A few months ago, I underwent the challenge of completely redoing my website for my photography business. My old website just wasn’t cutting it. It seemed clunky, slow, and didn’t match my branding at all. (If you know anything about me, you know that I’m BIG on branding, so this was a huge fix that I knew I wanted to make in my new website.)

This got me asking the question: What do I need on my photography website? There are a few must haves that every photographer should have on their website to make it the best it can be.

 

1. Your Website NEEDS to Be Mobile Optimized & Load Quickly

It still blows my mind how many people disregard the fact that their website needs to be mobile optimized and load quickly. Whatever service that you decide to host your website through, make sure that the website has an option for you to make it mobile optimized. This is extremely important since more traffic than ever comes from mobile devices in addition to Google changing their algorithm that affects your site negatively if it’s not optimized for a mobile platform, thus affecting your SEO. When you’re also choosing who to go with for your website, they often have prominent photographers listed that use their service. Go through their sites and check the speeds of their sites. If multiple sites are slow at loading, this may be an indication that the service itself isn’t optimized for quick loading times.

The only reason I am even mentioning in them is because they are truly the absolute best platform from what I have found personally. ShowIt 5 is one of, if not, the best services for designing and hosting your website. The ability to design your mobile interface separately from your desktop interface is huge! Not to mention the drag and drop method of designing the site allows for us creatives to feel in control of how we want out site to look.

 

2. Past Client Reviews

How many times have you gone online to buy something and before placing your order you looked at the customer reviews? Probably a majority of the time. Why should photography be any different?

Every photographer should have at least one or two spots on their website that features reviews from past clients. This allows prospective clients to get a feel of what it is like to work with you as a photographer, how they felt the experience went and why they decided to choose you from the various other photographers in your area. This can serve as a powerful tool since people are more inclined to choose a photographer that they know their friends have gone with before. This helps grow the trust factor by being able to reassure your clients that others have had an amazing experience when working with you!

 

3. Press & Published In

You’ve done the shoot, you’ve submitted to various blogs, magazines or one of the big photo competitions, so now what? Well, you want to let your prospective clients know about your accomplishments! Every photographer should have a section on their website telling their clients about their accomplishments! No, this isn’t bragging, it’s showcasing your accomplishments because if you’re not going to tell your clients about them, who is?

The reason that I personally showcase where I have been published, prominent blogs that my work has been featured on or national recognitions that I have received is because this builds trust with your prospective clients. Since many of our clients don’t have an eye that’s trained to pick up on subtleties of images that can make or break a photo, this shows that your photos are among the best even when other experts in your field are judging your photographs!

 

4. Killer Portfolio

Now this sounds self-explanatory, but many people choose to go for quantity over quality. Your portfolio should only consist of work that you absolutely love! If you don’t love it, what makes you think that your clients will? This should be a good representation of what your style is and what they can expect from a session with you.

I also like to have one or two featured sessions. I can’t tell you how often seniors contact me to redo their senior photos because they only like one or two of their images. The best thing that you can do as a photographer is ease their fears since you can show them an entire session and the quality and consistency of photos that they can expect.

 

5. Your Why

This is your chance to differentiate yourself from other photographers. This should be embedded throughout your website where you can tell clients why you do what you do. This can be about why your provide hair and makeup, why you offer physical products versus just digitals and ultimately anything that you do differently from your competition. Think about 3-5 of the things that you do in your photography that separates yourself and make sure to showcase this on your website.

 

Whatever direction you decide to go for your website, these are essential pieces about your photography business to have featured somewhere on your website to engage your prospective clients, make sure that you are the right match for them and to let them know about the amazing experience that you offer!