You’ve taken the perfect shot. The lighting is good, the angles are on point and the image has captured everything you wanted it to. But where do you display such a stunning photograph online? As a professional photographer, there is endless demand for your work online: businesses, bloggers, and social media influencers all rely on professional photographers to advertise their content.
Considering that 75% of shoppers rely on product photographs when shopping on an e-commerce store, your work can be high in demand amongst those who sell products online. But how do you get yourself out there, and make money online?
Build your portfolio
Before you start putting together your portfolio, it’s important to ask yourself what your style is. By working out what kind of photography you enjoy, you can build your image in a way that’s individual and unique to you. Perhaps you have a certain way of editing your photos, or enjoy taking pictures of certain things: whatever you decide, it is important to remain consistent so that the person who views your portfolio can get a good idea as to what kind of professional photographer you are.
When building your portfolio, don’t just throw together a bunch of images and let the viewer decide for themselves which ones are the best. By crafting your portfolio so that you only include your very best pieces of work, you are proving to the viewer that your photographs are worth investing in.
Even the order you put your images in can be crucial – Brian Dilg, the head of the New York Film Academy, advised that the first image must be the best one out of all your photographs.
Have a beautiful site design
Just as an artist tries to make their exhibition as aesthetic as possible, you want to display your images in a way that is visually appealing. As your aim as a professional photographer is to make money online and become more visible, people will be more likely to purchase your images for e-commerce purposes if you have a stunning website design.
Luckily, to create a beautiful site design you don’t need to be an expert in coding: website builders such as Go Sitebuilder offer a huge range of ready to go website designs, enabling you to display your photographs in a way that is attractive to anyone who visits your site.
According to the Stanford Web Credibility Research, the credibility of a company is 75% based on their website design – by displaying your images in an appealing way, you are not only able to show off your skills as a photographer, but you’re also telling them that you’re a professional who takes their work seriously, meaning they are more likely to want to invest in your work.
Tell a story
Whilst a picture might be worth a thousand words, actually telling your personal story, or giving the visitor some information behind a certain photograph helps build a relationship between the site visitor and yourself. The best way to do this is by writing blogs: by writing about your inspiration behind a certain image, you can convey your passion for photography, telling the site visitor that you would be completely committed to delivering them the highest quality photos.
Blogging is also an invaluable tool for SEO – if you want to increase your visibility on the internet, then including relevant keywords within your blog that are highly searched for means that Google is more likely to index your site, ranking you highly on its search engines. This means that you’re much more likely to see a higher traffic flow to your site and, by repeatedly blogging, Google knows to reindex your site, so that you’re much more likely to stay at a high position.
Utilise social media
Overlooking the importance of social media is a huge mistake: it is a free way to market your photography, once you’ve built up a good following. Considering that most social media users log into their accounts at least once a day, creating a strong social media platform is a fantastic way to not only draw in existing fans of your work, but to also reach out to new potential customers.
By having a strong social media following, you’re showing that you are not only a professional photographer, but that your work is also popular, meaning you’re high in demand. This is an attractive prospect, especially for someone who wants to use your photography for e-commerce purposes, meaning that you’re much more likely to make money online.
As you’ll want to focus on shooting the best photographs you can, you won’t want to spend endless hours building your own website from scratch. This is why Go Sitebuilder is one of the best website builders for those who don’t have endless hours of time on their hands: we offer ready to go sites that can be crafted to suit your own image. Our free 14-day trial means you can try Go Sitebuilder today, so that you can build your own site completely hassle-free!
