How to construct a photography website that attracts customers.

How to construct a photography website that attracts customers.

Learn how to create a photography website that will bring in business and entice customers.

If you want to grow your photography business and attract new customers, you must have a professional photography website.

However, in today’s world, having a website is not enough; you also need a website that is visually appealing and provides a great user experience (UX). “88% of online consumers are less likely to return to a site after a bad experience,” according to studies.

Fortunately, putting money into a website with a great user experience can bring in good returns. According to Forrester’s findings, the average return on an investment in user experience (UX) is $100. Whether you’re an independent photographer looking to build your own website or a designer making a photography website for a client, we’ll show you how to create a great user experience (UX) photography website and get clients.

Identify who you want to reach.

If you’re a photographer, you might be apprehensive about narrowing your audience.

I get it; what artist would want to restrict their clientele? However, the goal of defining your target audience should not be to limit the number of potential customers, but rather to help you meaningfully connect with each of your ideal customers.

Try answering these four questions as you go through this process:

-What kinds of customers have paid you the most for your work?
-In your portfolio, which types of photography could you charge the most for?
-What kind of new customers would you like to work with the most?
-What kind of photography do you enjoy doing the most?

These questions should help you figure out the kinds of customers you want to get from your website.

Establish your conversion objectives.

Get specific about the actions you want visitors to take once you’ve identified the audience for your photography website. It’s possible that you want site visitors to fill out a contact form if you provide highly individualized services. If you are a teacher, perhaps one of your conversion objectives is to get people to sign up for a class.

Buy a domain name.

Dynadot and Name Cheap are two websites where you can purchase your own domain.

Try searching for a domain that is focused on SEO and aligned with your single target audience. For instance, if you are a Southern California wedding photographer, the domain names “socalweddingphoto.com” or “socalweddingphoto.com” could help you rank higher in organic search results.

Professional photographers, on the other hand, often use their own name or the name of their business as their domain because it allows for a lot of customization. Try playing around with a domain name generator if you are having trouble coming up with concepts.

Draw a blueprint of your photography website’s structure.

Even if you intend to design your own photography website from scratch, it is still a good idea to lay out the desired sitemap prior to beginning design. If you don’t have a map to help you, it’s easy to get lost while looking through gorgeous photography templates or assigning photos to individual galleries.

Because it makes a mostly digital process a little more hands-on and reduces the amount of time I spend in front of a screen, I prefer to map out the structure of my website using a pencil and paper. However, if you prefer to work digitally, there are numerous fantastic sitemap design tools like Octopus and Gloomaps available.

Consider the following common pages:

– Homepage.
– page about me.
– A photography portfolio or gallery (with subpages for various types of photos).
– Contact page
– Page with prices.
– Blog.
– An online store or e-commerce.

You might also want to create a separate page for tutorials, awards, gallery showings, or testimonials, depending on your conversion goals.

Create a website.

Now comes the fun part: designing a website! whether you intend to use a template or create from scratch.

Be sure to keep these four important points in mind as you work.

1. Ensure that your design is mobile-friendly.

Your website must look good on every screen, from a 27-inch monitor to a smartphone. Studies have shown that more than half of website visitors will not recommend a company if its mobile website is poorly designed. This is an essential component of providing a great user experience.

2. Consider the file type and size of the image.

Make sure you’re using the right file formats and image sizes. In general, photographs should be saved as JPG or PNG files, while vector graphics, illustrations, and logos should be saved as SVG files. Greater is not necessarily better when it comes to image size. Uploading the smallest image that will look good should be your objective.

Since the 27-inch Apple iMacs with 5K Retina displays have a resolution of 5120 x 2880 pixels, anything larger than that is probably too much. On larger screens, most images with a width of less than 3K pixels will look fine, but if your image is too big, the costs can be much higher than the benefits. A poor user experience, longer load times, and a higher bounce rate can all be caused by photos that are too big.

3. Focus on image quality rather than quantity.

Consider how your online portfolio as a whole demonstrates your range and pick only the best individual images. Visitors to websites have very short attention spans. If you give your audience too many photos from the same shoot that are only slightly different from one another, you could lose them.

“To gain several minutes of user attention, you must clearly communicate your value proposition within 10 seconds,” according to Nielsen Norma Group research. Ask a few friends or people you follow on social media for help if you’re having trouble deciding which parts to keep. Make a poll to find out which images get the most votes.

There is no one right answer to the question of how many pictures you should put in your photo galleries. Foreground Web’s Alex Vita looked at the websites of more than 100 famous photographers. He found that the “sweet spot” for gallery sizes was between 15 and 20 photos. However, the study found that gallery sizes varied from 3 images to 335. Sharing only your best work and ensuring that there is variation is essential.

4. Improve your SEO.

To help your website appear in search results, adhere to best SEO practices. The proper heading structure, optimized title tags, and meta descriptions should be present on each page of any website you create.

If you want your photography website to appear in search results, Moz reports that images are presented for more than a quarter of Google searches. In Image Search, you can use Google Trends to look up potential keywords and see what’s popular right now. Learn the best ways to use Google Images, and don’t forget to add alt text to every image on your website. Not only is alt text important for search engine optimization (SEO), but screen readers also rely on it for accessibility and inclusion.

Because photography websites don’t usually need a lot of text, it can be hard for them to rank in Google searches. Because it is a natural way to add more text to your website, adding a blog can be a great SEO strategy. However, publishing enough content for a blog that is optimized for search engines takes a lot of time, so consider whether this is right for your website.

Edit and release.

Before hitting the publish button, run some tests on the version of your website that you are satisfied with. Ask a few friends or current customers to look over your design and give you feedback. For maximizing your user experience, this step is essential.

You are ready to share your design with the world once you have completed the final edits based on the feedback from the test group.