Making an Effective Photography Website

Having a good website is a key asset to beginning a photography business. Even if you have a very active or popular social media page, your website is most likely the most important digital asset for potential clients. Photography websites are a collection of a photographer’s best work, creating an interactive digital portfolio. This allows you to be in full control of your own brand and how you are represented to a client. This control allows you to display yourself in a way to get the work you are looking for. Obviously a lot of amateur photographers will take any job they can get, so it is okay to promote different kinds of work, however, it is important to establish a brand for yourself. This will allow you to get more work where you want to, which will in turn allow you to develop a portfolio of work that you love!

Now that we all understand the importance of having a website as a photographer, I am going to take you through a few steps to get you started creating your own effective website.

Visual Appeal

For most websites, visual appeal is not the most important factor of a website, conversions is. With that being said, we are visual artists, which is why I believe the visual appeal of your website counts. Potential clients are looking for photographers with a good creative eye, and promoting your work on an ugly cluttered website might have some negative persuasion in their decision to work with you. I’m not going to go into depth about the visual appeal of your site, there are a lot of good templates on website builders. As long as your website looks clean and promotes your work effectively you can check the box!

Usability

One of the most important things about creating a website is designing it for the average user. Your site should be effective on both desktop and mobile. Some builders automatically create the mobile version of your site, but some elements or images might be out of place. It is very important to optimize your mobile site because chances are, your site will be viewed on mobile more than desktop.

Layout

Now that you are ready to start designing, you need to decide how you want to layout your website. This will be how you break up your pages and what images you’d like to use. This will also include the elements in the header or footer of your site.

Header

The header is the first part of your website any visitors will see, so make it pretty! You should include some sort of logo, your navigation, and links to your social profiles. You don’t have to include a logo, you can use your website title, however, a logo will make your website look more professional.

Homepage

My website opens right to my portfolio. This page is a collection of all of my best photographs, which I update after almost every shoot. This is not the most popular homepage design, however, I believe it is a good way to welcome site visitors and it gives me the opportunity to show off my work.

Navigation

Your site navigation is the menu you include in the header of your website. Within your navigation, you need to decide which pages to include on your site. This is important for breaking up what kind of work you do and your different services. I broke up my website into three categories for imagery, along with my about me and blog pages. I want my visitors to see my portraiture because that is the work I am the most passionate about. I then have my commissions, which includes some examples of the work I have done. Lastly my adventure page is a gallery of images that don’t fit in either of those categories but deserve to be seen!

Call to Action

Your ‘contact’ or ‘about me’ page is crucial for the success your website! The whole point in creating this website is to promote your work and have clients reach out to work with you. This is the page that potential clients may get the chance to learn a few things about you and gain access to your contact information. This is your call to action. You want anyone interested in your work that is visiting your site to use this page. Whether it is a button or a form, there should be a way for clients to interact with this page to get a hold of you.

Thank You

I hope these tips have been useful, if you have any questions feel free to comment down below or shoot me an email!