Just like craftsmen have to display and show their work to the people so they will know more about their style and work, the same goes for a photographer. A photographer also needs to display his portfolio publicly for the people to see his style and approach. A website is a great place to showcase your work. You can create your personal portfolio to portray all your photography and information for better exposure of your work and business. There are many photography websites that never get a lot of traffic from their target audience and the work of those photographers remains hidden and only a few people are able to reach them. If you are a professional photographer and you think that your photography website needs marketing and promotion to reach its target audience then we will be discussing some major steps you can take to do online promotion of your photography website.
1. Your Photography Website Should be Unique
You might already have a website that you want to promote but it is really necessary to know that only those websites that are unique get exposure. Make sure your photography website is complimenting your photographs to inspire the visitors. You can put your website’s URL under every social media post and business cards that whenever people interact with your website, they could let other people know about it too.
2. Exploring Your Brand
To promote your photography website in an efficient and appropriate way it is really important to first explore your brand, so you can know your strengths and how to market your services. You can also explore yourself by going through a deep analysis of your work nature, but there are some other ways too, and one of them is looking at different Brand Archetypes. Figuring out how to market your business and understanding ways to portray it can open up paths for you to promote your website easily. Click here to read about what a brand archetype is and how can it help you position your business. You can also then take a Quiz to determine what type of brand archetype you are.
3. Create a blog
This is that section of your website where people can read your content and learn more about you, get tips and tricks based on your expertise and get to know you. A blog is an amazing way to interact with your potential clients and current clients and bring them close to you. Like some lot photographers, if you are talented with a camera in hand but not as much with a keyboard, then don’t worry as it is not difficult to create a blog. A photography blog does not need to be complex, it’s just casual discussion to let your visitors know what you are offering and importantly to show off your work. The content can relate to your photography niche or expertise, for example, if you are a travel photographer, you can write a blog about “How to take great pictures on vacation” or “what equipment should you take on your next journey” the topics are limitless and if your content is good enough then people would certainly get attracted to your website and lead to them being interested in your services.
4. Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) really plays an important role in promoting your website online in an important way. SEO might sound something technical and complex and it is somewhat technical but not complex to do the basics. SEO is a powerful tool to promote your photography website. Basically, doing SEO for your website means to make sure that Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines can easily find it. Every search engine searches for the entered text through keywords and if your website or article is optimized for those particular keywords, it will come up on higher in the search. For instance, if you are a wedding photographer who is located in New York, the target audience might search for “Best wedding photographer New York”. Doing a series of blogs posts about wedding venues in New York, your experience in the city and more over time might help your content to rank higher in searches. One VERY important note – your content must be high quality and well done – there are no short cuts. If you do the opposite Google might even penalize your site. Not just the written content, but the photograph images itself can also be optimized. You can add captions and alt tags each and every image’s caption to increase the chances to be found on Google and Google images. You can also do high quality link building from other sites which tells Google your site is important and valued. This can be tricky and take time and effort. Ask your clients to ideally feature you on their sites. You can also look to portfolio and other sites to get listed as well. Other options to consider sites such as ThemeSnap to feature a great designed web site, especially if you have it filled with fantastic photography. You can also check out valuable tools such as ONL.LI which gives tools to:
- Build a public profile with links
- Build promotional pages that you can use to feature services and other offerings
- Submit a blog post for listing on their High-Quality Blog
- Content Library
- URL Shortener
SEO can be complicated and also if you desire you can hire third party services to help build up your SEO profile. Beware though to pick a reputable firm and make sure you are ready to spend some money.
5. The power of social media
Social media is one of the most powerful tools of the current era for marketing and promotion of your website and services. To truly unlock the power of social media, you need to know the tactics that you can follow and make your name shine in the photography business. The best and easiest way to promote your photography website online is by making a photography profiles on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. When you are done creating your profiles, you can start posting your photography once or twice a day on each account. Make sure you don’t spam your community because people don’t like seeing their feeds dominated by one person. Once you start posting photography on your profile, start utilizing the caption to engage more traffic to your photography website by posting a link to it and using some photography #hashtags. It takes time to build up an audience. The good thing is people love great images and as a photographer that’s one advantage you have. • Ads on Facebook and Instagram If you want a quick boost on your photography page and promote your website online, you can take help of Facebook and Instagram ads that can be customized as per age and location preferences. For example, if you are offering photography services in New York and only want the people of New York to see your website, then you can customize your ads according to the location. If your target audience is 18-30 years old, you can set it and then only they will be able to see your ad. You can also target specific keywords such as “Weddings”, “Birthday Parties” or “Corporate Photographer”. Facebook has a cost estimator and can help you determine your budget.
6. Pay Per Click Promotion (PPC)
This online promotion tool is undoubtedly reliable, and you will see a in improved engagement rate if you run a successful Pay Per Click campaign. Now the best thing about it is that whether you set a PPC campaign on YouTube, Google or Facebook, you will only be paying for the actual clicks on your content. Advertising is really important for any photographer as it is for any other business because the more exposure your work will get the more potential clients you will meet. For running a successful PPC campaign you will need a target audience, for example, if you are a wedding photographer, your target audience would be the people in their 20s and 30s residing in your area. After recognizing your target audience you will need to create a straightforward content that can go like “Book Now”, “Amazing wedding photography deal! Click to know more” or whatever you think is capable to grab the attention. After creating the content and Call to Action, you will need to set a budget for the campaign, if you are new to online promotion and don’t want to risk too much money into it, then it is recommended that you start from a low budget (that’s a really good practice as well) and raise the amount of money once you start seeing potential clients coming in. Once your campaign is over, you can analyze the results then work to improve the results.
7. Getting featured by publications
This is an easy way to get recognized and promoted in no time if your work quality is really great. Getting featured on famous photography platforms can really make your work visible and reachable, and you can do this by simply maintaining some editor contacts. Make sure the pitch email you are going to send to the editors is attractive and exciting that has a potential to grab their attention. It is recommended that you keep your pitch email short and simple by telling who you are, what you do, and attaching some of your best work with a link to your photography website so the editor can see more of your work and feature you if he or she likes your photography. Also, be sure to mention any specialty service, famous clients, interesting jobs you have done, etc.
Final Verdict
Whatever way you choose to do the online promotion of your photography website would completely depend on your budget and requirements. If you want to maintain a fan page as well with your photography website then it is recommended that you create a Facebook page, but if you think that writing is also your thing then nothing else can better promote your work than an interesting blog. PPC and social media ads would need some financial investment but once you start getting the potential clients, these promotion tools would really be worth it.