talkmagic.co.uk

Hello all,

I was wondering if anyone would be kind enough to take a quick look at my website and offer any kind of feedback? I'm new to web design of any kind, so it'd be great if anyone a bit more knowledgeable could weigh in.

Is it eye catching and professional looking enough to engage potential bookings? How could it be improved? Etc.

http://simoncmagic.co.uk

Thanks to anyone who wants to take a look!

All the best.

Looks all good to me Simon.. I have my own website www.wermagic.co.uk Maybe updating your blog once in a while always helps you to progress along the way.. Good luck
Regards Garry.

I'm looking at the phone version, but the menu has two pages called "Home"..

The advice I have been given is to focus less on Who Am I, and more on How Booking Me Benefits A Client. For that reason I'd suggest not having the blog as the landing page maybe?

After learning of sleight of hand from a young age, Simon became obsessed with the art of conjuring and the secretive craft of card manipulation. He soon realised the extent of the reactions he could cause with a deck of playing cards was something special, and he hasn't looked back since.

Sleight of hand is a method - are you a sleight of hand-ist or a magician?
Surely you wouldn't put "After learning thread work from a young age..."

If all your magic can be talked away with, 'oh, that's sleight of hand' then you're several steps away from a magician whose job is to do the impossible (i.e. no possible method can be conceived!)

Hi Simon,
Thanks for inviting comments on your web site. Very brave of you especially as you might get conflicting opinions. The previous replies are certainly quite valid. Firstly I will mention that I'm very much an 'old timer' but have been a pro performer for many, many years. I'm looking at your site as a potential booker who might well be looking at many other performers sites before selecting the one they might engage. I was also, for several years, an agent booking close-up magicians.

Here are some of my initial thoughts. The site being basically 'black' and so, to me at least, has rather a gloomy feel to it. I feel more colour, action and excitement is needed to grab the potential bookers attention. You give the impression that you are just a 'card man' so my next comment may well be disagreed with, but some folk might well be put off by that very impression.

You keep emphasising your skill with cards but I feel (others may well agree with this) that to impress the potential bookers you should emphasise your qualities as an ENTERTAINER. What most certainly is needed is lots and lots of good colourful photographs of folk being entertained. Laughing faces clearly having fun at your presentations. Your site should emphasise that you are a good all-round entertaining close-up magician.

I also ask, is your site aimed at people who may want to book a 'close-up' magician or is it aimed at other magicians who might want to buy something? I'm not so sure this is ideal but if needed, keep the selling part to a proper separate section of your site.

These days, folk want to see video of a performer in action. Such a short video should be on your Home page so that when folk arrive at your site they can at once watch your demo which should (of course) show folk having fun and enjoying themselves. Never mind the tricks themselves, it's the audience reactions that are the important things. I realise that to get suitable video is not as easy as it appears. There are many problems. However it can be done and I have written on these forums previously on the subject. I will gladly advise if you wish.
All the best.
Mark

I am sorry if this sounds cruel, but here goes.

If I was a potential client and I clicked on your site, the first photo I come across is you in sneakers and a flat cap against a dirty wall. I would move on to the next site.

A website is not a vanity project. It is a selling tool. This does not sell you.

Also, I would keep your magic products separate from your magic website. Magicians and potential bookers are different markets, and need different approaches.

All the best, Tony

TonyB wrote:I am sorry if this sounds cruel, but here goes.

If I was a potential client and I clicked on your site, the first photo I come across is you in sneakers and a flat cap against a dirty wall. I would move on to the next site.

A website is not a vanity project. It is a selling tool. This does not sell you.

Also, I would keep your magic products separate from your magic website. Magicians and potential bookers are different markets, and need different approaches.

All the best, Tony

Well said Tony,
It backs up what I have said, but you put it a little more 'firmly' but needed of course. Mark.

All,

Thank you for your comments and critiques. Obviously, these things are somewhat personal ventures, so I firmly stand by the overall minimal style of the site, thats just me.

Tony, could you clarify what you mean when you say keep my products separate from my website? Are you suggesting I create an entirely new 'for magicians' website? For established performers, I can see that having an advantage, but for someone trying to get their foot in the door, maintaining two distinct websites seems a bit unnecessary for the modest amount of visitors I will have, for the sake of the menu looking a bit cleaner.

That said, I have taken on board a lot of suggestions, having rewritten some portions. As for photos, well they will have to wait..

Once again, thank you for taking the time.

Do you perform the material in the pdf you sell?
if so, what would you do if someone booked you for a gig and then decided to buy your book, when you turn up they already know how you do all of the stuff.
Or maybe they buy the book and then decide to just perform your tricks themselves instead of booking you.
You also offer a trick for free if they sign up to your newsletter, causing the same issue.
Perhaps instead of having a completely separate website for magicians to view you could have a magicians only area with a question and answer as a password - something only magicians would know.

Also you reveal a sleight in the photo at the top of the page - your palming the ace and showing it, do you want your potential audiences to be thinking about method before they book you?

What's to say someone with such an interest cant jump on Youtube and learn the method to a three card monte, and then tell me they know how its done when I perform it? That's a damn sight easier from their point of view than spending their own money and learning material from a book. And if such a person thinks they can perform magic to entertain people an event from just a few read throughs of that material, more power to them. They'll just be left with guests who wanted a better magician.

If people wanted to know how magic was done, they would find out one way or another. There's no magicians only password on any magic retailers website or a secret knock for any magic shop. It isn't as well kept a secret as some people believe it to be, all you need is Google and a credit card. If that means I turn up to perform for 100 people and one person knows my material, so be it. I've still been booked, and 99 people won't have any idea.

Also, I may well be alone in this, but I have yet to meet any audience who doesn't know that cards can be hidden in the palm. Ironically enough, I don't use palms too often, and when I do, its only to overtly highlight the technique, say in a gambling demo, where there is another unknown method in play as well.

Not be appear unappreciative of your comment, I do appreciate it, I just feel the solution is a little unnecessary. What question does every magician know the answer to that anyone else wouldn't be able to find out without a bit of motivation?

Also, I may well be alone in this, but I have yet to meet any audience who doesn't know that cards can be hidden in the palm.

Regardless of what knowledge a spectator brings to the table, the job of a magician is to provide no possible solution except magic. You should try to distract away from any method rather than give them something that can be reasoned too. Furthermore it doesn't matter if their reasoning is correct. If a spectator has any method, right or wrong, then the illusion of magic has failed.

It's often said that magicians guard an empty safe. Yes, anyone can Google and discover just about any method but most won't bother - the Masked Magician shows were a good demonstration of this.

Jing, I agree we should always intend on presenting our work as real magic, thats without doubt. however, we can't just ignore the fact that a incredible basic knowledge of the techniques we use - even if it means just knowing that cards can be palmed or forced, or two cards can be shown as one, without knowing exactly how - is present in most audiences. That being said (and I am not suggesting I am of such caliber yet), if your magic is well constructed, rehearsed, delivered and connects with an audience beyond "pick a card and I'll find it again", it will seem like real magic, even in spite of this underlying knowledge that - if we're honest - most spectators have.

However, I feel we are getting a little off point. A photograph of me palming a card, in the header image of a website that only a small fraction of people are ever going to see, isn't going to bring any illusions crumbling down. And honestly, if a spectator were that bothered about it to bring it up like, "Oh, I know how you did that, you palmed that card just like you did in that photo on your website I saw weeks ago", that makes them feel smug for a second until I show them something they can't explain at all.

No one, apart from us magicians, really cares about how we do what we do. We are no longer gatekeepers to some great and impossible secret. Surely its better to accept that and use it to our advantage than stick our fingers in our ears and insist otherwise, no?

Designing a website is a tricky affair. Putting it out for criticism is even harder so you're to be congratulated. I designed my own website and it's a bit of a labour of love really. I got some great feedback from TM members and made many adjustments. I don't profess to have the greatest website on earth, but I get enough traffic through it to keep me happy.

My first observation is that your site is 'cool.' I mean that in a sort of Chris Angel/Blaine type way. The photo's are moody and reflective with little colour. Your definitely portraying a very specific image of yourself. However, your customers ultimately want to be entertained. You need to get some photo's of you with clients, and in every shot they need to be smiling, laughing, gaffawing and generally being sick with hilarity at your awe inspiring entertainment.

Also, you're holding a deck of cards in (I think) every single picture. Is cards all you do? That appears to be the impression. Bare in mind that lots of people despise card tricks. Have some photo's of you with other magical props so any potential customer can get a visual flavour of what you do.

Apart from that, well done. The layout is easy to navigate and it has a professional feel to it.

Lastly, (just had a thought) every website or advert needs a 'call to action.' This is the bit that jumps out and says, 'HIRE ME NOW' 'BUY ME' 'FEED ME SEYMOUR FEEEED ME!!' etc etc etc

Just so you can have a laugh here's my website - www.montykraymagic.co.uk There's good and bad in there and it's a work in progress. It's getting me customers at any rate so it can't be that bad!!!!


K

Kev,

Thank you for your feedback.
For my sins, I am a card magician through and through. I dabble in a bit of mentalism style things, but not enough to confidently advertise myself as a mentalist. So, if you hate card tricks, don't book me!

Unfortunately, I didn't have the forethought in my last event to take photos, but that is something I'm working on, hence the under construction Watch page.

Thanks again for your time.