If you are a professional “photographer” and feel interested to take your professional career at next level then being online with a professional look is the more lucrative option to show your skills and expertise to the world. Today, we are sharing best practices for photographers starting a professional photography business online.

Professional photography market is so competitive and at the same time innovative. Being online with a professional touch is so important for every photographer that the reason why you see a variety of websites in the photography business.

So you are ready to start your photography website to grow business leads. Let’s delve into it to get started by following 8 super easy steps:

FOLLOW STEPS TO START PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY BUSINESS ONLINE

1) Get a Professional Brand Name

It’s recommended to get a professional brand name that will create your professional identity in an online world. Brand name should be engaging to get your audience interest in your business. I always recommend my clients to get the name that’s easy to call and pronounce.

As a common practice, many photographers want to brand their business by using their name and it’s a good idea but make sure the name should be unique within a business niche.

NEED BRAND NAME SERVICE

2) Register brand name as Domain Name

After choosing a brand name the next move is to go for registering the domain name. Here you need to be cautious when selecting a domain name to decide the domain scope. For example; you are a professional photographer in New York city so you need to define your scope whether you are open for international assignments or only looking to get local projects. It all depends upon you and your requirements.

If you are open to expanding the business worldwide the go with .com otherwise you can choose regional TLD to get noticed. Like; the domain could be like this:

  • Jessicaphotograhy dot com
  • Jeassicaphotography dot com dot ca
  • Jeassicaphotography dot net

You can easily register FREE domain name while registering the hosting service.

But I always recommend my clients and customers to keep seperate company for domain and hosting just to keep away from potential hacking attempts. Security is always a priroty to get visible in online world.

Steps to Find Available Domain Name

To check the available domain, just follow the steps:

  • Go to namecheap.com
  • In search bar, write your possible domain
  • Search it to check availability
  • If it’s available then you can register it or you can freely register during hosting purchase. In this way, you can save $10.

3) Get Professional Hosting Services

Hosting is the foundation of the website so it’s recommended to go for an economical and best hosting service provider. Never compromise quality on cheap or free services as it’s a matter of business reputation.

By choosing best hosting service, you will get:

  • Security (SSL)
  • 99.9% uptime
  • Backup services
  • Server reliability
  • Non metered bandwidth
  • 24×7 Technical support

Here I wrote an article to choose best hosting service might be insightful for you to review.

Otherwise, you can use Bluehost services as it’s economical, easy to use and provide the fastest server with maximum uptime.

Initially, you can choose Bluehost WordPress website package to move forward as your business grow then you can move to VPS or Dedicated hosting package.

Here you can find steps to following the hosting registration process.

4) Design highly Responsive Website

Now after registering the hosting, you need to do initial installations to setup WordPress from hosting Cpanel. A good web host provides 1-click install to ease your work. In above link, you can get a complete guide to do these setups.

GET PHOTOGRAPHER READY WEBSITE WITH DOMAIN, HOSTING, THEME AND DESIGN

Designing a responsive website is the demand of current time. By showing static and non-responsive website, you need to struggle to get potential leads. Your website should follow the contemporary standards and user-friendly.

A highly responsive website will include following features:

  • Compatible with all browser
  • SEO friendly
  • High resolution
  • Fully customizable
  • Adaptable and easily integrated with new features and functions

5) Add Engaging Photography Website Theme

Yes, this is important to have fully responsive and high-resolution photography website theme to show your business. Here you can see some good photography website themes to select for your website.

List of Photography website Themes

  1. Uncode WordPress Photography Theme
  2. Twofold Stunning WordPress Theme Photography
  3. Soho Creative WordPress Photographer Website Theme
  4. Epix Photographer WordPress Theme
  5. Borano WordPress Photography Theme Ideal for Professional Photographers

Take a Look!

In the link list, you can find some good website theme for your business and easily implement in your website design to show you business and professional work.

6) Go for Content SEO

Now you have designed your website and it’s time to work on website content.  So far you have invested in your website as you take domain, hosting, theme and designing cost.

But, your website is nothing without optimized content.

If you are new to this then simply understand that whatever you show on your website in form of images or in content/text should be packed in a targeted keyword related to your audience. When you place optimized and targeted keywords in your website then people organically find it through the search engine.

Simply understand this concept with an example;

I am looking “best wedding photographer” in “NewYork” city so I will go to Google search and write “best wedding photographer in New York”. The result will show me thousand of website but I’ll only check few link that is at the top of the search. The websites that are visible on top of the search are SEO optimized website. Google has structured formula to rank a website on the basis of performance and content optimization.

starting photography business online

7) Write Blog post about Photography

Next step is to write blog posts about photography business – By writing a blog, you can share knowledge, wisdom, your experience, skills, and expertise to fellow photographer and with your readers. Blogging provides you the opportunity to show who you are, why you are a photographer, and what value you can provide to a prospective client.

To write photography blog, make a blog stratgy to define your content. Be remember, blog post connects you to like-minding and photography seekers and in this way you can easily boost your business with potential clients.

Integrate your blog with social marketing tools and publish your post there.

8) Start Web Marketing

Now, you are done to fulfill the main requirements of website design and it’s time to start web marketing.

Yes, I can understand! it’s a big task that needs money, skills, and effort to market the business.

But there is a way that leads you to save money and tactically start marketing by utilizing free ways of digital marketing.

Here are the soft techniques to marketing your business using free sources:

  • SEO – Organically optimize your content
  • Content link building
  • Create backlinks
  • Start referral program
  • Go for social marketing
  • Create compelling video portfolio and upload on Youtube
  • Submit your site on web directories
  • Forum commenting

Here are the paid programs or services that you can follow:

Above are the most recommended steps to starting a photography business online. If you are seeking any help or interested to get photography website then you can ask us! It will be our pleasure to help you out.

ASK US TO DESIGN PHOTOGRAPHY WEBSITE DESIGN FOR YOUR BUSINESS