Hi all,
I just set up a basic website with some photos and I'd like some feedback. As I don't yet have a huge body of work, I posted my best items. Any feedback on the design, text, or photos would be greatly appreciated! Of course, the objective of this site is to showcase my work and hopefully gain some clients.

I'm currently in NYC but I'm relocating to Bloomington, IL soon. If there's anyone out there from the Bloomington-Normal area, I'd love to know what you think!

http://savoriesnsweets.weebly.com/index.html

Thanks!
Stacy

Your cakes look very nice! You may want to invest in a backdrop or portable photo studio so you can take pictures without stuff in the background.

Also you will probably want to remove any reference to your business from the web site, unless you operate out of a licensed and inspected commercial kitchen. Luckily IL is about to pass a cottage food law that allows you to legally sell homemade baked goods, but only at farmer's markets.

Thanks Jason! I am looking into getting some kind of backdrop set up. I know what you mean about the business aspect. I didn't know about that new law in IL. I should research it because maybe I can sell cupcakes at farmer's markets?

Hi - I'm 30 minutes from Bloomington, near Champaign. I agree with Jason regarding the photos. Otherwise it seems to be okay and easy to use your site. I'm a hobby baker and looking very forward to the cottage law passing. Still sitting on the governor's desk for signature.

I should add to what I said above - I don't believe the new law will allow bakers to sell retail unless you become legal and commercial. Home bakers will be able to sell only and farmer's markets and such. I could be wrong, but I believe that is all home bakers will be allowed to do, unless of course they have a separate commercial kitchen.

Your backdrop can be as simple as a large piece of fabric draped over the seat of a chair (sitting on the table). Let the fabric flow down the front of the chair, onto the table, cake on top of the fabric. Simple and inexpensive. Good luck.

Maybe a period after $100 in the first line of your Ordering and Contact Information page?

I agree with the others about backdrops. It can make a HUGE difference. Also consider investing in a really good camera. You can get digital SLRs pretty inexpensively now, and they are relatively easy to use. Another tip for photos---TURN OFF THE FLASH!
Find a sunny spot in your house, next to a window usually and set up a little table. Using natural light when photographing cakes really makes the colors pop. I find that using a flash makes all the little mistakes in a cake glaringly obvious. Natural light helps hide them a little.

One other thing--if you can afford to do so, buy a dedicated domain name. Like savoriesandsweets.com if it's available. Having your own domain name makes it easier for people to remember your site and find it easily.
But that got me thinking too--everything on your site is sweet. How does the savory come in?

thanks all for your feedback! I will work on all of these suggestions for future and I will edit text as soon as I can! Sara_bee, the savory comes in because I'm trained in culinary arts and I can produce savory baked goods. I know they're not featured on the site, but it's something I want to offer in the near future. Thanks!

I agree with the general consensus regarding the photography. Afterall, the pictures are going to do most of the hard work of selling the savories and sweets to your potential clients. You want to give them as much "ammo."

I would also consider making a show stopper piece just for your website landing page. The current one is nice but there's also other things like the blinds that can be distracting.

Would consider putting the tab links "HOME/CAKES/CUPCAKES/ETC" above the main picture. It also should be centered. Perhaps a bigger font too.

I love the color scheme. To me it has a very organic feel to it. Not like a lot of the pink/purple/yellow variations as you see with most caking websites.

If you're going to have a section about the Chef, I think it'd be worthwhile to have a picture of you looking at the camera beside your cake. Show that pretty face who makes the sweet goodies.

Good luck!

Another thing is, don't feel like you need to show every picture of every cake you've made...display the best and most recent, leave out the early attempts.

I agree with Jason. Until you can legally sell cakes, I'd work on getting fondant and buttercream smooth. And letter spacing. If you want $5-$10 per slice, it really needs to be perfect.

I didn't really see any savory options on your menu.

adding to what other people said about the back ground-

use just one or two cup cakes for a picture- not the whole pan

make sure you are not using a time stamp on your camera. If it does get on the picture- use an editing tool such as Picasa to fix those up and crop them out.

Try side angels for capturing the small things like cookies and cup cakes- not a birds eye view.

Try saving the eye to eye angels for cakes.

I agree about the savory part. Your name has savory in it, but your bio mentions all things sweet. With a culinary background, you may give the impression that you don't know the difference.

But... if you plan on adding savory items, maybe you should mention that they are coming in the future.