feed on your front page, you might want to think about the impression your tweets make. "My website brings all the boys to the yard. Damn right, it's better than yours!" doesn't seem like a great way to welcome a potential client or collaborator.

Thanks!

And I know I have to watch what I tweet these days. No more lambasting UBDC's, I'm turning over a new leaf. That is, after I got those few goofy tweets out of my system .w.:

Love it!

My favorite is your contract page that you can save right to Adobe and how you describe your services. If I was a client I wouldn't have to ask too many questions, because most of them are answered right for me.

Furthermore, it shows that you have a sense of humor. These days who wants to deal with someone who is not friendly and happy. JMHO, I tend to stick with the positive and not the negative. I know other professionals who feel the same way, they don't want to feel like they are at work again. Besides I don't think I have seen a website with Twitter on it yet, I thought that was really cool!

Originally Posted by SatinWorship19

Hmmm. Interesting feedback on the size of the header graphic.

I will see if this causes any issues moving forward. If so, I'll consider seeing if I can get it resized at some point. I thought it was pretty obvious that you're supposed to scroll down.

Yes, to be honest, it wasn't obvious to me either. I am working on a laptop, so the photo and menu buttons fit perfectly to my screen - so it looks like that's all there is. I did figure out to scroll down, and thought 'Hmm, that's a little annoying', but then thought it was just a design choice aimed at making the veiwer remember your lovely picture.

It definitely was a design element on my web guy's part, since he really kind of wanted to go splashy and larger than life.

I e-mailed him to pick his brain about re-sizing this graphic, since this much feedback has come up. I have a desktop and a big monitor, so maybe that's why it doesn't look so bad to me. It does sound like a legitimate enough concern, so I appreciate the feedback.

Hopefully we can come up with some sort of compromise without too much of a time-consuming or labor-intensive ordeal.

Satin, I was on a laptop too, so that may be why it was confusing to me as well. Taking a second look from my desktop's monitor, it's a more obvious that there's content under the picture.

Raq on Brian!!!

very very nice. I also love your pictures - you have really cool poses, and a lot of variety (costumes, bakcrounds, situations, etc). I never liked galleries when a dancer wears 3 costumes total in 25 photos.

The only thing - as others mentioned, is the big photo on the top of the page. It's lovely, but when I clicked on the "buttons" to get to a page, I thought that either my computer was acting up or there was a glitch in your site. I didn't realize I got to that page already, because nothing has changed at all.
I would suggest to slightly resize that picture, or put a title right under it so your visitors know to scroll down.

but besides that, excellent!!

OK, we resized the graphic by about 20% so you can see the text beneath the navigation bar. This way, it has the stylistic effect of being big and bold, but there's a visual cue to scroll down.

Are all of your browser windows maximized, by the way?

Well that is probably the best bellydancer website I've seen that is also quite search engine friendly. Not an easy thing to do.

Not sure of the minimum screen size needed to view it but mine looked ok. I can see the menu at the bottom of the screen. I'm running 1280 x 1024.

Originally Posted by HubicRuzz

Well that is probably the best bellydancer website I've seen that is also quite search engine friendly. Not an easy thing to do.

Thanks! This is PRECISELY what led me to hire my web designer for this job. I had very specific SEO goals in mind - and equally high standards for looks.

Often, the prettiest websites aren't the tastiest morsels for "spiders."

Originally Posted by SatinWorship19

Are all of your browser windows maximized, by the way?

Mine was maximized originally, before you resized, and the photo took up the whole window.

Now that you have resized, I can see the menu at the bottom of the picture and the confusion is eliminated.

Cool! I'm glad I said something to my web guy and got it taken care of.

Thanks so much everyone for pointing that out. It's so important to make sure my site looks just as good on everybody's machine as it does on mine!

wow, your site is gorgeous!
mine is just a diy one - you can tell the difference!

maybe one day i'll be good enough to warrant a site like yours :-)

Linda

hipnosis belly dance

*blush* Thanks!

Your site looks awesome! I envy people who can figure out DIY web design. I tried it and ended up in a fetal position, rocking back and forth.

Not that it's even all that hard or anything, just not for the impatient like me.

It's BEAUTIFUL and so are YOU! Yes the "me" factor really shows, gorgous belly dancer AND down to earth women! Congrats!
One questions? How did you manage to get the sand out of the costumes on those photo shots? ,r:;

Beautiful site, lovely photos but I thought the same. I was clicking on the Gallary tab and I thought it was a broken link, I clicked three times before I realized I had to scroll down.

Originally Posted by faaria

It's BEAUTIFUL and so are YOU! Yes the "me" factor really shows, gorgous belly dancer AND down to earth women! Congrats!
One questions? How did you manage to get the sand out of the costumes on those photo shots? ,r:;

Yay! Glad everyone's loving the approachability....I really tried to create a sense of intimacy and charisma on my site.

As for the costumes, I wear only what I can gently hand wash after a shoot . I'd never, EVER dream of dragging a velvet skirt through the murky gray waters of the Long Island Sound. That's the type of thing that would be a sore subject in my circle of friends....they'd never let me live it down .w.:

I must admit the amount of scrolling that's necessary for me (on a netbook, admittedly) made the site seem very cluttered and old-fashioned. I'd also suggest pruning some of the copy. One of the more difficult things about writing for the web is recognising that less is more, in general. You want your keywords in there but you don't want to overwrite. Of course that's standard for all communications work.

I know you're not targeting it at BDers but to me, the shawarma thing looks like a thinly-disguised grudge, and it's not necessary and just makes you look as if you have some sort of petty issue with another dancer. I'd imagine the GP would wonder what the hell that was all about.

Colours and pictures are pretty though!

Zum, I'm planning on taking a scalpel to my copy in a couple of weeks - once I've had some time to step away from this enormous project! It does seem a little unweildy in a couple of spots. Cool thing is, I can dive right in there on WordPress and slice and dice as needed - it's way too easy to make revisions.

I know copywriting is your specialty - in what areas do you think I could stand to trim down? I'm a recovering fiction/creative writer. I find it impossible not to be wordy

And the thing with the shawarma comment is that I wanted to address the price question somewhere, since it never fails to come up. There might be a more tactful way to make my point, but when it comes to that issue, I personally feel it's better to be blunt.

Web designers see no shame in forewarning their clients about the possible SNAFU's that can arise when you pay $300 for a website - in fact, I heard this quite a bit when shopping around. Undercutting isn't a pretty subject and a lot of us don't like to beat around the bush....but I'll be mindful about how I approach the subject in blog entries and such, moving forward.

I love your site. I'm going to use it as a guide for my site (still in development.)

Thanks, rakgirl! I worked my butt off on this ..g.:

I kind of agree with Satin on this one. I like having that in the FAQ. It might serve to educate the GP.

Right. In an ideal world, I wouldn't need that clause in my FAQ's. But with today's economy and the fact that undercutters exist in even the best of belly dance communities, I didn't exactly feel right omitting this information, either. Unfortunately, the question has come up often enough where I get pretty sick of explaining myself.

This is also why I included my rates. I may get fewer inquiries, but I don't want to dance for below the local minimum, so not like I really even want those leads, anyway.

Ah, but the positive thoughts - YAY! I finally have a website ..g.:

Congratulations, Lisa! The site turned out beautifully. I love your colour choices!

Originally Posted by Zana

Second thought: If you're going to have a Twitter feed on your front page, you might want to think about the impression your tweets make.

I agree with this suggestion, though. When I browsed by, this comment was in your feed: "It's only bad when it's the other way around - clients who expect monumental tasks with zero turnaround time!" Yikes! I wouldn't want a potential client reading that!

Perhaps you should consider tweeting on the Carrara Nour account as your professional persona and start a new account for casual banter?

Good points, Ainsley. I've already considered that - of course, a better solution would be for me to wait a minute or two before tweeting something, and ask myself, "Do I REALLY want everybody and their brother to read that?"

It's all a learning process. I think with social media, there's such a fine line between being yourself and letting a little too much hang out

OT - but your latest photo shoots blew me away! Great job!

Originally Posted by SatinWorship19

Good points, Ainsley. I've already considered that - of course, a better solution would be for me to wait a minute or two before tweeting something, and ask myself, "Do I REALLY want everybody and their brother to read that?"

It's all a learning process. I think with social media, there's such a fine line between being yourself and letting a little too much hang out

OT - but your latest photo shoots blew me away! Great job!

It sure is. Some of my students are friends on FB and I have to consider whether I want them to read what I say. I think i'll have a separate page for dance like we do on Myspace.

Very, very good indeed. My husband runs a website design and programming company, and the design is good. Colourful but not too busy. The picture slideshow is a lovely touch and seems to work quickly.

Very glad to see it works on Safari (a lot of people forget about compatibility with other browers when designing a site)

The content about you is fabulous, and I got a real sense of "you" from it (and only been a Bhuz member for a few days) so no reason why potential clients wouldn't feel the same. I'd hire you :-)

Oh, and you look AMAZING in your cutout pic at the top!

Thanks, Lale!

Brian was meticulous about testing my site on virtually every conceivable browser. I was a little unsure about going slideshow instead of thumbnails, but the technology is awesome - I can update my galleries at the click of a mouse. No need for HTML or paying for updates. This is huge, because I'm into modeling and dating a pro photographer. There's never a shortage of new pictures in my life ,r:;

And welcome to Bhuz! ..g.:

ah - then it sounds like the back end programming is as good as the front end design! I do know what you mean - used to model (before I gained weight), and hubby is also a pro photographer!

Happy snapping and will look forward to seeing lots of lovely new pics!

Thanks for the welcome xxxxx