5 Things to Know When Creating your Website
When you're starting a new photography business, you may not be in a position to afford to have your website created and built by someone else. The good news is, there are many web builder platforms that are easy to use and intuitive to enable you to build your site yourself. Most platforms also have built in templates so all you have to worry about is dropping in your content, so that you don't have to be bogged down with the overall design.
One thing you have to know for certain is that website creation takes planning. I always recommend taking pen to paper .....
#1 Plan Your Website Before You Build
Always plan out what you want to achieve from your website, what's its overall purpose? If you don't do this, you run the risk of having a website full of photo and written content that doesn't actually say anything. Hopefully you've done some work identifying your ideal client and know what message you want to get across to them through your website.
#2 Your Website Should be Easy to Navigate
When you're building your site for the first time, it's exciting and the tendency sometimes is to overcomplicate things. Always think about yourself as a consumer - do you spend timing desperately trying to find what you want on a website? Website visitors tend not to like doing the work to find their way around a site. We live in a world of quick wins, and we want things to happen straight away. So keep it simple, try not to overload the site with pages and pages, and sub-pages and sub-pages, and too many internal links.
#3 Your 'About' Page
Your 'About' page is your platform and your opportunity to talk about you, your journey and your experience. This is a page that your website visitor can read through if they want to. Your other pages should speak directly to your website visitor - your ideal client. The last thing your visitor wants is to land on your homepage and it goes on and on about how great you are, what you do, etc. Your visitor wants to read content that they can relate to, content that connects them to you, content that describes their 'problem' and the solution to that.
#4 Be Clear About What You Do On Your Website
Your website visitors want clarity as soon as they arrive on your website. For example, if a visitor comes to your site because they're looking for a wedding photographer, they're going expect to see everything weddings. If you showcase different types of photos, e.g. weddings, animals, landscapes, product, etc. the changes are your visitors will be confused and then leave in search of what they're looking for. This means you need to be clear with yourself about what you do. This is all part of your brand identity. Without this, your opportunities to get work may be restricted.
#5 Be Consistent On Your Website
Whether it's your Homepage, About page, or Product page, it's important that they are consistent in look and feel. Colours and fonts. Language style. On your Portfolio or Gallery page, this is where your best work is, and your images will need to be consistent in editing style. For example, if you have an assortment of say light and airy, and dark and moody, high contrast, low contrast, etc. your website visitor won't know what they'll get if they hire you. So they'll most likely go elsewhere.
Good luck, I hope this helps you on your journey to create and build your own website. You've got this!
You’ve got this. Dee x
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