With the huge increase in popularity towards blogs all over the web, amateurs to professional photographers these days have chosen photoblogs as opposed to static websites which could not be kept up to date in a long time. Keeping a photoblog is an excellent means by which to improve connection with users and prospective clients through comments and reviews. By continuing to keep a gallery of recently captured photographs, a photographer’s vision is shared together with the rest of the world online.
Building your website can be complicated sometimes, but knowing first your objectives and what you want to achieve with your website can get you started. Here are 7 tips to building your website wherein I included an in depth infographic summary for further improvements.
1. Choose a domain name
Ideally, you would like your name followed by .COM. But if your preferred business name was already taken online, you may have to modify your chosen name to benefit from the best title. Narrow down your domain name lookup into 5 words or phrases which will describe your market. For example, if you are into shooting events, you might start with words and phrases like wedding photography, bride and groom portrait. Then consider merging all of them with certain prefixes or suffixes to come up with an awesome idea.
In Depth Infographic Summary:
What’s in A Name: The Art of Naming A Business
2. Create a strong brand
Branding yourself isn’t entirely about who you are as an individual, but mostly as to what style of photography service and goods you can offer. Most photographers use their names as their brand, together with a logo that is either off-the-peg or created by a designer. Adding a favicon will get you noticed on bookmarks, as well.
In Depth Infographic Summary:
The Way To Personal Branding
3. Pick a CMS package
Make use of a CMS pre-packaged template design in case you lack time to learn coding. This Content Management System like WordPress is where you actually manage everything and upload your latest blog post. But if you do have a talent with a few CSS codes, you are better off choosing Thesis theme like what we are using on our website. You can use wordpress to build your website and use the blogging part of the software for your latest news update section.
In Depth Infographic Summary:
How Effective Is Your Homepage?
4. Optimize your content for SEO
There are three factors to always maintain search engines interested and connected. They are relevance, keywords, and links. Every page should contain relevant link and describe who you are, your expertise and experience.
In Depth Infographic Summary:
The 20-Minutes or Less SEO Audit Checklist
5. Simplify and combine with keywords
Make navigation around the web site consistent and simple. Think about what you want the site to do, then reduce any sort of text that doesn’t perform that task. Work with three types of fonts at the most. If possible, use only sans-serifs like Arial or Verdana, since they are easier to read online. Photos, videos and blogging gives you valuable extra search potential. The secret is the keywords you use to define them. Spice up your file names with targeted word combinations to rise up the search ladder.
In Depth Infographic Summary:
The Buzz On Long Tail Keywords
6. Show your portfolio
Users will be expecting a website to load faster around two seconds. So, do try to save your picture sizes around 50kb. If you are offering videography service, you may add those cinematic videos as well and link them to various social media sites. Alternately, you may choose to put a video slideshow of your images you created with Animoto.
Photographers Who Blog:
Check out Chase Jarvis Blog
7. Keep it fresh with new content
Google will look on your site every couple of weeks to find out what’s new and include it with their search rankings. If nothing changes and you haven’t producing any fresh content lately, their visit get less frequent and your site drops down the list. Publish an article at least once a week to keep the search engines delighted.
In Depth Infographic Summary:
What Makes Someone Leave A Website?
Further Readings and Resources
1. Online Photography Business: 10 Success Ideas With Quotes To Inspire
2. Guide To Typefaces With Life Quotes In Creative Typography
3. How-To: Portfolio Presentation for Photographers
4. 10 Ways Of Pitching Photography Service To Clients
5. Lead Image via Alexey05
