Comments on: Photo album or scrolling pix – which leads to higher conversion rates?

By: Jeff Wilkinson

Jeff Wilkinson — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 22:41:23 +0000

I use and like (love) smugmug ( http://www.smugmug.com ) for our church’s photo galleries ( http://centralpc.smugmug.com/ ).

One thing to note, they offer free (pro!) accounts to non-profits. Definitely worth considering for church sites.

http://www.smugmug.com/help/non-profit-free-accounts

By: mrben

mrben — Thu, 24 May 2007 08:49:29 +0000

Most of the sites that I have seen that use a slideshow of images are actually showing a slideshow of clickable banners showing upcoming events, and the like. http://www.dulleschurch.org is a good example.

However, I reiterate my comment from yesterday – there is *no need* for this to be done in Flash, when it can be very easily achieved in Javascript. I posted the link to SmoothGallery yesterday, which does exactly this.

By: billychia

billychia — Wed, 23 May 2007 16:07:55 +0000

Not to mention that movement is designed to attract your eye. Flash animations are annoying and distracting when you are trying to read text on the page and your eye keeps getting sucked up to the flash header. Stick with a static header.

By: MeanDean

MeanDean — Wed, 23 May 2007 14:40:06 +0000

“You canâ€™t count on every visitor wanting to go to a photo album.”

Exactly my point – why force a scrolling album on a user who doesn’t want to see any images, album or otherwise?

Point is, the user is in control .. And remains focused in the conversion goal.

By: b2blog

b2blog — Wed, 23 May 2007 12:55:57 +0000

I think they are allowed to use flash to run some pics by the visitor. You can’t count on every visitor wanting to go to a photo album. Taste and restraint are important tho.

Here’s a site that uses flash image header nicely:
http://www.portagelake.org/

And their photo-album is flash driven, too.
http://www.portagelake.org/index.php?option=com_expose&Itemid=21