![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/various\/website-banner.jpg\")
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Your website is most likely the first contact that others have with your work as a photographer. With that in mind, your website is of huge importance in marketing yourself and establishing yourself and your brand. With an ever-proliferating number of websites competing for the attention of any potential visitor, you have a very small opportunity to make an impression and make someone linger a few seconds longer.<\/p>\n
Looking at the websites of other photographers (and I am even asked sometimes to do that!), I regularly notice specific problems or areas which can easily be improved. Of course, this is just my<\/strong> opinion. So you might disagree on some of these. But I could still be right.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n This is the irony – as much as photographers want to think they are visual people, and have a handle on design and what looks good, (eg, balance and composition), it rarely works out that way. Don’t design your own website. Get someone professional to do it for you. Or at least get a template site. Have a proper website, and not a website service like PBase or such. A proper website, preferably with your own unique domain. You may as well start immediately with a domain name of your own, rather than building up on a website service.<\/p>\n In a sense I think no website will ever be finished. Web technology and capability keeps changing, and it is necessary to constantly move forward. There are ways to continually improve a website’s content, look and navigation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It may be obvious to *you* because you can read your own mind, but get others to check your website for you. Allow them to be brutal.<\/p>\n Make sure the navigation of your images don’t jump around as the images change in size, or go from horizontal to vertical. It’s annoying to your website’s visitors when they keep on having to find where the forward arrow is now, and move the cursor around.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This should never appear anywhere on your site. \u00a0Never. Just spend 10 minutes and write something! If you are busy building up a series of pages, keep them out of view on a dev site before half-assedly showing them on your site.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n You will<\/strong> get caught. There are a number of websites dedicated to calling out photo thieves<\/a><\/strong>. That is but one of them. I’ve even had my own entire website ripped off<\/a>. (And yes, it is always the web designer’s doing.)<\/p>\n You are creative. Figure your own stuff out. You are an idiot if you copy someone else’s text and photos. \u00a0Again,\u00a0you will be found out!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Screens are getting bigger, and resolution is getting better. Your images need to be large to have impact.<\/p>\n The counterpoint to this is to be sure your images and website scale properly for different sized browsers and mobile devices.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Stay away from vignetting. Stay away from selective coloring. Don’t get caught up in trendy new looks. They will look dated in a few years.<\/p>\n A\u00a0general rule –\u00a0the more you have to tinker\u00a0with an image in Photoshop to make it look better, the greater the probability it wasn’t particularly good in the first place.<\/p>\n Never post images which are sub-par. You are not doing yourself any favors. Rather post fewer images.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It’s difficult to balance having a website with all the info you need to give to your audience, but still keep it visually appealing and easy to navigate.<\/p>\n Don’t use so much SEO targeting that your website looks ugly. Clients might find you on Google, but they will be repelled by the sheer ugliness of a site\u00a0that has been over-optimized with keywords.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ever since the iPad became the fastest selling consumer device in history, using Flash on your website makes no sense at all. Get rid of all Flash on your website.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n State clearly\u00a0what areas \/ regions you cover,\u00a0even if you’re a destination wedding photographer or a photographer that travels. A surprising number of photographers don’t mention specifically where they are located! How do you expect to get clients?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n People live their lives to their own soundtrack, or they are at work and don’t want sound blaring suddenly from their computers. Certainly not a diva belting out, “Unforgettaaaaable”. And you may well argue that I am not your potential client, but think about it this way – you won’t lose a potential client because you don’t<\/strong> have music. But you will<\/strong>\u00a0lose all those potential clients that close the tab with your site when the music starts up.<\/p>\n If you do have music on your site, make it very obvious where the music player’s navigation is. Preferably make the music be an option<\/strong> to switched on, rather than auto-play.<\/p>\n Really, if people truly crave the ambience you provide with music on your site, allow them<\/strong>\u00a0to select it. They might very well have been surfing the web silently or listening to Pandora or Spotify. Sure, canvas your clients if they like the music on your website. You’ll get people saying they like it. Perhaps because they don’t want to insult you. But there are other reasons why the replies would be skewed – you’re not canvasing the potential clients you had lost.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Nobody cares\u00a0that you have a passion for photography<\/a>. It is assumed that you like what you’re doing and that you have an interest in what you’re doing. So why would your clients care that you have a passion for photography. \u00a0Rather, find a new and interesting way to describe what you do and who you are. The same\u00a0goes for “being in love with love”.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Okay, I’m exaggerating. But it seems there is a competition\u00a0between photographers to be the youngest kid ever to have had a camera. \u00a0No one cares whether you had a camera at the age of five … \u00a0unless there is a cute photo of you as a young child with a camera. Then it counts. But don’t labor the point.\u00a0To impress people, rather show them your current portfolio.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This might be the second biggest cliche after having oodles of “passion”. Show your portfolio of kick-ass images instead.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Let people know what you look like. Sure, it is all about your art, and therefore your looks shouldn’t matter. Except, it does. Clients want to see who they are dealing with, or at least have an idea of who they are going to meet at the consultation. So, no photograph of a landscape or a photograph of your pug. Just a photo of yourself. That’ll do.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Don’t come across as illiterate because you refuse to distinguish between their \/ they’re \/ there<\/em>. \u00a0The same goes for your \/ you’re<\/em>. \u00a0Similarly, there is a difference between an isle<\/em> and an aisle<\/em>. Take the time to proof-read your site. Even bribe friends to proof-read your site thoroughly. Seriously, this stuff is important.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This started out as a general article regarding photographers’ websites … but it seems to have spiraled into a mini-rant. Oh well.\u00a0And if anything here aggravated you, it might just mean you have to consider changing a few things up on your website.\u00a0Ask the opinions of others.<\/p>\n Are there any things that I missed out on? Let’s hear some ideas and opinions.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A\u00a0general critique of\u00a0photographer’s websites Your website is most likely the first contact that others have with your work as a photographer. With that in mind, your website is of huge importance in marketing yourself and establishing yourself and your brand. With an ever-proliferating number of websites competing for the attention of any potential visitor, you Read more inside…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30333,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[225],"tags":[412],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11558","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-essays-discussions","8":"tag-website-critique","9":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11558"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11558"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49197,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11558\/revisions\/49197"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11558"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=11558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The general look of the website<\/h2>\n
1.\u00a0Don’t design your own website.<\/span><\/h4>\n
2.\u00a0Website navigation should be obvious.<\/span><\/h4>\n
3. “This page is still under construction”<\/span><\/h4>\n
4. \u00a0Don’t plagiarize!<\/span><\/h4>\n
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5. \u00a0Images that are too small or too pixelated.<\/span><\/h4>\n
6. \u00a0Style of photographic post-processing should not be dated.<\/span><\/h4>\n
7. \u00a0Simple clean design wins every time over a cluttered site.<\/span><\/h4>\n
8. \u00a0Get rid of Flash elements on\u00a0your website.<\/span><\/h4>\n
9.\u00a0Mention clearly where you are located.<\/span><\/h4>\n
10. \u00a0Lose the cheese-ball music.<\/span><\/h4>\n
Your bio on your website<\/h2>\n
11. \u00a0“A passion for photography”<\/span><\/h4>\n
12. \u00a0“I was born with a camera in my hand”<\/span><\/h4>\n
13. \u00a0 “Internationally renowned award-winning photographer”<\/span><\/h4>\n
14. \u00a0Do add a photograph of yourself<\/span><\/h4>\n
15. \u00a0Spelling!<\/span><\/h4>\n
Summary<\/h2>\n
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