Several people have recently posted web sites here for critique so I thought that I would start a thread and post some Web site basics. I will try to add to this every day or two.

Web sites are the main marketing tool for most wedding/portrait and other photographers. They are the first impression that most people have of you and your work. If people don't like your site it is very unlikely they are going to become customers.

It is impossible to design a Web site that appeals to everyone but your site has to appeal to your target audience. I see many posts here about photographers not getting the type of customer/work that they want but at the same time they think their site is fine because their current customers like it. If you are not getting the type of customers that you want then you need to make sure that your site appeals to them not your current clients.

Web Site Myth - "My site is fine because my customers like it." Of course your customers like it, so will your friends and family, this is not a good way to judge your site. You need to do actual market research in your target market to see if your site is really working. You also need to be able to track and understand a complete set of site statistics to get real data about your site.

Imagine you are in a large shopping mall where all the stores sell the same type of product that you want to buy. It would take too much time to go into each store and check them all out, so how do you decide where you want to buy. You are going to walk by, look at the store front and in the window, if there is one, to see if there is anything that interests you. If there isn't you are going to walk on by and look at the next one, until you see one that catches your attention.

This is how people shop online, they do a search, get a list of sites, look at the front pages and decide wether or not to go into the site. You only have a few seconds to get a person's attention and get them into your site with your opening page. This makes your opening page critical not only to your site but your business as well. It has to have an image or images that are your best, it has to get their attention.

Coming Soon
Keeping people on your site.
Realistic search engine info.
Being yourself.

There is a lot of good information here Cort and hopefully some are reading it.   I have looked at some of the requests for website critiques and have more or less ignored them because they either load slow, are not formatted correctly or are loaded with errors.

What do I want my Web site to do?

I have found this is the most unanswered question when it comes to photographers Web sites, yet it is crucial to designing an effective site. How can you create something if you don't have a clear idea of what you want it to accomplish?

You need to sit down and write out 3-5 fairly specific goals that you want your site to accomplish. A couple of examples might be, bring in new customers or sell more prints. After you have created your list then put them in order of priority, what is more important, new customers or selling prints? This list is now your guide to building your site. You will find that some items on the list may conflict when it comes to building the site this is why you need a priority. In some cases you may want more than one site.

Let's look at two examples of how things might conflict. You want to get new customers but you also want to keep in touch with current customers.

A site to attract new customers needs to be designed for your target audience, it needs to make a quick impact and get people interested in your work. I needs to give people info about you and your business as well as be a great showcase for your work. In many cases your target audience may not be your current customers and this will play an important part in your research and design. Think of this as your sales pitch.

A site to keep in touch with current customers doesn't need to make a big impact or get people's attention and the information current customers want is different than what new customers want. They want a quick way to see their images and place orders. Think of this as talking with a friend over a cup of coffee.

Would you approach a sales pitch to a new customer the same way you would coffee with a friend?

I have talked about target audience/market a couple of times now, what am I talking about is your target market is the people you want as customers, this may be the same as your current customers, it may not. I see many discussions here about how do I get into this market or shoot this kind of job, these are the target markets I am talking about. Your Web site has to be designed for those people specifically. Many photographers fall into the trap of my customers like my site when their customers really aren't the ones they want. You need to design your site for the customers you want not the ones you have if you want to attract new customers.

I hope my rambling made sense, I am trying to do these on a regular basis. It would help me if you are finding this info helpful please let me know. |c

Good advice Cort... This is why mine is getting a MAJOR overhaul!  Thanks!!

I just wanted to say that I am enjoying these posts and find my self looking forward to them.

Cort,

Great info !

Thanks for posting this. I know it took a little time to type it all out.

 

Shelly 

I appreciate that you are helping me to see my site differently than just "I" see it. Great thought provoking stuff...you da man...you da man...

Thanks for the replies everyone.

Today's topic is how to keep people on your Web site. I am going to approach this from the idea that our main goal is to get new customers.

When we talk about how to keep people on our Web site we need to think about basic human nature, what do people like and dislike. If you did a survey and asked people if they liked waiting 5-10 seconds for a photo to load as opposed to one that loads in 1-2 seconds what do you think the people are going to say. What if you asked them if they liked doing four clicks to get somewhere on a site or two. This isn't rocket science, we all know this yet photographers insist on sites with slide shows and galleries that take 20 seconds or more to load and add extra pages that people have to wade through just to get basic information.

Web Site Myth - "My site loads fast on my computer you just have a slow internet connection." Flash playing speed depends on two things, connection speed and computer speed, just because you have a fast connection doesn't mean it is going to load and play fast. More importantly, Web browsers cache files, this means it downloads files to your own computer then plays them from there. If you go back to a site frequently and files have not changed it does not download the files again it uses what it has already downloaded which greatly increases the speed of that site. If you want a real feel for how fast your site is for first time visitors then go to your preferences and clear the cache then go to your site and see if it is as fast as you think.

Another issue is forcing people to do things on your site, listen to music, watch a slide show or view a gallery of images one at a time. These are not bad things to have on your site if people have options about them. Let people turn music on if they want it, make the slide shows a link to click on to watch, let people pick how they want to view your galleries.

Your navigation needs to be simple and let people find what they want with a minimum number of clicks, the fewer the better. The rule of thumb for Web sites is that any important info needs to be no more than three clicks away from the opening or home page of the site. This is why most companies did away with splash pages a few years ago, all they really did was add another click to get to what people wanted on the site. Things like turning off music or slideshows count as a click. In what has become the standard format for many wedding/portrait photographer's Web sites it often takes four sometimes five clicks to get to an image in the gallery. Then throw in the waiting for the initial page to load with the slide show then wait again for the gallery then again for the image, do you think people are really going to sit around and click and wait and then do it some more.

This is where having thorough site statistics can help, so you can track what pages people are looking at and how long they are spending on your site. It is also important to do real market research in your target market to get feedback on your site. What I mean by real research is talking to people that you don't know, that will give you an unbiased opinion, not family friends and customers.

Make sure that your site has all the information that people will need to hire you and put that info in language that customers understand not photo speak. This includes at least some basic pricing. As long as it is arranged in an orderly fashion I think it is hard to get too much info on a site.

You want people to come to your site and have that first page pull them in, then your site needs to be fast and easy to get around with all the info people need. Last, everyone should think about the last time you went looking for a product or service on the Web. I would bet that there were some sites that you looked at briefly and left, not because they didn't have what you wanted but because something on the site was a pain to deal with and you had plenty of other sites to look at. Make a list of these things on sites that make you leave, then clear the cache in your browser and try to look at you site through the eyes of a prospective customer coming to your site for the first time. Does your site have any of those things on your list that make you leave sites? |c

Cort,
Great post!    More info about navigation.   Don't get to creative with your navigation.  Top and bottom,  LEFT side and Bottom.  THAT is about it.    Home, about, gallery, contact and Pricing( or investment)   Make it easy on your visitors.  don't make them guess what is behind a link.  use the standard menu choices.

 

 

COLOR  is next

KarmaPink:

A thought, Children sounds a little better then Kids but just my opinion so take it as such.

I saw this and thought it was a good example of how you can reflect your style on your Web site, through the simple choice of words.

When you think about these two words, children and kids, do they mean the same thing to you, do they bring up the same mental image? How about Children's Photography vs Kids Photography?

For me although these two words mean the same thing, I have very different mental pictures of the two words. Children is more formal, I think of a classroom full of children in their school uniforms all sitting up nice and proper listening to the teacher. Kids is not formal, I think of kids out in the yard playing, having a good time.

The same goes for Children's Photography and Kids Photography. I see children's photography as formal posed images or the unhappy waif look that some trendy photographers do. I see kid's photography as a looser more realistic style, take them to the park and shoot away while they play.

Which one you use should depend on your style of photography, the different words are going to attract different people. Using the wrong one is going to draw people that may not like your style as much and probably will not end up becoming customers or if they do you have a greater chance of them not being happy. |c