Photo Marketing 101: The Photographer's Website
Wednesday, April 27, 2011 at 10:00AM I’m back again, and glad to be here. In the last edition of Photo Marketing 101, we discussed the concept of branding, and how it relates to any photographer.
I was excited to see that not only did the post get a lot of traffic, but you were all quick to share your thoughts in the comments. That really helps create a dialogue around marketing for photographers, which I think is extremely important.
As artists, it can sometimes be difficult to think about your work from the “business” side of things. But from the comments on the last post, I can tell that you’re all sufficiently interested in learning more and trying new things.
Lesson 2: Create a website
Creating a website can be as simple as you need it to be. Today, there are hundreds of services out there to help you create a website on the cheap (and sometimes free). A simple Google search for "photography website" shows 258,000,000 results. Most of the results on the first page are options that you have for creating a website.
Of course, if you or someone you know is a strong programmer, creating your own website from scratch can offer more options. But a simple template that requires little to no “coding” knowledge is a good thing for most people, and will certainly do the trick.
It may take some time and money to get started, but every effort in online branding and marketing is worthwhile. A website will allow you to build on the brand that you defined in the last post, and will create a virtual outlet for your growing business. Even if you don’t know what to put on your website, start creating one.
There are a thousand reasons to hesitate, and put things off. But I can tell you now that the sooner you put “increasing my online presence” at the top of your priority list, the sooner you will start seeing real results ($$$$).
In part 3 of our Photography Marketing blog series, we will focus on specifics of your website. Catch you all next time around…
Homework: Your assignment, while simple for some, may take some time. Create a simple website and share the URL with us in the comments below. If you already have a website, simply share it!
Reader Comments (78)
It was created using Lightroom and a simple plug-in called LRB Portfolio. Hope this might help.
1- actionphotoz (yes, all small letters). It covers sport / action. Its a name that can be built and sold eventually. I used a Google site and shortened the name via Bit.ly - it's here http://bit.ly/actionphotoz
2 - krugerphoto . That's for all the rest of the stuff, where people like to use a professional service backed by your name / reputation. This site is still to be built with Google sites.
Here is my website. A brand i would start to build on... http://www.framez.in :)
There is a photo blog as well in it. You could click on the Photography link or goto http://www.framez.in/fblog :)
Thanks.
After completing the Unit 6 CD's and visiting other photographers websites I'm now on version 3. I changed the background and cut back on the number of photographs. I used the "less is more" approach. I want people to like what they see so much they want to contact me. Until I set up ecommerce to sell my photographs I will stick with this approach.