These days, the photography business has become one of the most lucrative businesses. But then, as the competition increases, you need to showcase your photography online to reach many people at once.
A photography website can remain handy to serve your purpose. In today’s Internet-driven world, does it make sense that your photography business remain without an online representative, i.e. a website?
Why WordPress should be your choice for developing a website for your business?
For those who are sitting on the fence for having an up and running website, it is fair to mention that WordPress can be their choice. As one of the most cost-effective and preferred platforms, WordPress has everything to take your business to the new heights.
As a robust CMS available, it can open the doors of new opportunities by boosting web traffic and attracting more people to your business.
Simplicity and flexibility are the two major characteristics of WordPress. One of the biggest advantages of this platform is you can build a website on your own.
Yes, whether you are a blogger or a photographer, you can have your WordPress website without putting many efforts.
Surprised? Here are five fundamental steps through which you can make a WordPress photography website of your own:
1. Select web host
2. Install WordPress
3. Choose your theme
4. Find a suitable plugin
5. Start selling
You may wonder how to find the web host, themes, plugins, and the like for building WordPress photography website.
Let’s elaborate on these steps to give you complete information:
1. Select the Host
Let’s start from scratch. You need a domain name (an impressive one, of course!) and a hosting package before installing WordPress. Also, just don’t forget to check the availability of your favorite domain name. ‘Whois’ is a good tool for it.
Then comes selection.
These days, you can find many hosting services providers in the market. A few noteworthy names are Siteground, GoDaddy, register.com, Bluehost and Web Hosting UK. It is better to select the company that offers both domain name and hosting services.
Okay. You may wonder what is hosting and why does your website need it?
Let me explain to you a bit about hosting. Basically, web hosting is a server space for your website. When you take hosting services, you reserve some space for your website on the host server.
Though looking pretty simple and straightforward, selecting the host is a quite complex and difficult task providing many options are available.
Here we give you tips to consider while selecting the host for your photography website:
1. Compare the bandwidth restriction
2. Go through the options like server type (Dedicated and Semi-dedicated)
3. Select the host that supports WordPress
4. Choose the host that provides domain name selection and hosting
After the selection of host and registration of your website, you can now download WordPress from its homepage.
2. Install WordPress
WordPress does not need any introduction. As an open-source Content Management System (CMS), WordPress has gained fame in the web world.
Today, over 26 percent of total websites are run on WordPress.
Most of host service providers offer support to this platform, and an ever-growing community of dedicated developers and WordPress enthusiasts are always ready to assist the users. Manual installation of WordPress is quite easy, but you can take help from the host as well.
WordPress website itself can also assist you in a step-by-step way for installing. You can refer to The WordPress Installation Guide for assistance as it contains troubleshooting tips and other useful information for the first-time user.
3. Choose Your Theme
One of the major reasons for the growing popularity of WordPress is it offers a lot of customizable themes or templates. You can readily find suitable themes from two categories: Free and premium.
You need to keep the basic requirements in line with your photography profession in mind while selecting the right theme. Also, the following aspects will help you choose the most suitable match for your website:
1. Customization- When it comes to WordPress photography website, the flexibility of font and color plays a vital role in making your website appealing. You need to consider the theme that offers customization in both font and color.
2. Compatibility- WordPress platform supports various plugins that are useful for the desired functionality. Now, your theme should have a layout compatible with a suitable plugin. It will assist you to come up with an innovative website.
3. Functionality- Photography has a niche market. When your website has a look and feels according to the niche market, it will get a good amount of web traffic. Therefore, you should emphasize the overall functionality of the theme.
There are many themes available for your photography site. You should also go through the WordPress Theme Directory. Online marketplaces like ThemeForest are also worth visit. It is fair to mention that a premium theme is preferable because it offers many options for customizations and comes with 24/7 technical assistance.
After selecting the theme, just don’t worry about its installation. You can find a plethora of tutorials online for installing your selected WordPress theme.
If you have any confusion regarding theme selection and installation, it is better to ask a WordPress development services provider.
Related Reading: Why Premium Themes are Preferable
4. Find Suitable Plugin
How about making your photography website fully functional?
Well, WordPress is a robust platform and it has many functions, but if you want to integrate the desired functionality on your website, you must opt for plugins.
WordPress developers have created customized plugins to serve this objective. ‘What are plugins and what they can do’ is elaborated here.
You need a proper image gallery plugin for your WordPress photography website. It can enable you to show your work professionally.
A dedicated portfolio plugin Portfolio Designer can be your choice as it offers plenty of customization options.
You can readily create an image gallery in an attractive way with the plugin. Infinite layouts, unlimited options for colors and designs are a few of the key features that make this plugin a preferable one for a photography website.
You also need an eCommerce plugin and social media integration plugin if your selected theme has no social media buttons.
However, it is important to select the plugins carefully because if your website has many unnecessary plugins, they can hamper the performance and increase the PLT (Page Load Time).
5. Start Selling
Now that your website is ready to rock, you can start your business online!
All you need to promote your photography site now to let people know about it. You can use social media platforms effectively and increase traffic by utilizing organic ways.
When your website has a decent selection of photos and a regular blog, the search engine notices it and you can start getting web traffic.
You can also ask other photographers to write guest posts that can make your website popular gradually.
Apart from these ways, as the competition is getting more intense, it is better to take the assistance from a professional digital marketing agency to give your website a higher ranking on the search pages and enhance its visibility.
Your up and running photography website can make you an ace photographer by offering complete control on the business and facilitating direct connection with your customers. You are now a ‘photopreneur’!
Concluding Lines
Your photography website is a tool to generate revenue. Therefore, you need to invest time, money, and efforts to build it in line with your business model and current market trends.
WordPress has an upper hand with an ever-increasing community, appealing themes, and useful plugins. You can give your photography business an edge over your peers with a feature-rich WordPress photography website.
Since our inception, many startups, SMEs, and large enterprises have put trust in our website development services.
At Solwin, we are committed to offering the best-in-class WordPress themes and WordPress plugins for your existing or new WordPress site.
We have delivered enterprise-grade web and eCommerce solutions to the global clients using Magento and WordPress platforms. Our customized solutions are designed by keeping all the business needs in mind.
Just contact us with your project requirements and our experienced WordPress developers will do the rest.