Create a website of photographer - with these tools & tips!

Nowadays, many photographers want to fulfill a dream by starting their own business. But in order to earn money with your hobby, you need a lot of orders and therefore your own website.

For entrepreneurs as well as solo freelancers like photographers, having your own website is one of the absolute basics. It is important to adapt the website to your individual ideas and budget.

What needs to be considered when creating a website of photographer?

There are various ways to set up a website. On the one hand, you can set up the project yourself using a modular system. On the other hand, hiring a freelancer or an agency is just as good a way to get started. Research is of course part of the process. However, this is by no means the only challenge. The creation and design also need to be mastered. Bear in mind that web design is one of the most complicated types of graphic design.

To create a website yourself, the use of templates is a common practice. These include, for example, Shopify, Wix and Squarespace. However, there are some differences between the platforms. To have even more flexibility and control, hiring a freelancer is a good idea. It is a huge relief, but requires a certain amount of involvement in the overall work. It is therefore a hybrid solution.

Nowadays, most online entrepreneurs use the WordPress platform. While this variant was initially used exclusively by bloggers, WordPress has also established itself in other areas over time. Today, 30% of all websites are designed using WordPress. The special thing about WordPress is the wide range of templates. However, there is also nothing to stop you from creating your own templates. However, the variety and low prices of WordPress are offset by some disadvantages. For example, it may be necessary to hire a designer and a developer if you are a complete beginner in website creation.

If this procedure is still too much work for you, you can fall back on a complete solution. In other words, hiring an agency. The advantages of this option are reflected in the great expertise of the agencies. They are therefore the ideal companions in the decision-making process and for the complete creation. In return, of course, you have to expect a significantly higher price. For companies with high standards and a well-filled budget, this is of course a great thing. For beginners who are working on a simple website, it is less suitable.

It is crucial to define the necessary functions for your own website. These include, for example, offers for purchase, important information such as a telephone number and desired actions during a visit to the website.

What advantages do website of photographer offer?

With a photographer website, you have great prospects for generating new customers on the Internet. This is because information is easily accessible to a wide audience via the website and can be called up at any time. Visitors book appointments via the email address provided, even outside of opening hours. Good images support your online presence and give your potential customers an insight into your work as a photographer.

Which pages and elements should be on a website of photographer?

In order to successfully create a website for photographers, far-sighted planning is very important. A good structure is crucial, otherwise you run the risk of everything ending in chaos. There is no one-size-fits-all recipe. You define basic features such as design, navigation and structure according to your individual ideas. Think about the main goal of your site, the most important information and your target group. Valuable tips and images play a role here. The design can be eye-catching or simple.

Content of the website of photographer

Base the content design on existing websites. New interpretations are neither necessary nor useful in this case. Inspiration from other works is a good way to help you with your work. Imagine your website in your head like a shrub. The start page represents the beginning (the root), the page elements represent the branches. This principle can be compared to a mindmap. Then there are the content pages with specific content.

Photographer website design

The design is very effective in terms of publicity and is decisive for the first impression on the reader. It is therefore advisable to give free rein to your artistic and creative streak. Good images and aesthetic templates are the ideal support for this.

Website navigation

No website can do without navigation elements. To make it easier for visitors to get an overview, fill the navigation points with sufficient text and avoid overly complex nesting. A "burger menu" (three horizontal bars) is rather unsuitable. This only leads to disorientation for many visitors. The navigation should be clearly visible and not hidden from the reader.

The navigation is an aid for switching between the different pages. To meet this requirement, good comprehensibility and a focus on the essentials are key. Make sure to place all key points at the beginning and end of the navigation.

About me page

The about us page is used to introduce yourself and your work. Pictures of your own studio or working materials are also welcome. In this business, the relationship between the photographer and the photographed is very important.

Gallery or portfolio page

Images can be used to convey emotions, which is why you can use them well as a figurehead. They also give your users an impression of how you take photos and what is important to you in your photography.

Offer page

An elementary component of your photographer website is of course an appealing offer page, on which you show your users what services and products they can get from you. You should invest a lot of time and effort in creating your offer pages because you want to generate your conversions or leads via these pages and turn potential customers into real customers.

Page with prices

A separate pricing page is a good idea if you don't want to integrate your prices on the offer page. A tip: Flat rates work well as you avoid time-consuming price inquiries. For your customers, this means a high level of planning security in terms of cost calculation.

Page with customer testimonials

Trust is an all-important criterion for acquiring new customers. Your expertise is a powerful weapon. Recommendations from existing customers are also highly effective. If you don't want to create a separate page for this, you can also include these important elements on your offer page.

Contact page

The contact page provides the customer with an overview of all contact options such as telephone number, email address, social media channels and postal address. Although this is a very simple point, it is easily forgotten.

The contact form should only ask for the information that is absolutely necessary. A text field and an e-mail address are completely sufficient in this case. To keep spam mails away from your site, it is a good idea to set up a captcha. This mechanism sorts out spam bots as a precaution.

The contact information must be placed in such a way that it is visible at all times. This is particularly essential for images that evoke a lot of emotion, as many customers will want to see a similar photo.

Newsletter sign-up page

With a newsletter, you can maintain a good connection with your potential customers and expand your network. Newsletters and email marketing are very effective ways of attracting new customers. In regular newsletters, you can report on news, photo projects, products, seminars or customers. By tagging newsletter subscribers, you in turn have the opportunity to send these readers individual (sales) emails based on their interests.

Imprint

With a few exceptions, an imprint is mandatory for any website. An imprint is always required if the website is operated for business purposes. This is already the case if there is advertising on the site. An imprint generator is a first aid for this. However, it is better to get professional support to be on the safe side and avoid warnings.

Data protection

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has been in force since May 2018. The protection of personal data is at the forefront of this. Customers also receive information about the storage of their data. According to Section 13 of the German Telemedia Act (TMG), it is mandatory to include data protection notices on your website. In order not to make any mistakes in the formulation, it is best to use a reputable and fee-based data protection generator to really address all the important points or get professional support directly.

How do you create a photographer's website?

A common practice for setting up a website is a website construction kit. This is a pre-programmed structure that does not require in-depth coding or IT knowledge.

1. The first step is to select a layout. Most website builders already offer layout templates that are easy to work with. The template can be customized at any time so that you can set up your website according to your wishes and needs.
2. Once your website framework is in place, you can add content such as text and images. The higher the quality of the content, the more visitors your website will attract. Therefore, always make sure that your content has a high added value for your readers.
3. The last point is the publication of your website. Changes are still possible here. After publication, it often takes a week for the website to be found in a Google search.

If you have good programming skills, you can also program the website yourself or use a page builder such as Elementor or Divi to create it quite easily in WordPress quite easily. However, bear in mind that these methods take a lot of time. If you want to save time and have a good budget, hiring a web designer is the right choice for you.

Optimizing the content

To make it easier for your visitors to read, always keep your sentences as short as possible and avoid complicated technical terms. The use of paragraphs also has a positive effect on readability.

Design the homepage so that your readers immediately know what the website is about and what specific services you offer. Good images and storytelling are very conducive to this - but avoid overcrowding the page with images. Distracting animations are also rather inappropriate.

In addition to the homepage, your other websites should of course also have a clear focus and guide users through the site. Also make sure to link your pages to each other in a meaningful way.

In addition to the three general steps of website creation using a website builder system, there are others

Consideration of search engine optimization (SEO)

SEO is a good strategy for getting better rankings on Google and therefore more traffic. However, this does not include Google ads. Keywords play a major role in this. These are terms that are entered particularly often by potential customers in search engines.

There are various approaches to identifying relevant keywords. Special keyword research tools are used as an aid for this procedure. The Google Trends tool, for example, compares the frequency of different terms and analyzes search queries in relation to time. And with Sistrix for example, you have a tool at hand that you can use to analyze not only your websites but also those of your competitors for keywords. This makes it easy to find relevant keywords for the future.

The main goal of SEO is to rank as high as possible in Google's search results. This gives you a massive competitive advantage. It is very important to use keywords that are as specific as possible. General keywords such as "photographer" or "photographer" have very strong competition and make a good Google ranking much more difficult - especially for small photographer websites. With "wedding photographer:in Hamburg" the chances of success are much better.

Another component of good SEO optimization is fast loading times of your pages, despite the use of many photos. Therefore, keep the file size of your photos to a maximum of 200 KB and ideally use web-optimized file formats such as WebP. This way you can ensure that your users have a positive user experience.

Use of social media platforms

Social media platforms have excellent prerequisites for drastically increasing the number of visitors. The most important representatives of this category are Facebook and Instagram. With 27 million users, Facebook is the most popular social network in Germany.

The platform has a number of advantages that provide great added value for photographers. Paid advertising is perfectly tailored to your own customer base. The reach of Facebook is enormous. Creating a Facebook page is uncomplicated and free of charge.

Instagram is a platform for sharing videos and photos. Users can subscribe to a profile to see the latest photos on a daily basis. Uploading promotional photos on Instagram does not give the impression of obvious advertising. In addition to Instagram, the LinkedIn platform is also a good place for business photographers. Nowadays, a very large proportion of new customers are generated via social networks.

Which website builders are suitable for creating a photographer's website?

To help you get started with creating your photographer website, we would like to introduce you to a few website builders that are particularly suitable for website beginners.

You will now get to know the following modular systems:

Wix

SITE123

WordPress

Weebly

Zyro

Jimdo - Der Websitebaukasten für Selbstständige

Wix

The use of Wix is free of charge in the basic tariff and yet offers a great wealth of possibilities. Let your creativity run free. There are no major hurdles to creating a high-quality website here. The template templates are kept in a rather minimalist style, but can be adapted to your own ideas at any time. The drag-and-drop editor helps you to customize various properties such as the layout or the font. This makes it easy to integrate your own style.

Special features of Wix are the concise design functions and the gallery pages in full-screen mode. These design functions offer you animations and image effects to conjure up a magnificent overall picture. There are also paid packages at Wix that offer additional functions.

Site123

With SITE123 makes setting up a photographer's website child's play. The provider is therefore very popular with newcomers. Publishing is possible after just a few minutes. The tutorials are particularly helpful. They provide you with the basics for successfully creating websites. If you have any questions, you can contact customer service at any time.

The templates include more than 10 templates and are designed for both single-page and multi-page websites.

Even if you want to set up an onlineshop, SITE123 is the right place for you. E-commerce functions are also integrated here. To offer online payments, it is necessary to book a paid package.

WordPress

WordPress is most commonly used by online entrepreneurs, freelancers, photographers and bloggers. The choice of themes is immense. To get the most out of WordPress, plugins can be used for different functionalities. WordPress is a little more tedious to use than Wix or Site123.

Advanced and professional users will really enjoy it. But beginners will also find their way around once they get used to the navigation. The application is free of charge. Some additional functions, such as your own domain name, can only be used with a paid plan.

Weebly

Weebly is a free provider that impresses with its simplicity and flexible design options. In contrast, the selection of themes is rather modest compared to other providers. The integration of images is very straightforward. Creating a gallery or a slideshow is a prerequisite for uploading several images at the same time.

The Weebly app is extremely practical for uploading and editing images on the go. Special image editing functions simplify many processes and offer you additional options, such as adding filters or contrast settings.

Zyro

Zyro scores with uncomplicated handling and special AI tools. Zyro is suitable for people without extensive programming knowledge. This makes the construction kit a perfect solution for beginners in particular. It also includes an editor, a free SSL certificate and free hosting. The website builder contains a total of 70 templates. These include 15 portfolio templates, which are particularly elegant and aesthetically designed. These templates are therefore particularly suitable for a photographer's website.

Features such as AI-based tools like the text generator and the heatmap offer particularly good support. The text generator uses analyses to automatically create texts tailored to the website. Heatmap analyzes how your readers have browsed through your photos and pages. This makes it very easy to adjust the conversion rate and realign elements.

It is also possible to set up an online store. All important e-commerce functions are included, but no help for sending images.

The paid packages from Zyro are very reasonably priced and offer unlimited storage space. There is therefore an infinite amount of space for your images.

Jimdo

At Jimdo - Der Websitebaukasten für Selbstständige

It is also possible to set up a photo gallery on Jimdo. You can simply select a layout and align it for horizontal or vertical display. Alternatively, you can opt for slideshow or grid displays. If you are looking for particularly good image quality, select the lightbox effect.

The free basic plan allows the sale of up to five photos. The possible payment options are limited to PayPal. If you would like to use even more options, you will need to upgrade to a higher tariff.

If you want a logo, the uncomplicated Jimdo logo creator is the right address.

Other well-known providers of website builders are:

Squarespace

STRATO Homepage-Baukasten

ePages

Webflow

Vsble

Chimpify