Jared Polin, Froknowsphoto.com and it is now time for another Square Space rapid fire critic
where I take one of your websites and give it a critic, e-mail critic and if you like
to submit your website for a possible critic, click the link down below, we will take the
website submitted and maybe I’ll critic yours, but remember I get hundreds of them
in the mail all the time.
So let’s do this one, so before we get to the actual Square Space rapid fire critic,
I realized after I was done, I kept messing up the guy’s name.
I kept saying Hustler, it is actually Holtster, right Holtster, yep, Holtster, now part of
the reason I mess up words all the time is because my eyes shake, see that, that shakes
which causes me to not see words properly and mess them up.
So that’s my excuse right now for why I messed up his name so as you hear me talking
about Hustler, it is actually Holtster.
Let’s get back to it.
What do we have, we have D Hustler, videography and photography, this one is not built on
a Square Space website.
I want to remind you that if you haven’t checked out square space, it’s what I personally
use for Jared Polin dot com, go to squarespace.com/Fro to get a fourteen day free trial, that is
my affiliate link, so if you decide that is for you I get something for it and you save
ten percent when you use the code Fro at checkout, D Hustler, I am going to load this page for
you real quick because I want to hear something.
Yeah.
I hate music on a website when it loads because I’m like what the hell is that crappy boring
ass music, eh to me it is cheesy, so I am going to go ahead and hit pause but as you
can see none of the other things come up as a normal Youtube video would so they turned
off the ability to rewind or stop and start, yes if you click, it will start, if you click
it, it will also stop.
I’m not a big fan of leading with a video like this.
I like the fact that you have a book that you are turning the pages on, umm, I would
try to think of a different way to do that, I just don’t like videos playing with music
that are auto playing that just bothers me, and I think it bothers a lot of other people
when they are on a website.
So the first thing that I notice on a site like this is it looks like it’s built in
the early 2000s, it just has that cheesy look with the and, and I’m gonna, yes, I’m
gonna just say it, it has a cheesy look with this nineteen nineties as looking film strip
at the top.
That to me, it’s fine with the D Hustler, I get it, that I can live with when I just
find this to be really cheesy and amateurish looking.
So at the bottom it says photography is beautiful, videography is beauty, twenty four frames
per second, I can live with that, I can like that.
We have got Youtube, we have got instagram, we have Facebook.
I’m going to click on instagram real quick just to take a look.
D Hustler enlists photos always a good thing, also putting up wedding packages over here,
hmm, interesting, Jewish wedding right there or Jewish something because they are high
fiving alright so let’s go back to the website and talk about that because the website is
what’s killing me right now.
So this is the first page that your introduced to, it’s really nothing else that says contact
us, but it doesn’t really tell me about what is going on here.
Let’s eh, you have to decide where to go, I mean eh, I guess your pushing weddings,
but let me hit about, about, Jessie D Hustler, owner and videographer/photographer alright.
Welcome to About me page, I have been lucky to work with both, to work both here in Canada
as well as overseas, I’ve been shooting a huge line of weddings and television production
since two thousand and twelve.
I believe it’s about being warm, friendly and honest, when dealing with others, I work
hard to ensure that your wedding will be shot with a passion and desire that you want from
a trusted wedding professional.
Hurried work is worried work, and a job not well done is not a well done job, oh no, but
Jesus says it all the time.
He says it’s as Jessie, Teiler, Aldred, Audrey, Justin DeConche, Eric Jer- okay so
we list all the people that can do job, photo jobs for you, that’s fine.
I don’t mind that.
Ah..eh..
I would make this first page, I like the book, don’t get me wrong, I just hate the music
going.
I don’t know what I would do, I would do a slide show, I would just do a slide show
even if it’s your hands and you come up with a way of having the pages turned and
let people turn them, I would do that more than I would do um a video like this.
Also what I would, actually let’s see how many views it has, ninety eight and it went
up July thirtieth of two thousand and sixteen.
That’s not good, to say ninety eight views, I mean not a lot of people are going over
to the website to see this or it hasn’t been shared or posted anywhere to get a lot
of people to view.
So that’s something that I personally look at how many does it have, to kind of gain
a little bit of credibility.
What I would do on the front page personally, I would do a slide show, I would talk about
the work that you guys do and what you offered, sounds like you are, you’ve been doing this
since two thousand twelve, you do videos, you do high end productions, you do, you do
weddings, I want you to list that stuff on the front page that welcomes people.
Here’s what a wedding for you could look like, if my team was incharge of capturing
your most precious moments and bullshit like that, personally I mean, whatever you want
to say to entice people when they are looking at it, that’s what I would do.
List the things that you do on the front page, hey, my name is so and so, welcome to the
page, how can I help you, not just contact us, you need to ask the questions, what could
I help you with, what could I do for you, showcase your best work and then let people
discover from there.
So you list photography here separate from video so we’ll take a look here, happy LE
ever after starts here, I hate that.
Umm, we take pride in our, okay so here’s a slide show, one, two, three, four, five,
six, too long, one, two, three, switch, one, two, three, switch, one, two, what the hell
just happened.
So I launched it.
One, two, three, next, okay so we launched it, one, two, three, next, one, two, three,
what the hell, one, two, three, next, ahh, your killing me smalls, your killing me with
the load time, one, two, three, switch, one, two, three, switch and if somebody wants to
stay on the image, they are going to click on it, but don’t make them wait them six
seconds to go through the photos, also the fact that they have to load each time, I’m
going to plug Square Space right here because of the fact that they will, you upload your
images right, I upload my images at Square Space at twenty five hundred pixels on the
longest side at 100 DPI or 150 DPI whatever that ends up being.
But what Square Space does on the backend is they will change the image size to help
it load faster depending on the size of the screen that somebody is looking at it on,
that’s one of the reasons I like it, I wasn’t planning on plugging it right here, or go
get the free trial, Froknowsphoto.come, sorry, squarespace.com/fro, take the fourteen day
free trial, if you like, use it, if you don’t, no harm, no foul stick with what you got,
but that was a pain in the ass that caused me not to wanna look.
I also want to see is this a responsive website, responsive means it as I change it, everything
changes.
It is not a responsive website, which is a failure in this day and age to not have a
website that changes and when I say responsive, let’s do this real quick, I am going to
show you what responsive is, I’m going to go and click on enter me which a lot of people
don’t like but look responsive means that as you change your mouses, you know you change,
so different screen sizes, it’s going to change everything for you to fit on that particular
device that somebody is on, that’s responsive, Square Space sites write out the bad are responsive,
okay, I’m done yelling at you but I also, I want to see yes, oh, it takes too long to
see these photos, I want to see a couple of different options under photography.
Let’s see best of the best weddings, I want to see portraits, I want to see details, I
want to see the options to see those shots, and I want the ability to personally see it
what does this do, this lets me switch it through.
Oh, my God, there are seventy one photos, way too many photos, pick your bet-, so split
them up, I want to see your best twenty from candid, I want to see your best twenty portraits,
I want to see your best twenty stories, get that stuff in there and let people choose
that from a dropdown or scroll down the page so they can see, but I want to see a gallery,
I want to atleast have the option for the gallery, okay, I’m done yelling at you there.
Videography samples, when you book with us, you’ll receive atleast forty five minute
full length film of your special day, holy shit.
Below are some edited examples currently in a portfolio, stop bouncing, people are going
to, people are going to yell at me for you bouncing to update you.
There are six separate demo reels that mix many weddings we worked in two thou-, I find,
I’m not going to watch this, um, I’m sure they are fine, the morning is always buzzing
with excitement, but I know parties are always busy putting on their dresses and getting
the perfect hair and makeup done.
The girl’s winner ah okay whatever that’s fine, so you have different examples of people
can watch, I live with that, that’s cool.
Ahh, what was I going to say.
There were something else I wanted to see on this site, I don’t know, but let’s
click on packages.
I’m, I’m just lost when I come onto this page.
Wedding packages, you get the silver, the gold, the platinum, I hate that so much and
I don’t have an honest or goodness idea of what it should say or could say, I just
hate silver, gold, platinum, would you like the better, the best, the less wedding packages,
I just this website looks cheesy and that’s upsetting to me.
The work is good and you need a website to represent that, umm, one professional trained
photographer, what is that saying like, one professional trained monkey is going to come
out to my photo shoot, why do you need to say trained, you said profess- like using
the word professional and trained doesn’t make you any better.
I fell into this trap as a younger photographer, ahh, on my business card it said professional
photographer, instead of just photographer because I thought by calling myself a professional,
it meant that I had more credibility when in reality it’s your work that demonstrates
whether you’re a professional or not.
You don’t need to tell people, we are professionally trained.
What is believe me damn thank you, what is trai- professionally trained right there.
Ah, alright so package is sixteen up to eight so this is where I’m lost.
One ah professionally trained photographer, I hate this package because I want two photographers
for this amount of money, but eighteen hours of phot- photographic coverage, what are you
photographing, are you getting up there at seven in the morning and your not lend- even
by eleven at night we are gone even well before that but eighteen hours of coverage, are you
staying for the post nuptials the, the, whatever is going to happen in the, in the, in the
honeymoon suite, eighteen hours is an asinine number to put on something.
I would not do more than twelve.
You tell people, you know, twelve hours of cov-, I, I never put hours on my packages.
What I used to tell people is that no, you can’t have me for three hours at one third
of the price I wanted because you, you know want to pay me less time, the reason I say
that is because your hiring me for the day.
I’m going to be there to shoot your wedding.
I’m not taking another job where I’m leaving after five hours, I’m like screw you, I’m
leaving after, eh, before the bride kisses you, the groom kisses you whatever.
I’m not leaving.
So just tell them, I cover your full event.
Generally speaking that’s eight ten hours, if you need extra time, we can certainly do
that, I’m not a big fan of packages that say four-hour package, eight-hour package,
eighteen-hour package, what’s next, a twenty-four, that’s too much time and that’s deadly
for a photographer, I think your going to suck by the end of the night.
Especially one photographer doing all of this, alright, let’s keep going.
Ahm, two professional tra- trained monkeys to come do your job.
Platinum videography, two professionals eighteen hours.
So for two photographers, two professional trained videographers and one professional
trained photographer that is three people for two thousand and ninety nine dollars,
why is one I mean, okay, up to six, I hate listing times.
It is not about times, you don’t charge, your getting the exact same thing, all your
doing is giving more time, give the freaking package for forty seven hundred and ninety
nine dollars because it doesn’t seem like I’m getting more other than time.
It’s more than twice as much money for this bullshit eighteen hour, I’m just angry at
this.
This is just a lot of, it’s the same thing, it’s just based off of time, I don’t like
that.
I don’t, I want to pay and I want to get more.
I want two full time photographer trained monkeys plus two professional videographers
at this point for forty seven ninety nine and I want more bonuses than what I get in
the first two packages, you want less in the first, if your going to do packages, look,
if your going to do packages for your weddings and videography and whatever your going to
offer, you need to offer more as you step up, not just say more hours is more money.
You just need be like alright, for this package you only get X, you get two of these things.
The next one adds four total things.
The next one adds six, seven, eight different things, added value means a lot more, you
need to show people that your going to give them more because they pay more and not just
because hours, you need to think about what is going to be an added value to a customer
or a client that’s going to make them say yes to you and say yes to your higher packages.
So think about that when your creating packages and posting them on your sites to try to get
jobs for weddings or jobs for anything.
Okay, moving on, I’ve stayed on this site, I’ve stayed on this how long have I been
doing this site.
I’m already thirteen minutes and I need to keep going.
D Hustler, simpler, simple per photo packages.
First of when I hear, oh okay, the MVP of DVP, what the hell is DVP, digital proofs
are available - one dollar for proof, and photographers will touch up whichever photos
are purchased, all images purchased were not will be registered for one year, no, how are
you going to charge a dollar a Goddam proof, no, do not charge for, in that package, what
I just said where you get a higher end package, how are you going to charge a dollar a proof,
give the damn proofs.
It costs you twenty five cents to make a print, and AdoramaPix for a four by six, you can
order two hundred of them for no money, it’s not a lot of money to order two hundred and
give it to them in a box that it comes from AdoramaPix so you spent twenty five dollars
or twenty dollars, or less on making prints, give them the four by six previews that you’ve
edited for free.
It is added value that costs you almost nothing, why charge a dollar because what if you shoot
two hundred, two thousand pictures, do you think I want to pay two thousand dollars for
those bullshit proofs, no.
I’m yelling.
The MVP of DVP most valuable package.
Okay what does DVP stand for, if I was looking at this website and I read D Hustler, DVP,
I would think that I was in Todd’s search history looking up, I’m not going even say
inappropriate, but in essence looking up porn, because that’s where my, my brain went with
D Hustl- that’s your name, I can’t do anything about that, that’s fine, but DVP
almost reminds me of ten bleep all of that thank you.
Umm, that’s what I get out of that, videography package, two professional trained people photographers.
Why is this so far down low, this is your best package, move this up to the top.
Ahh, testimonials, Rob, Julie, okay, I’m a bi-.
So when you have a testimonial page on your website, and you’re a photographer, and
you list the people that are giving testimonials, testimonials are great but you’re a visual
person, put a photo of those people from their event next to or below or above their testimonial
so that there is some visual representation of their happiness in a photo so that reflects
well for you.
So on the testimonial pages, make sure you include a photo of the people that are giving
a testimonial because that is going to stand out so much more and should help you get more
jobs.
ABOUT, I already read the about contact us, that’s fine, contact us, here’s a phone
number, I’m not calling them because they are in Canada, FAQ, FAQ, I hate the font for
here coz I can’t read it, I can read this one, we need two things, just give your booking
date, booking deposit of fifty percent, a signed agreement once those steps are completed,
we are all yours, fine, I get it.
Do you travel for destination weddings, absolutely, okay.
General photography, my last thing about this website, let me make sure I’m still within
time here, my last thing about this website is do not use scripted font on your website.
It is hard to read.
Use a text that is easy to read so that people can quickly read it and not either lean in
or lean back or get turned off that they can’t read your scripted font.
There is no place for scripted font on your sites right now because they are very hard
to read and understand, especially me, I have bad eyes, I have to get close to attempt to
read this and I hate it.
So, don’t use that type of scripted font.
That’s it.
Eh, this is a harsh critic I guess but they said in their post that they left this on
Facebook that jobs have dried up and they’ve been having trouble getting gigs, part of
the problem I think is this website.
I don’t care if you use Square Space, I don’t care what you use or if you hire a
full time professional web developer, you need to do something to clean up this site
to make it look better as well as start some more social promotions and get pictures on
the testimonial page and get rid of eight hundred packages.
When you have too many options, four packages on your website, too many options is going
to turn people off because when there’s too many options they sit there and they don’t
know what to pick, if you have three options to choose from, would you like to go with
A, B, or C, you give people the fatal alternative, the fatal alternative is this, when your trying
to close a sale, would you like to go with package one or package two, you guess what
happens right after that, people go, oh, you know what, I’d like to go with package two
or they say you know I’m not ready to purchase right now but you gave them the fatal alternative
which is a way to get a tyre kicker to make a decision.
So instead of sitting there and wasting more time, you sit there and you ask the question,
package one, package two, either it’s going to be, I’ll go with one or I’ll go with
two or you know what I’m not ready yet, okay, thank you, please let me know when your
ready and I will do my best to help you.
So that’s it guys, that’s a rapid fire critic, Square Space rapid fire critic, if
you want to check out Square Space, go to squarespace.com/fro, check it out, leave comments
down below with if you like these critics, not even if you like them, what do you think,
what are your critics of this person’s website, please like this, please subscribe on Youtube
and thank you for watching Jared Polin, Froknowsphoto.com.
See you.
Subscribe now.
Watch this, watch this video.