Simple Marketing Tips for Your Photography Website
While there are dozens of photography websites popping up across the Internet, don’t let that discourage you as you build your own photography website. There are still quite a few ways to ensure your website stands out amongst all the others online.
Here is a list of simple, but helpful marketing tips you’ll want to use for your own photography website as soon as possible.
Know Your Target Audience and What They Care About
Above all else, you’ll want to know who your target audience is and what they care about. For instance, if you are a wedding photographer, you’ll want to know what your prospective brides and grooms care about when they’re considering your services. What photos and information will they want to come across on your website? And, if you photograph children, what will parents who visit your site care about? You’ll notice those considerations will be much different than if you’re a photographer displaying your work on a website for galleries or potential publications to purchase or share. When doing anything that’s included on the list below, always keep in mind who you’re creating your website for in the first place.
Establish a Logo and Design
To establish brand recognition and to stand out from the crowd, create your own unique logo and website design. Even if that logo or design is just your initials or name, you can still display it in a unique way that represents your work and unique personality. For instance, if you specialize in minimalist-inspired or contemporary photography, you will probably want a design that has more concrete edges and a simple color palette with white, black, and gray. But if you specialize in landscapes and nature-inspired photography, you may want a design that has more neutral tones and colors such as greens and browns, with a more calm and subdued design. Be sure to pick a theme, design, and color palette that matches your work and its personality.
Keep Everything Optimized for Mobile
Over half of all search engine queries nowadays are completed on a mobile device (Search Engine Land). So, if you want your photography website to stand out, make sure its photos and galleries load quickly and easily on mobile devices, and that they’re easy to find and view on mobile devices too. Make sure none of the photos on your website are cropped or overly pixelated when they’re accessed on mobile devices.
Use Google Business Pages and Location Optimized SEO
If you want others to be able to find your photography website so that they can hire you, then you’ll want to consider creating a Google Business Page. On the page, you can include your business hours, contact information, and more. You can also encourage previous customers to leave reviews on your business page to build more trust online. In addition to creating a Google Business Page, you’ll also want to include location information, such as a relevant address, on your website. This way, it’s easier for customers and prospects nearby to find you online.
Organize and Optimize Your Galleries to Be Viewer-Friendly and Shareable
If you specialize in different types of photography, keep your specialties separated on your website in their own galleries. For example, keep all wedding photos separated from engagement and birth announcement photos. And, keep different collections in their own galleries. This way, visitors can go directly to the photos they’re interested in viewing, and you can easily link specific galleries to social media posts or display them in marketing emails.
Make sure your galleries are easy to view and scan through. Don’t make your visitors upload individual photos one at a time from your website, as this will only frustrate them and force them to abandon your website. Allow them to scroll through photos on a page or click through a gallery that loads quickly. Include social media sharing buttons and email sharing buttons, so that your website viewers can easily share your galleries with others if they have enjoyed your work.
Display a Variety of Your Work
If you use different exposures, angles, lenses, or editing techniques in your photography, then demonstrate the breadth of your work on your website. If you have captured a variety of poses or landscapes, then include those too. While you’ll want to ensure the photographs you include on your website are consistent with what your target audience cares about, you’ll also want to display a few pieces that exhibit what makes your work unique and special to give you more of a competitive edge.
Tell a Story with Your Photos
When displaying your shareable galleries on your website, allow them to tell a story. Whether it’s an emotion, a personal moment, a life event, or something else, arrange your photos in a way that tells an engaging story. You can arrange them to tell a chronological story or story about a special time or place.
Update Your Galleries Often
If you want your photography website to remain a reliable source for your marketing efforts, then be sure to update it as often as possible. While you should keep an archive of your work, you’ll always want to share your new work on your website and across social media, so your audience will follow you and continuously be engaged with your brand and what you’re doing.
Watermark Your Copyright Photos
When you display any of your photos on your website or share them on social media, make sure they have a watermark on them that displays a faint image of your logo and brand. Not only will this increase brand recognition for your photography website across different mediums, it will also protect your copyrighted work.
Share Your Work on Social Media
If you want others to consistently see a stream of the work that’s hosted on your website, share your photos regularly on social media sites like Instagram and Pinterest. Make sure the photos are linked to galleries and pages hosted on your website to generate more traffic back to your photography website.
Include Customer Testimonials
When marketing your photography or services, always include testimonials from your previous and happy customers on your website and across all your marketing content. According to Nielsen, 92 percent of people will trust a recommendation from a peer, and 70 percent of people will trust a recommendation from someone they don’t even know online. People want social proof of a product or service before they consider making a purchase, and testimonials provide it.
Host a Blog with Content You Update Often
Along with your photography galleries, host a blog where you write about things like what it’s like to be a photographer and tools and equipment you like to use on your website. Read 5 Ways Blogging Will Boost Your Busines to learn more about how blogging can significantly help your marketing efforts.
Offer Sales and Promotions with Their Own Landing Pages
To gain traffic to your website, include landing pages that have their own links for sales and promotions. You can include these links in marketing emails and social media posts. This will make your marketing efforts easier to track and update too. For instance, you can promote holiday sales and limited-time offers to those who visit your website within a certain allotted time.
Encourage Referrals Everywhere
When someone buys photography from you or uses your services, offer them an incentive if they refer your business and website to others. For instance, customers who refer you or your website to others can receive 20 percent off their next studio session or order.
Feature Your Best Customers and Host Contests
To keep your online marketing efforts relevant and your online followers engaged, you can feature your followers and their galleries on your website. You can also conduct polls where your followers vote on which of your holiday photos is their favorite, or which exposure or technique they like the best. Or, you can host contests for who has the best “how we met” story for engagement photos, where customers can win exclusive discounts or gift cards.
Get Featured on Other Websites
If you want to boost your online reach and reputation, get your photos or blog posts featured on other photography websites that already have a lot of subscribers and followers or websites that specialize in photography equipment or instruction. Just ensure these websites are like your own and share the same target audience you’re trying to reach.
You can also get your photography featured on other websites for wedding venues you work with on a rolling basis, galleries you’ve housed your work in, event planning companies, etc. Ask the entities you already work with if they will be willing to partner with you and share your work too.
Make sure the website you build for your photography stands out from the rest by remembering the simple marketing tips listed above.
Feature image: Pixabay