With the digital age and the vast majority of brides browsing the internet to find the perfect wedding vendors, it’s an absolute must that wedding photographers have an online presence. But there’s also options. What kind of site do you want? What kind of image do you want to portray to your potential clients? What will you be able to best maintain? These are all great questions.
There are three popular site choices for wedding photographers:
1) Flash Site:
Perks: Flash sites offer great visual draw, with the moving parts and fancy intros. They are also easily available, thanks to companies like Blu Domain. If you’re looking for a site that is easy to maintain and offers great visual impact, a flash site might just be for you. You can easily “create” your pages, upload your images to automatic slideshows, and pick and choose your website colors from one basic control panel. It’s great if you want to have a WOW factor with very minimal effort.
Quirks: The key things to remember with a flash site is that they’re extremely popular, especially if you purchase a template from a well-known company. You have to somehow make your flash site look “different” than the rest. Choose ONLY your best images for your portfolio, and don’t include too many. Your visitors are looking for a great, simple display of your work so that they can make a split-second decision about your services. Be clear and concise. One downside to a flash site is Search Engine Optimization of your information. Search Engines (although this might change in the near future) notoriously do not pick up on flash site information. To them, your site just says “So-and-So Photography” and “Download Flash Player Now”. The search engines don’t read the text you supply within the site, and therefore they don’t rank you highly on the Google rankings. You’re virtually “invisible”.
Ideal Clients: These sites are ideal if you’re targeting a client who just wants the information they need and who likes to shop quickly and make speedy decisions.
Cost: Site template purchases can range between $50 – $500 depending on your design and available features. You will also need to pay for domain name and hosting.
2) Show It Site:
Perks: I have yet to try this option, but from what I’ve seen, Show-It Sites are very cool. These sites are completely customizable. Want a splash page? Ok. Make one. Want a slideshow over to the right with a big star that shoots across the screen? Ok. You can make one of those. There’s a lot of options to a Show-It site, and they’re great for the creative with a little time. Additionally, photographers can now create custom client sites for their brides and grooms to post their wedding details. Similar to a basic “wedding website”, except it’s all housed under your domain name and branding. What a great marketing tool!
Quirks: Some caveats to a Show-It site would be the effort to create and solidly build. This type of site is ideal for a photographer who is feeling really creative and solid with their branding. You can’t just “copy” another’s site. You need to make it. And you need to make it yours! Have the time to do this and are OK with the monthly membership? This might be a great option for you!
Ideal Clients: This type of site is great for those targeting clients who want something a little more “outside-the-box”, and who would love the personal features you can offer. These clients will take the time to browse, but still want their information segmented. They’re not looking for the same flash site they’ve seen everywhere else. They might find you via a Google search.
Cost: These sites are available with a Show-It membership, which is listed at $39 per month (there’s a FREE option too, but it’s more limited). You will also need to pay for domain name and hosting.
3) Blogsites:
Perks: This is the currently method I use. I like it for multiple reasons. First, anyone can create a free blogsite. Well, mine is not necessarily free. I still pay for my domain name and hosting. However, WordPress and Blogspot do offer free sites to those who are just starting out. Blogsites (self-hosted) are also completely customizable, but if you’re looking for a “place to start” with your design, you can always purchase a template from smart guys like Tofurious or Brian Noah. Great templates which are totally customizable to your tastes. You can create a large number of pages and information with a blogsite, and the Search Engine Optimization is spectacular, especially with WordPress. Use text-rich posts, SEO optimization features, tags, and categories to really get your work seen across the virtual world. Blogsites can also easily feed into Facebook and Twitter, which makes a post about a wedding not only a portfolio enhancement, but also an instant word of mouth tool. How great is that? Also, Blogsites are not just blogs. Well, they are, but they hold more. You’ll see that mine has my portfolio, about me, and contact information. It’s all in one location. (My portfolio slideshows are easy to manage thanks to Slideshow Pro and Lightroom, by the way).
Quirks: If you go with the free blog, you don’t have direct access to FTP files, and your website URL will look something like “www.so-and-sophotography.wordpress.com”. The “upgrade” to a personal URL link and hosting offers not only credibility to your business, but also the ability to branch off of your site and create private postings and pages if desired. I currently use the Youngren’s form of blog-post creation for a lot of my posts that use a high number of images. The FTP ability really helps this to work. Additional caveats to blogsites are two-fold. First, you must have the time and defined processes to maintain your site. No bride wants to come to a blogsite that hasn’t been updated in months. It looks like you’re lazy and don’t have work, and we all want what is in demand, not what’s leftover. Second, is that blogsites may not instantly display all of your work. You may have 4-5 images at the top, but you may need to create a separate “portfolio” page, or keep a running portfolio through your postings. This varies from Flash or Show-It sites that may have a “splash screen” slideshow.
Ideal Client: They are created for the bride that wants to be a great friend with their photographer. A bride who wants to know about the person they are hiring, who also happens to have a spectacular portfolio. It’s all about personality and showing the world who you are. Are you shy? That’s OK, you can still run a blogsite, but give your readers little pieces of yourself. The ability to showcase your personality goes above and beyond another sites “About Me” page. You need to blog about your life, thoughts, and images. I love my blogsite for this reason. I’m spunky and like to learn and talk, so the ability to put my thoughts out to the world and brides is a great tool that I take advantage of.
Cost: You can run a free blog through WordPress or Blogspot if you want! For more customization and hands-on functionality, you should purchase a domain name and host the blog. Domain names typically run about $10 for a year, and hosting will average about $100 for a year.
So which is right for you? Which one do you use and why? I’d love to hear your feedback, and I hope this helped if you’re looking to take the digital leap!
no comments