A Little Over a Month Later
Finally, I have just passed the first half of the month that I have been working on my website, www.themagicofphotography.com. I am getting pretty excited because today, I just finished my 9th post. It's not really a lot, but it's a start and I cannot wait until I have a website that I can truly be proud of.
When I started with WA, I honestly thought it'd be something I would work on here or there but that I wouldn't really get very far, but I have learned so much. My website now not only provides information about photography in my own style, but also has revenue opportunities through affiliate programs and text-driven ad services.
I'm just getting started. Let's see where I am next month.
The one downside is that I haven't really received a lot of traffic yet. If anyone sees any issues with it that may be keeping people off of my site, please let me know. Here's my latest post, http://themagicofphotography.com/lenses-3-what-do-the-abbreviations-on-lenses-mean.
Recent Comments
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Hi Ben. You've already had great input from Wayne Wallace.
My comments are from the opposite end of the spectrum. I know next to nothing about photography. Now that I want to create websites that need pictures, I would actually be willing to invest time (and possibly money) to learn about cameras and lenses and photography. If your website could teach me something, you'd have a regular visitor. But it's not clear whom you are targeting on your site. You try to explain about lenses as if that was the beginning. To my mind expertise about lenses comes AFTER you've investigated what kind of camera to get. Under 'recent post' I could find 'Composition 2' but no 'Composition 1'. I think you'd need to create pages with drop down menus where people can follow step by step. And if you are trying to explain things to a beginner like me, these steps need to be in a logical, easy to follow sequence.
But actually I wouldn't stay on your site even if it was betterorganised simply because I detest infolinks. And yours has an awful lot of them.And they have nothing whatsoever to do with the subject matter. I HATE INFOLINKS!!!!! I do not stay on a site with infolinks. It tells me that the person running the site is mainly interested in making money.
Also your theme may not be the best for getting ranked because the picture at the top takes up all the space 'above the fold', so there is no content without scrolling down, and from what I read recently, this can prevent your site from getting a good ranking. And the picture itself doesn't give any indication what the site is about.
As Wayne says, once I am on the Amazon store, I have left your site. I actually love Amazon and reading the reviews on Amazon are my main method for making buying decisions. But then I'd go straight to Amazon myself and wouldn't need your website. So I'd expect you, as the expert, to have done the work of reading lots and lots of reviews and telling me why I should go for model X or Y or Z.
Sorry to be so critical - on the other end of the spectrum from Wayne.
Thanks internetgranny. Yes I def need better organization. If you did want to read the first composition post, it doesn't actually have a 1 in front but I can send you a link if you'd like. As for the info links, I originally was hoping I could have more control over it kind of like Adsense. As for the drop down menus, do you know how to create those because that's what I would really like to do.
I think Adsense is fine, but infolinks I wouldn't touch.
I too want a website with drop down menus. I am experimenting with several websites at the moment to figure out which theme(s) would work for the sites I want to create. I have a feeling the drop down menus may onlybe available for certain themes. I will let you know when I have found out.
Thanks for offering to send me the link for the first composition post, but don't worry about it. For the moment I am organising what photos I do have to see which may be suitable for my websites. My main practice website is just a siterubix site with content for one of my pupils which will become obsolete in June once he has taken his exam. But it's great for me to just play around with to see what happens...
Hi Ben, you are doing well so far as from what I can see, as I am not far behind you in the WA courses, learning process, etc. I see Wayne made some valid points as to something I learned from as well. I know you will need to guide the newbie to photography (say like myself) and maybe start with a couple cameras to write up on and give pros, cons and features to which not only better inform me, but to lead me to know that I would make a solid purchase on whichever camera and accessories. I noticed when I read your pages I have seen a lot of linked up words;perhaps scaling back on a couple words not camera related and maybe link up your keywords which will help your site. I myself had to do some changes on my site, including changing my theme, so I know it may take a while to get the hang of it, but in the long run it will benefit. I am confident you will be able to do the same as your site does look good and you are ahead of me in the writing department. All the best and if you like you can check out my site in my profile and add any input as well. Hope I may have been of some help and would gladly assist if I can.
Respectfully,
Mike
Well as a full time professional photographer I know this industry. You have a lot of competition out there, I've thought about a website for this industry as well but the competition is steep. You don't really have a lot of content yet compared to other photo websites. You should be showing me a lot of step by step how to stuff and helping the newbie out. When I click on your store tab I'm gone from your website. That really doesn't help me with witch one to buy. I would want help with that and you send me away to amazon. Maybe you should tell me why I need to by a certain camera.
Thanks Wayne. Yes I'm not exactly sure if I'll keep the astore around or not. I saw it as an option on amazon and was kind of excited that I could make a store that centers around products I think people would like. Like the fact it's categorized by brand and order of least to greatest price wise. I do plan to do more articles talking about different cameras and put links for them there but I thought the astore might help until then. I do have an article where I compare three decent zoom lenses but I haven't gotten around to doing anything else product wise.
I'm still going through the initial training phase 3 so I've been focusing mostly on monetizing and seeing if anyone bites those things. I'll take a look at your site and see if I get any better ideas. Eventually I want to put up pages to kind of organize the posts into basics equipment etc.
Keep up the great work, I'm a pretty hard critic on this type of site as I'm so close to it.
Thanks Wayne. Honestly, I'd rather have the criticism then the "That's nice." Comments. Criticism helps people think and grow.
I don't know anything about photography, but looking at your site it looks really professional and authoritative - so I'm sure traffic will come. I'm sure it takes some time - but keep using the "low hanging fruit" keywords : ).
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Great start keep on training.
Thanks Bill67!