It is important to remember a very successful photography website not only presents the photographer’s best photo samples but also follows some basic web design guidelines as well.
The most effective sites not only have professional designs that are aesthetically pleasing, but they are also fast loading, easy to navigate, search engine friendly, compatible in all browsers, and view properly on the wide range of monitor sizes and screen resolutions.
Internet users have a much shorter attention span than customers walking into a photographer’s business. The competition is just one click of the back button away and it is much more difficult to convert a website visitor into a client than it is to close a sale in person. By covering the fundamentals of successful website marketing a photography site can produce dramatic results and be a key part of the success of a photographer’s business.
Professional Design –
Visitors on a photographer’s site will be looking for photo samples of the best shots available. The presentation of these photos is almost as important as the quality of the pictures themselves. A website should reflect the quality of the photographer’s work.
A “homemade” or nonprofessional site runs the risk of possibly giving the impression that the photographer is not one of the top professionals in their market. Hiring a professional to create a site may take hundreds out of one’s pocket upfront, but when done properly that site should quickly earn its investment back and bring in new customers and revenue streams that may not have been earned on a less professional design.
Fast load time –
many websites have extremely slow load times and quickly turn visitors away. A significant % of people still have dial-up or other slow internet connections and these people are often stuck waiting for pages to load. Software such as Photoshop has features for reducing file sizes without reducing the quality of how the image appears on the screen. In Adobe Photoshop this is known as “Save for Web”. For a photo to present nicely on a screen it does not need to be high resolution like a photo that will be printed.
As a very rough guide, a 300 x 400-pixel wide photo really should not be any larger than 30K on a website. Keep in mind that a 160kKfile would take 60 seconds )1 full minute to load on a computer with a dial-up 28.8kbps connection.
A successful website will not only be visually appealing but it will also be fast loading (even for those on slow connections). A high-paying potential customer may visit the site on a dial-up connection. If the pages take a very long time to load that person will very likely go elsewhere.
Easy to Navigate –
An effective site should be easy to navigate with a menu of buttons or text links that is near the top of the screen and does not require scrolling to access. Important information should only be one click away and contact information should be very easy to find.
Search Engine Friendly –
Many large books have been written and re-written on Search Engine optimization. When created properly a site will attract new visitors through google, yahoo, MSN, and countless other search engines. Whether a photographer creates their own website or hires a professional they should have a basic knowledge of Search Engine Optimization to ensure none of the fundamentals are missing.
Many people make the mistake of assuming if they have a website it will automatically attract new visitors. Ranking in search engines is not automatic by any means and the person creating a website should know on and off-page search engine optimization techniques that will get pages noticed and ranked in search engines.
Browser Compatibility –
Not all internet surfers use the same internet browsers. The most popular browsers are Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari. This software has subtle differences and the if a site is not programmed properly it may display poorly in one browser while it looks perfect in another.
Monitors and Screen Resolutions–
Not every computer has the same monitor size and there are various screen resolutions that can be selected. What this means is one person may be able to see 80% of a webpage without scrolling while another may only see 50%. If a page is taller or wider than a person’s monitor that person will have to scroll horizontally or vertically to see the rest of the page.
While scrolling up and down is expected, horizontal scrolling should be avoided. To make a website view well on most browsers a page should be less than 800 pixels wide. A page wider than 800 pixels will lead to the right side of the page being cut off for many users. Because people are not used to scrolling left to right there is a good chance the content to the right of 800 pixels will be missed by some visitors.
