A Thousand Words…

The photography industry is changing rapidly and the successful photographer must change with it. More photographers than ever are shooting digital. And while this provides amazing turnaround time the demand for a streamlined workflow is greater than ever. Digital photography has also lowered the barriers for entry into the industry, making successful marketing tactics essential for both the emerging and established photographer.

Your portfolio is the deciding factor for art directors, clients, and other art buyers in determining your shooting style and skill level and ultimately whether to hire you for the job. Just as photographers choose pixels over film for convenience and cost savings, many of your potential clients will make their decision based on your website rather than your traditional portfolio.

Once you have a website, it’s important to keep it fresh and continue to promote it. An updated website lets you maintain constant contact with your prospects and keep you top of mind. Put your website’s URL prominently on all of your marketing collateral and let your clients know when you’ve made major updates to your site, such as a site redesign or added a new portfolio. To drive new prospects to your site, consider investing in search engine advertising (I’ll discuss this in greater depth in future posts).

If your current website doesn’t have a built-in content management system that allows you to update or change it easily, like clickbooq, consider the time and cost savings of investing in one. The easier it is to update your website, the more likely it is you’ll do it on a regular basis.

Another huge timesaver is to choose an image size that matches your aspect ratio. If your website uses images that need little to no-cropping, you’ll preserve your original vision and save production time. Then, you can easily automate the process using your image editing software to batch resize your images, without having to worry about the cropping.