How to make a website for a photographer: tips and rules

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Your site is one of the signs that distinguish an experienced craftsman from a novice amateur. Today we will tell you how a photographer can make a website and make it good.

Photographers' sites, if they are good sites, can be calculated immediately. They are eye-catching and mesmerizing, you want to look at them, look at them and look at them. The secret is simple: the right presentation of quality content. Even the best photos can get lost in a stream of similar images from wedding photo shoots and in the abundance of text.

What to put on the main page

The first thing a person should see on your site is a piece of work that will show your level and declare your favorite topic. The number of refusals will depend on how much you can interest the visitor - cases when the user leaves the site after viewing only one page. Large images, gallery-slider, photo as a background, color contrast attract attention perfectly.

Do not forget in any case about the name and surname (or company name), as well as the logo (if any) - they should be placed in the header. Also indicate your specialization. For example:

Mikhail Serebryannikov.

Wedding photographer

You can add a phone number in the upper left corner of the header: this way your contact information will be available on every page.

It is better to place just enough text so that it is clear what your site has to offer. A huge autobiographical article about how you got started with photography in first grade and what stages of your life you went through is a surefire way to lose visitors. It is better to save the story about yourself for a special section.

The photos speak for themselves. On this and build the concept of your representation on the Internet.

How to organize your portfolio

The main section is your portfolio. There and only there a person decides whether to call or not to call. The principles on which it needs to be built: subject matter and convenient navigation. What is easy navigation?

If you specialize in event filming, don't just use the date as the title of the album. This will confuse visitors. It also looks boring. And it shouldn't be boring.

The portfolio should be divided into areas of activity or types of photography. For example, by the types of services that can be ordered: shooting events, wedding photography, children's photography, Love Story, interiors. Or by genres of photography: nature, portraits, people, b / w, studio photography.

It makes no sense to upload 100,500 photos of one model. Even if the family New Year's photo session was successful, only his parents will be able to look at 50 pictures of a child in a bunny costume. Diversity is more important to your customers. Choose 5-7 best photos that show that you can work wonders even in one shot. Discard the rest as ballast.

The work must be super quality. Don't forget to add watermarks to protect your photos from copying.

What to write about yourself and services

To begin with, not everyone should write a lot about themselves. A lot does not mean good. And not everyone had such an interesting biography to post it on the site. But such a section is needed - albeit small or with a different name - to help the visitor decide whether to contact you.

In the biography, you can tell what inspires you, how you are used to and love to work. The very principles and features of work should be placed in a separate section "Services".

If you don't feel the strength to take on the text part, try to put yourself in the user's shoes, you can even ask regular customers why they come to you again and again.

The details of how you work should be comprehensive. Take the trouble to formulate everything that you can, leaving the opportunity to finalize the terms of interaction with each client. Describe the time frame for which you process the photos. Tell us what and where you shoot. This is for your convenience: when they call you, they will ask specific questions.

Whether it is worth indicating the cost of the work, decide for yourself. For some clients, specific pricing will help make a decision. For others, this criterion is not so fundamental: the main thing is your skill.

Who needs news

Think ten times if you need this section. If you are photographing and writing about travel, then it makes sense. If you share secrets and life hacks for photographers, then start a blog.

But if you are going to publish something new less than once a week, then give up such an idea. The news six months ago gives the impression that the site is abandoned. In order to share rare observations, there are social networks, leave the site for a demonstration of skill.

But be sure to add the reviews section. There is no more effective way to gain the trust of a potential client than to share the opinion of those who are satisfied with your services.

What are social media buttons for?

Good pictures work like business cards and flyers, only better because they are not distributed by obtrusive promoters, but by users who genuinely love your work. So do not regret, send some great pictures that will bring new visitors to your site. Add "Share" buttons to Facebook or VKontakte.

There is a contact

Everything is very simple here. Contacts must be visible and accessible both from the main page and from other pages of the site. The more ways you can contact you, the more likely it will be done.

The contact form located on the required page will also resolve the issue with requests. Don't forget to add social media icons, especially Instagram, if you're active there (which we hope you are).

Whoever writes will find

When you finish working on the content, you will have to convey the information about the appearance of the site to the search engines, that is, do SEO. Decide on the keywords, write down the titles and page descriptions, add descriptions of photos, the so-called Alt-texts so that search engines understand what is shown in the picture, and, finally, confirm the rights to the site through Google and Yandex. Webmaster.

Do not forget to update the site content from time to time: this will appeal to both search engines and your visitors.

A simple path to the goal

Anyone who is involved in photography has terabytes of good shots on their disks, and they don't have much time to think about the process of creating a website. The way out is to take a ready-made template and make a website out of it in a few days.

The advantage of creating a site based on templates is that they are already built taking into account the principles of web design and the tasks that a site of a certain category should solve. Everything that should be on the photo site will be there.

When a great photo is cropped mercilessly when viewed from a mobile, you lose those who use a smartphone to access the Internet. And there are more and more of them. In Wix, for example, even when choosing a template, you can see how your site will look on the monitor and on the phone screen. Since everything is thought out, it will take one click to activate the mobile version.

A good intuitive builder will allow you to edit or change any element of the site, down to the structure, not to mention the design. So you don't have to be afraid of clones. No one knows better than you how to present your images in the best way, so solve this problem yourself by making a website yourself.

Wix Blog Articles for Inspiration:

• From template to photosite: 10 great examples.
• Get in the frame: the best photo site apps.
• How to start your photo business.