Website improvement's

Hally72

Active Member
Hi All,
I have been playing around with a website for some time now and feel it is OK. It is a fairly basic site and I am not much of a webmaster, so I would appreciate any opinions and advice about it!
Thank you all

SLH Blades
 
Websites can certainly can eat up a lot of time and effort, but I feel it's a necessary part of being in this "business".

Generally, when it comes to a website, the average visitor will land on the home page, and if they don't see something that peaks their interest, of if they don't find what they want, with a matter of seconds, they simply move on.

The first thing I'll mention is a pet-peev of mine.... YOUR NAME needs to be the first thing they see, along with your work. Something that many makers don't understand or realize is that when a client purchases a knife, they are not just buying a knife....they are buying a piece of the maker. When they purchase a knife, they want it to reflect the maker, and to be readily identifiable as being made by the individual. To that end, I always advise maker to use at least their last name. I understand that to many makers using initials is "identifiable", but the truth is that only makes the knife identifiable to that particular maker. I can't count the number of times people have walked into my shop over the year, with a knife that had some strange logo on it, or initials, and asked if I could help them find they knifemaker, so they could order/purchase another knife from them. There's just no viable way to locate the individual...... now if you have your last name, or last name and first initial as a "mark", a person could go to google and type in (first initial/last name/"knives" or "knifemaker") and anything you have on the web would pop up.

Next, I would consider changing the font....for me it is somewhat small, and difficult to read in the cursive format. I would recommend enlarging the font, or possibly changing it to something like Times New Roman, or even Arial.

Otherwise it's a good start. The biggest thing about a website is to grab a person's attention the moment it pops up on their monitor.....and have things that will make them want to stay, and "look around".

Obviously, higher quality pictures are a good thing, but I understand it takes time and effort to learn/gain those..... Just make sure you keep the site updated, and/or change things up every now and then.... there are a ton of knifemaker websites out there right now, that are the same as they were a year ago......and I can promise you those sites' traffic reflects that. Another thing you need to do is optimize, and get your site registered on the major search engines...... just look it up on the web. It's easy to do, and it nearly tripled the traffic my site receives per month. (averages about 6,000 views per month). Prior to that, I was lucky to get 500 visitors a month.

Personally, I do my own website too, and a couple of years ago I stumble across a software called: http://www.wysiwygwebbuilder.com/index.html It's very robust for it's cost, and is fairly easy to learn. It allows for much more then the webhost service site builders.
 
Thank's Ed
I will definitely take it all on board! I just had a look at your Website and it looks great, I certainly have a long way to take mine!

Websites can certainly can eat up a lot of time and effort, but I feel it's a necessary part of being in this "business".

Generally, when it comes to a website, the average visitor will land on the home page, and if they don't see something that peaks their interest, of if they don't find what they want, with a matter of seconds, they simply move on.

The first thing I'll mention is a pet-peev of mine.... YOUR NAME needs to be the first thing they see, along with your work. Something that many makers don't understand or realize is that when a client purchases a knife, they are not just buying a knife....they are buying a piece of the maker. When they purchase a knife, they want it to reflect the maker, and to be readily identifiable as being made by the individual. To that end, I always advise maker to use at least their last name. I understand that to many makers using initials is "identifiable", but the truth is that only makes the knife identifiable to that particular maker. I can't count the number of times people have walked into my shop over the year, with a knife that had some strange logo on it, or initials, and asked if I could help them find they knifemaker, so they could order/purchase another knife from them. There's just no viable way to locate the individual...... now if you have your last name, or last name and first initial as a "mark", a person could go to google and type in (first initial/last name/"knives" or "knifemaker") and anything you have on the web would pop up.

Next, I would consider changing the font....for me it is somewhat small, and difficult to read in the cursive format. I would recommend enlarging the font, or possibly changing it to something like Times New Roman, or even Arial.

Otherwise it's a good start. The biggest thing about a website is to grab a person's attention the moment it pops up on their monitor.....and have things that will make them want to stay, and "look around".

Obviously, higher quality pictures are a good thing, but I understand it takes time and effort to learn/gain those..... Just make sure you keep the site updated, and/or change things up every now and then.... there are a ton of knifemaker websites out there right now, that are the same as they were a year ago......and I can promise you those sites' traffic reflects that. Another thing you need to do is optimize, and get your site registered on the major search engines...... just look it up on the web. It's easy to do, and it nearly tripled the traffic my site receives per month. (averages about 6,000 views per month). Prior to that, I was lucky to get 500 visitors a month.

Personally, I do my own website too, and a couple of years ago I stumble across a software called: http://www.wysiwygwebbuilder.com/index.html It's very robust for it's cost, and is fairly easy to learn. It allows for much more then the webhost service site builders.
 
Your pictures are nice and sharp which is good. I am amazed at how many good makers do not have truly sharp photos of their work.
On the about me page I find having the text over a picture very distracting. A simple background would be better imo.

Over all pretty clean looking.
 
The mention of backgrounds for knife photos brings up something I learned some time ago..... the more things in a photo that a camera tries to/has to focus on, generally the poorer the image comes out. A couple of other things I have learned while teaching myself knife photography..... 1. Certain colors of backgrounds either detract or enhance a knife photo. 2. The "finish" of the background material plays an important part in the same way.... detract or enhancing the photo. If you look closely at most of the photos on my site, you will see that the majority of the backgrounds tend to be a medium to dark blue..... this seems to make the knife "pop" out of the photo, and retains the true to life colors.

The worst background colors for me seem to be reds, yellows, and lighter greens. These always tend to impart that color's hue to the overall photo. The "texture" of the background is important too. I used to buy "place mats" at walmart and use them for backgrounds....but they always had a smooth/glossy finish, which gave me fits trying to take a "good" knife picture. By accident I stumbled across some "scraps" or the matting used at a local framing shop (the stuff that is cut out and used when framing pictures and such). I tried it out and found my answer...... Photo matting is the way to go for knife photography backgrounds....at least for me. :)
 
Thank's Ted,
I have made some changes today and this is one of them!

Your pictures are nice and sharp which is good. I am amazed at how many good makers do not have truly sharp photos of their work.
On the about me page I find having the text over a picture very distracting. A simple background would be better imo.

Over all pretty clean looking.
 
Thank's Ed
You have given me some good point's. I have made changes today to reflect some of the advice I have received. I hope it make for a better website. I am still teaching myself Knife photography so any hint on that subject are most sought after!

The mention of backgrounds for knife photos brings up something I learned some time ago..... the more things in a photo that a camera tries to/has to focus on, generally the poorer the image comes out. A couple of other things I have learned while teaching myself knife photography..... 1. Certain colors of backgrounds either detract or enhance a knife photo. 2. The "finish" of the background material plays an important part in the same way.... detract or enhancing the photo. If you look closely at most of the photos on my site, you will see that the majority of the backgrounds tend to be a medium to dark blue..... this seems to make the knife "pop" out of the photo, and retains the true to life colors.

The worst background colors for me seem to be reds, yellows, and lighter greens. These always tend to impart that color's hue to the overall photo. The "texture" of the background is important too. I used to buy "place mats" at walmart and use them for backgrounds....but they always had a smooth/glossy finish, which gave me fits trying to take a "good" knife picture. By accident I stumbled across some "scraps" or the matting used at a local framing shop (the stuff that is cut out and used when framing pictures and such). I tried it out and found my answer...... Photo matting is the way to go for knife photography backgrounds....at least for me. :)
 
Hi All,
I have been playing around with a website for some time now and feel it is OK. It is a fairly basic site and I am not much of a webmaster, so I would appreciate any opinions and advice about it!
Thank you all

SLH Blades


Web pages are tough.

These are just suggestions... I assure you I have no idea what I'm talking about.

It looks good... much better for sure. As a suggestion, I would get those words off of the main knife pic on the home page. This is, of course, from a mobile device, but imo most visitors will be doing so from a phone. I always try to do "something different" with the title and/or welcome message... stick it on left or right or whatever. Sometimes this works and sometimes it don't lol.

I would also include small descriptions of the knives below each knife pictured. Blade steel, grind, size, bla bla... maybe even a VERY short story about the blade. Why was it made, i.e. Is it for a kid whose dad is a big hunter. This would possibly get a potential buyer to say, "hey, if I get a knife from this guy, it will be made just for me." In other words, you get to know each and every person who is lucky enough to own one of your blades.

I happen to like clear paths (links) to purchase. A big link saying "Available Knives" or whatever would be nice I think. I would also add other links such as... about the maker, contact us, gallery.... etc.

Let me know if I can be of further assistance.... I'm always willing to help.

And again these are only suggestions... the site looks good as is, but with a few minor touches, I think you will impress yourself and others!



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