Photography Business - pricingyourphotography.com

If you are considering a career as a photographer, you need to be prepared to not only produce high-quality work but to market yourself as well. Many novice photographers think their work alone will provide them with a successful career, however, marketing your work is just as crucial. Even if you’re already a photographer, knowing more about how to advertise your work and earn more clientele is always useful. This article discusses the importance of a portfolio website and tips for constructing a successful one. What Is a Photographer’s Portfolio? A photography portfolio is a display of a photographer’s work, more recently done online these days. Before the web, photographers would keep physical folders of their work and distribute them, but today with the benefit of the internet, online portfolios are what a photographer’s work is judged by. Portfolios comprise the best works produced by the photographer and display how well a photographer captures moments. Photography portfolios should be displayed on a web page that’s easy to navigate, captures attention, and provides up-to-date contact information. A portfolio website is a considerable advantage to a photographer’s career. The Importance of a Portfolio Website Any budding photographer needs to know how to build a portfolio website to showcase their work. Portfolios are necessary for people pursuing a career in photography. Potential clients and companies are constantly seeking photographers for a variety of reasons, but the very thing that can make or break a photographer’s career is their portfolio. Having a portfolio is essential to a successful career for professional photographers. Showcasing your work and talent has huge benefits for landing more jobs. People can see that you have experience, knowledge, and skill by having a portfolio website and this is a sure way to increase public awareness about your photography business. However, just merely having an online portfolio doesn’t mean that a photographer will obtain clients. It’s imperative to have a strong and persuasive portfolio. Within thirty seconds a client will decide whether to choose a photographer for work and if the portfolio doesn’t stand out amongst the many photography portfolios on the web, a photographer can miss out on opportunities. To avoid this, it’s beneficial for a photographer to stay up to date on how to attract clientele. Portfolio websites offer an increased appearance of professionalism and prove that the photographer takes their work seriously. People want to hire photographers that care about capturing aesthetic moments and value how they edit and craft their work. A portfolio website can benefit photographers by giving clients certainty in their choice to work with a photographer. 10 Ways to Make Your Portfolio Website Standout 1. SHOWCASE YOUR BEST WORK FIRST Only showcase your best work. Putting your best work on the main page of the site gives clients the opportunity to see what you’re capable of. People make decisions quickly, and it only takes moments for a prospective client to reach out or pass on your work. Highlighting the best photographs will give you a step up. 2. BE PICKY AND ONLY USE RELEVANT WORK Sometimes it’s hard to be picky about your own work, however, being critical of the work you share is a valuable skill and beneficial to your career. Be honest with yourself when choosing your work. Consider using work that might correlate with future projects. For instance, if you want your primary focus to be showcasing condos and property for real estate agents, you wouldn’t choose portrait photos of people to display this ability. Choose work that captures what you want to be photographing and projects that interest you. 3. USE OPTIMUM PORTFOLIO WEBSITE BUILDERS AND ANALYTICS By using the best website tools, your work will stand out. There are website builder tools online that make it easy to build your best website. Consider looking at other portfolios of photographers you admire and find out how they built their websites. There are even websites that offer analytic tools that show and track who’s viewing your portfolio website and how they found your page. This insight will help you see what advertising techniques work. This gives you the ability to adjust how you advertise yourself. 4. MAKE YOUR SITE EASY TO NAVIGATE AND CLEAN Make sure your website is organized and designed well. Have your work cleanly displayed and make it easy for the user to navigate. Too often online portfolios that have great work are passed up on job opportunities because the site was unattractive and wasn’t easy to use. By having a strong platform to display your work, you’re giving the user a stronger urge to use your skills. 5. PROVIDE CONTEXT Having short blurbs or a few sentences explaining the purpose and target goal of a project you worked on helps the client understand why you were capturing a certain moment. Consider writing about why you felt inspired to do that shoot and how the outcome emerged. Avoid writing long paragraphs and wordy sentences; however, a brief commentary is appropriate for an online portfolio. 6. USE HIGH-DEFINITION PHOTOGRAPHS Using high-definition photographs makes your work stand out and look neat. Clients can see detail and quality better in high definition than in other formats. It’s highly recommended that you use high-definition pictures. The best portfolios only use high-definition work despite it making their sites load a bit slower. 7. USE SOCIAL MEDIA Using social media buttons allows people to share and access your work more easily and makes it more accessible to the public. It’s a great way to advertise your work. Consider linking your website to your social media pages such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Having an Instagram or Facebook page for your work in conjunction with a portfolio also increases the volume of traffic to your portfolio website. Having social media attached to your portfolio website also gives people the ability to share your work, which not only provides advertising but also increases trust with potential clients. If clients see you have a large following on social media, this shows that you’re likable and marketable. 8. UPDATE REGULARLY Update your portfolio regularly. By doing this, you’re constantly showcasing the most up-to-date photographs and your strongest work. The more practice you have, the better quality your work becomes. Consistently using new works will help others not only see your best, but it will also provide an opportunity to showcase the clients you have already obtained. This gives your portfolio credibility and assurance to the potential client that you’re a solid photographer and have credible clientele. 9. HAVE A BLOGGING SECTION Having a blog connected to your portfolio allows you to share what’s going on professionally in your life. Update your blog with your experiences, the outcome of your photo shoots, and things you have learned from your experiences being a photographer. This adds depth to your work and makes you relatable to the client. It also allows people insight into who you are as a person which helps expand your influence. 10. PURCHASE A DOMAIN NAME Buying a domain name can make your portfolio stand out. Choose a domain name that’s catchy and easy to type. This makes your work strongly accessible on the internet and allows it to stand out compared to other portfolios. Using your own name can also be helpful. Make sure you stay on top of keeping your domain name by staying current with renewal fees as you can lose your domain name if you accidentally forget to pay renewals. This could result in someone else taking your domain name, which would make it difficult to recapture traffic. Conclusion If you’re going to pursue a career in photography, you will need a strong portfolio website. Presenting your best self to the market gives you a leg up over other photographers and will increase the likelihood of getting future work. If you want to earn money in this industry, you need to actively and effectively promote yourself. Portfolios should be regularly updated with your best work and need to be constructed so that clients can find and like your photographs with ease. Your job is to make sure clients feel satisfied with your work, skill, and talent. Your portfolio should be a platform that encourages people to hire you. Having a portfolio website also gives credibility to your business and makes you look professional. This will not only increase clientele traffic but also your hourly rate as a photographer. Appearing more professional also makes clients feel at ease with purchasing your time. Being relatable to potential clients by blogging and captioning photos will boost your influence in the market. People want to work with photographers that can give them quality photographs they can connect to. By giving people insights into your career and inspirations, offers considerably more outreach and draws to your work. Using social media can significantly increase website traffic on your portfolio website. Without a strong portfolio website, it may be difficult to find work and obtain new clients. Portfolio websites keep photographers employed with consistent clients and continuous work. They are necessary and important and will surely benefit your photography career.