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How can I make my photography website stand out?

Male photographer on a laptop making a website

In a saturated market such as photography, designing a website that stands out from the competition is incredibly important. Whether you are a wedding photographer or a visual travel blogger, creating a website that reflects your personality can result in new clients. 

This can be done through a variety of means. The visual aspects of your website such as colours and font are important, as are features such as specialised services and offers. If you are looking for ways to make your photography website stand out then read on!

Making your Photographs Centre Stage

As a photography business, the most important part of your website design should be to make your photographs the focal point of your website. Your photographs should be the main selling point to potential customers visiting your website, so  to show your work off to the best quality consider the following:

High-Quality Images: the best way to showcase your images is to present them in a high-quality format. High-quality images show the professional quality of your services. By presenting your images in this format you can show your work in the best light and have a higher chance of gaining new clients through your website. 

Spacing: a key element of website design is the layout. This is especially key when you are a photography business. The spacing of your photographs is important when presenting your photographs. Placing your images too close together can result in a crowded website. 

An effective gallery: in order to show a large range of images on one webpage a well-designed gallery is important. An effective gallery will clearly show a range of images without looking crowded. A key aspect is also a feature to allow visitors to click on each image and see a larger version and find out more information about it. If you choose to have a scroll-through gallery, make sure your best photos are at the beginning and at the end – these are the photos that your visitors will remember the most. 

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Creating Visual Impact

One way to make your website stand out is to carefully consider what visual aspects you need to include to create impact. Visual elements such as colours and fonts can portray your brand image and show a customer what kind of photography business you have. Some elements to think about are:

Colour Scheme: certain colours are associated with particular brands or occasions. For example, a white and gold theme may imply a wedding photographer, whereas brighter colours may imply a more informal family portrait photographer.  

Font: different fonts can create different impressions on visitors to your website. More traditional fonts, such as Times New Roman, give a sense of professionalism. Whereas more unique fonts give a sense of individuality. Whichever kind of font you choose for your website, the main focus should be to portray your brand identity whilst maintaining a professional web design. A general rule of thumb in design is to have one ‘Serif’ font and one ‘Sans Serif’ font, using one for headings and another for body text. 

Logo: an easy way to show off your brand is the design of your logo. This should be something you can display on your website and use in aspects of your business such as business cards. Your logo should be eye-catching and professional.

Consider Layout and Navigation

Another key element of any good website design is the layout of elements of your website. This includes features such as the layout of menus and photographs on your website. One key thing to keep in mind when designing the layout is that less is more. By including as many elements as possible you risk overcrowding your website and making it difficult for visitors to navigate. 

The layout of your website should be simple, with clean lines and panels which are easy to navigate. Elements should be intuitive for visitors of your website, for example, collect all your best wedding photographs on one page and all landscapes in another to allow visitors to find the images they are looking for easily. 

Clear Contact Options

With any online business having clear contact options are incredibly important. If visitors to your website have to search for a long time to find your contact options, it may deter them from contacting you. As a rule, keeping contact options at the bottom of every web page makes sure visitors know how to contact you.  

If you are looking to build a website for your company, then look no further than Go Sitebuilder! Our simple design means you can have a professional-looking website up and running in minutes. With built-in features such as image galleries, a professional photography website is quick and easy to design. Try our 14-day free trial today.

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How to build a website for a sports club

You might have just decided to breathe some life into your local area by starting up a new sports club, or maybe you’re just trying to bring a well-established one into the digital world. Either way, a website dedicated to your team is a great way to get more visibility for your club, whether that is to attract more fans to your page or to bring in potential new members. 

We’re going to have a look at the most important things your sports club website will need in order to thrive. 

Team logo and colours

This is crucial! Your team colours are your identity, both on and off the pitch. Making sure this is the first thing visitors to your site see will mean they are more likely to recognise you in the future. If you are still trying to decide on a logo, online tools like Placeit and Looka give you templates that you can adapt to your colours and team name. Don’t paste your logo all over the site, but be creative with it; try using a watermark of your logo as the background of your website. 

Don’t take all this on yourself, your team should be part of the creative process!

Introduce your club

Your club is unique. It’s not just about the sport, it’s about the sense of community that you have created together, and getting this across is going to help you instil a sense of pride in your team. It will also help fans feel more connected to their players, and attract potential new members to join. 

Write a short history of your club, including pictures and information about team members. Don’t feel like you have to stick to the classic posed photo – why not have a mix of in-action photos and fun photos of social events?

If you have a solid fan base, then ask your team members to write a short bio of themselves that you can include it with their headshots in a “meet the team” section. 

Keep your visitors and members updated

Having an events schedule that is regularly updated is great for everyone. Your team members can’t use the excuse that they didn’t know when practice was, and your fans won’t be disappointed if they weren’t notified of upcoming matches. This is also a good place to post information about social events, so that even if someone is interested in joining but wants to check out the team first, they can do so.

A news section is a great way to keep your visitors and members up to date on all the latest news going on in your club. Fans want to know more than just the hard statistics of your wins and losses; they want to know what’s happening off the pitch as well! Why not have a regularly-updated blog, giving detailed match reports, or updates on your players’ lives! 

Ranking tables are another good way to show that your site is updated regularly and is a great resource for fans and team members to see where your club stands in the league tables. Give your team an incentive by promising them an outing if they move up the league tables. 

Team Values

This isn’t necessarily an obvious choice, but drafting up some team values together can really help make sure that you are all working towards a common goal. By making it clear that your team doesn’t accept gender discrimination or bullying, then it is easier to implement consequences for this behaviour. On a more positive note, if your team thinks one of their values is to help the community, then have a look to see if you can help coach young aspiring players, or lend a hand in a community space. 

By posting these values on your website, your players will be held to these standards, both by their captain and by their fans. 

Become a member

You don’t just want people to join your site, have a quick browse and then leave. Make sure you hook them in! You can use a plugin on your website builder that asks them for their email address so that you can send them updates on events, or a weekly newsletter so that they never miss out on their favourite players’ news. This will help you create a community, and your fans will feel like they are an important part of the process.

Multimedia

When building your website, make sure your visitors aren’t confronted with a wall of text. Good quality images will help your visitors engage with your site and make it seem more professional – have a look at our blog on how to make sure your images are optimised for your site.

Better than images, videos are a huge driver of engagement! Uploading clips of your matches, or highlights of each game could be a great way to keep people on your site. You could also create a YouTube Channel for this which links back to your website, giving you engagement on two platforms.

Building a website for your sports club doesn’t have to be a hassle; with Go Sitebuilder you can have a beautiful website up and running in minutes. With video capability, image editing software and membership plugins, you can easily optimise it for your sports club, keeping your fans happy and your players engaged! Try out our 14-day free trial today.

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How to Attract Customers to Your Bar or Restaurant

Birds eye view of a table full of plates of colourful food with people sat either side of the table

Owning a bar or a restaurant can seem like a lot of work. However, it is an incredibly rewarding business to get into. If you have a love of food and drink then going into this industry could really play to your skills. However, it is important to have some kind of strategy in place so that you can attract customers into your establishment. If you don’t know where to start, then follow our tips to ensure you advertise yourself in the right way, to the right customers. 

Know your audience 

This may seem obvious, but work out what kind of atmosphere you want to create within your establishment. From decor to menu, website to social media, it is important to have a theme running through every element of your business so that you are able to market to your targeted clientele. 

For example, if you want to start up a sports bar then having a relaxed, comfy interior with cheap drinks and bites on offer will be appealing to those who want to have a fun night out without racking up huge expenses. However, if you would rather reach out to those who are looking for fine dining then it is important to cultivate a high-class image of your establishment. 

It could also be useful to consider the area that you are in, and whether this should affect how you market yourself. For example, if you’re establishing yourself in a small community then it could be good to use local produce in your ingredients. Or if you’re in a city with a large student population then offering student discounts can pull in swathes of youngsters. 

Working out your target audience is also important when building your online image. By building a website which mirrors the experience that you offer, you are more likely to attract the right customers.

Have a strong website design 

As mentioned above, it is important to have a theme running throughout your business. Perhaps you decide to emulate your website’s colour palette with that of your restaurant’s interior design.

It is also important that you make your brand name clear on the website: this will make your image more identifiable, and if it is eye-catching then it is more likely to stick in other people’s heads. 

It is also vital to have a website that is easy to navigate, both on a computer and on someone’s mobile phone. Considering 57% of internet users say they wouldn’t recommend a business if their website isn’t optimised for mobile, it is important to have a website that is easily accessible in both formats. Go Sitebuilder – an online website builder based in the UK – is an extremely simple way to create your dream site, and is optimised for both desktop and mobile devices. 

It’s also great to write a bit about your background and what inspired you to set up this business. This adds a personal touch and could be the reason that a potential customer chooses your restaurant or bar over someone else’s. If you’re unsure what other pages of content to include, check out our top tips on our blog.

Don’t neglect social media

Social media is a fantastic way to advertise yourself to potential customers. Posting aesthetic pictures of the food and drink that you have to offer onto your Instagram, Twitter or Facebook page helps get your image out there. 

Virtual word-of-mouth isn’t to be underestimated: the more people tagged in the comment section, the more people know about your establishment. Your visibility can also be increased if people post snaps of products that they’ve enjoyed within your bar/restaurant – you can even offer a discount for people who do this! By encouraging people to hashtag your business name in their description and tag you in the image, you are essentially coining in on some completely free advertising. 

The fact that social media is so accessible means it is also a great way to advertise discounts. Offering deals such as 2-4-1 cocktails or discounted set menus means people are more likely to visit your restaurant if they’ve never heard of it before. 

Write blogs 

This seems slightly unusual, but posting blogs onto your website is a great way to build trust between yourself and potential customers, as well as boosting your visibility on Google. 

Perhaps you want to post a certain cocktail recipe that you offer, or maybe you would like to write about the inspiration behind your best selling dish. Writing about your food and drink means foodies are more likely to be attracted to your establishment, as it places you in the role of a leader in the industry. Using highly searched for keywords in your blog can also help you gain more visibility on Google, as search engines pick up on these keywords and then rank your website higher up on the search list.

Building your website 

Building a website which can perform all of these functions may appear daunting. However, Go Sitebuilder is one of the best website builders to turn to for help. Our expertise in website building means creating your perfect website is only a few clicka away. Try it today – with our 14-day free trial, you have nothing to lose!

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How do lawyers market and advertise themselves?

Black male lawyer dressed in a suit is sitting on his sofa at home working on his laptop and viewing some paperwork that he's holding in his hand

The 21st century has seen an increase in competition within the legal sector. Whilst being a lawyer was once only seen as a profession for a small segment of people, now anyone can train to be a lawyer. Undoubtedly, this is a good thing, yet it means the legal field has now become oversaturated – it is much harder to appeal to clients then it used to be. Gone are the days when you could simply rely on billboards and TV adverts to market your law firm: with the rise of social media, more than 70% of your target audience will use online articles rather than ads to have their questions answered about your firm. 

Why do I need to market and advertise myself?

Marketing your services is therefore of the highest importance: if done correctly, you could be able to draw in endless numbers of potential clients to your site. And, luckily, with website builders such as our very own Go Sitebuilder around, advertising yourself is by no means an impossible task. We have comprised together a list of ways to help you build your online image, making your marketing strategy that little bit easier. 

Ensure you have an SEO strategy 

SEO – search engine optimisation – is key to increasing your online presence. SEO essentially maximises the traffic flow to your online website by making your site appear higher up in Google searches, and should be a key tool in your marketing strategy. Considering that 55% of all clicks go to the first three Google search results, being visible to users is of high importance. Investing in SEO is vital if you want to expand your client base, or even start from scratch – this Legal Trends Report revealed that 37% of legal consumers look for a lawyer via an online search. 

SEO is often improved through posting blogs, as the keywords that you use are picked up by Google, and thus your website is more likely to come up in search engine results. Other ways to optimise your site for SEO are having clear site navigation – with a call to action on the homepage -, using high-authority external links and making sure that your pages load quickly. It’s also crucial to make sure your site is optimised for mobile, as Google now has mobile-friendliness as a factor in how well your site ranks. If you’re new to SEO, check out our quick guide over on our blog.

Target your networking

This may seem obvious, but if you are just starting in the legal profession then you must choose a specific area of law to practice – remember, each client has a special, specific issue in mind. It could also be of benefit to pick a niche area of practice: for example, if you go into corporate law then you could specialise in trusts and bonds. 

Consider also whether or not you want to be a local, national, or global firm. Attending networking sessions is a fantastic way to get yourself out there, as it will give you the ability to advertise yourself in person, adding a more personal element to your online business. Perhaps if you want to have a strong local presence then doing some pro bono work could be an invaluable way to market your services. Word of mouth is not to be ignored, and if you are seen to be helping the community, then they are much more likely to want to help back by supporting your business. 

Don’t underestimate social media 

As mentioned previously, the Internet is practically a breeding ground for new clientele. Paid marketing through the likes of Facebook and Instagram means you can reach out to anyone, anywhere. Barry Walker, a Managing Partner at Walker Law has commented that “Social media marketing is the future of lawyers. Most people perform research on their smartphones.” 

Having a strong presence on social media can also help build your credibility. By posting updates about your services, as well as your achievements, you can create a strong image around your business which others can easily follow and access. It also gives people the chance to leave unfiltered reviews of your business: not only can this generate trust in others who are considering your services, but it also markets your business for you, completely free of charge! Sharing these reviews on your website is a fool-proof way for you to build a relationship with a client before either of you have ever met.

Where do I start?

Although you might succeed in drawing people to your site, you must entice them to stay. Having poor web design and shoddy content is a sure-fire way to dissuade people from wanting to use your services, and could prompt them to turn to another competitor in the same industry. Standing out from the crowd with modern, cutting edge web design and an easy-to-navigate site adds to your image as a professional who really knows what they’re doing.

Go Sitebuilder is a simple and easy to use website builder, giving you the ability to create one of the best online businesses in your field of work. Our 14-day free trial allows you to test this for yourself, giving you all the freedom to craft your own business website.