For those of you that are Fans of Brandwise on Facebook, you may have seen where we offered a free web site review to our fans today. We had Nancy Degenkolb of Nancy Degenkolb Photography request a review of her website and this is what we came up with.

Nancy Degenkolb Photography Website Review:

Here are the great things you have going for your site-

• First off, you are very talented  and really capture and tap into strong emotions through your photos.
  
  
• You do a good job of using the photos to grab your attention through bold subject matter, larger photos that are set up with strong visual hierarchy.
  
  
• The photos do a good job at promoting your style.
  
  
• You do a good job at showcasing the different type of photography you are capable of doing - pets, pet parts, families, & children.
  
  
• You Pet Parts idea is creative and something that probably sets you apart from other photographers - good job.

Here are the areas you need to improve your site:

•  The first thing you mention when requesting this review was the site was 4-5 years old. This is a no-no for web sites, you need to find a way to at very least change out the photos on a regular basis. Making changes on a weekly or at least monthly basis will help keep the site fresh and new for visitors, plus search engines like and rank sites with regularly updated content/pages higher.
  
  
• The next thing I notice is the navigation is on the bottom of the page. The problem here is it makes it tough for people to easily navigate the site. When a page become to long, you have to scroll down the page to jump to the next page. We would recommend adding navigation to either the top of the page or as side navigation. The easier it is on users, the longer they will stay on your site.
  
  
• All text (copy) on page is created as images and scripty font. Scripty fonts are ok,but not meant for a lot of copy. I would try to use some standard easy to read fonts. The big thing here though is the fact that since the type is all images, search engines can't find your site. Make the copy html code and use CSS to style the code - or tell your web designer to do this.
  
  
• Also on this topic, a great way to help visitors want to become clients is by getting to know you and your company a little better. Add some info like "About Us/you, Who you are, What you do, Pricing or just a description of the packages you sell and about the categories your offer. You do not have to have a ton of content, but having some will make the site more interesting to prospects and certainly help the search engines find and rank your site.
  
  
• There is no way to collect data from visitors. At the very least you should have a Contact Us Form that people can fill out and request more information. This will shout you an email and allow you to start collecting data on your prospects so it is easier to do future marketing.
  
  
• I am not sure how active you are with the social media, but I would set up accounts for LinkedIn, Facebook, Facebook Fan Page and Twitter to help promote your site. If you already have all these things, I would add buttons or links to these sites to help cross promote these sites, but also give other areas where people could learn more about yourself/business.

Nancey, because your were willing to put yourself and company out there for this web site review…

we are willing to give you $500 off
of your next project with Brandwise.

This is valid for 3 months and
will expire if not used before April 21st, 2010.

For anyone who is not a Fan of Brandwise on Facebook, you might want to become our fan so that you can take advantage of future offers we maybe making that is only available to our Facebook Fans.