# Question about own website



## RBL (Nov 25, 2011)

Hi all,

I am not sure where to post my question, hope this is a good place.

I am an amateur photographer. I like to photograph landscapes (amongst other things, but for the purpose of this thread let's just concentrate on the landscape photography). For some time I am thinking about selling some of my photographs, uploaded some of them to couple stock photography agencies, just to see if there is any interest in them. Well, I'm sure you all know and I know now as well, that landscape work does not sell well on stock market (seems like the only thing that sells is the 'happy office people' type of photography. I am not disappointed, because I was expecting that.

Anyway, my next step would be to create my own website and start selling pictures from there. Now, this costs money and I'm sure you would all agree, that nobody likes to throw money away.

For the people with own website already working for some time, is the website bringing you any profit? Is this something you would do again? Are you selling photographs on your website or is the www just there as an advertisement for your business?

I tried a free website BTW, but did not like the outcome, so I am thinking about hiring a web designer to make me a professional-looking webiste (I might have somebody who wouldn't charge me a stupid amount of money for that).

Any help would be appreciated 

Thank you :thumbup:


----------



## Big Mike (Nov 25, 2011)

Welcome to the forum.

Setting up a website doesn't need to be expensive.  First you need a domain name, which can be had for around $20 per year (probably less).  Then you need hosting.  A basic hosting plan can be had for $6 per month.  Then you need the site itself.  Most hosting companies will have some free templates or basic web design tools to build it yourself.  You could hire someone to build it for you, but a cheaper option would be to just buy a template...there are many sources and a wide price range.  

That's the easy part.  The hard part is actually selling the photos.  You have already seen that it's hard to sell photos on a stock site...and the people visiting those sites are likely people who are already prepared to buy images/photos.  If you are just on your own site, the average viewer is much more likely to be the type of person who just looks at pictures.  Another way to put it, would be to think about how many visits you're likely to have, per person that actually buys something.  For landscape photos, the conversion ratio might be 10,000 to 1.  Heck, it might be 100,000 to 1.  So you would need to have millions of visitors to make any money on this.  That's not unheard of, plenty of sites get millions of hits a week or month....but that's not easy to do.  
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the science of getting your site to rank high on sites like Google.  The higher you rank, the easier it is for people to find your site.  But even that probably wouldn't be enough to sell photos.  You would likely need to have a very active, 'fresh' site that keeps drawing people back to the site on a daily basis....and you aren't going to get that just selling photos.  

From what I've seen, in order to really sell photos on your website, you have to sell people on yourself.  In other words, they have to know (of) you.  So a 'famous' photographer could do this, but Joe Shmow would have trouble.  You could advertise like crazy...but that's likely a money pit that won't get you return on investment...at least not with landscape photos.  

I'm certainly not famous, but I have sold some photos/prints based on my website.  But even then, the clients found my site based on a recommendations from people they knew, who knew me or someone else who knew me etc.  

I think that a more likely route to take, to make money on landscape photography is to sell prints/products in person.  So maybe that's an art show or even craft show.  I wouldn't resort to a flea market, but that's on option.  A step up from that would be to get into an art gallery....but that's a pretty competitive field.


----------



## Rephargotohp (Nov 25, 2011)

It's not expensive to have you own website with a cart system. The problem  is If you want to have your own website and sell yor photos most likely it won't work because of one reason: Traffic to your site. Unless you are really an SEO genius and even at that what would drive people to go to your site especially qualified customers that are interested in buying Photographic art and not just stop by to look at pretty pictures. The chances really are slim to none. Sorry but that's the truth. 100 unique visitors a month will not do much

You could try things like Zenfolio or smugmug but you end up with the same problem of no traffic to your site

Probably your best bet is to use a service that already has a large amount of traffic with qualified customers, such as Art.com Fine art America or Essty. People that go there are looking to buy things. BUT even with those services the competition is fierce and you have to know how to play the game at each place to get your images up high in the search ranks. And on top if it you'll have to make yourself visible in every social media place you can find and plaster yourself everywhere to buld a following..If your stuff is even of note or different enough to make people notice. You may also have to look at commision scales, how happy will you be to make $4 on each print? ( it is possible to make more at some sites BUT)

Not trying to burst your bubble or telling you not to dream big. Go for what ever is your dream. I'm just saying some of the realities of it


----------



## RBL (Nov 25, 2011)

Really appreciate you honesty, guys. This is exactly what I am after. 

Please do not be affraid of 'bursting my bubble', because you won't find any 'bubble' here. I am perfectly aware that the competition is fierce. Not only that there is a number of great professionals who are much better than myself, but also the photography market is getting bigger and bigger each day (and please don't start me on micro stock photography).

I am not trying to make millions here, I know this is impossible. I was just thinking about creating a nice looking website, upload my photos and maybe I could sell one or two per year. Yes, I would love to be able to sell more, but I am a realistic person. So, bearing that in mind, would you still go for your own website? Invest few hundred pounds/dollars in hope that I can at least get that back at some point in future. I mean, when the website is there, there is really not much of a hussle to keep it - upload a new photo, pay for domian each year, etc.


----------



## bazooka (Nov 25, 2011)

It seems to me that you need some sort of catch to get repeat viewers to your site (not unlike a photographer that is worth looking at again).  Look at strobist.  DH doesn't sell anything on his blog as viewers are the product for advertisers, so he has to get a whole bunch of viewers.  This is the same thing you want although the end game is different.  So you need to update the site with something that will hold people there.  Can you write?  Are you good at teaching?  Getting viewers to follow your site requires regular updates.  This is part of selling yourself, so people can connect your work with you.  Otherwise it's just another pretty picture that gets a once-over.


----------



## RBL (Nov 25, 2011)

I was thinking about a blog thingy as well, but... well, I'm rubbish at internet social trends. I like internet forums (like this one for example), but I don't follow any blogs, don't have a Twitter or Facebook account. Kind of internet social imbecile. 

Might give a photography blog a go to see if I like it, but even if I would, not sure about the others.


----------



## flashyinteractive (Dec 15, 2011)

I agree, it depends how well your site is SEO. If your site doesn't show up in the search engines, then no one will find it to buy your photos. Having a custom designed site that is designed by someones that knows a thing or two  about SEO may help get better results than just buying a domain and a template.

The zenfolio might not be a bad idea or doing the local market idea. Going with the local market idea, that way you build a local client base and you don't have to compete with every other person trying to sell a photo.

I tried that once. I made my own site and no clue about how to get traffic and had only like 90 visitors out of the whole year.


----------



## RBL (Jan 6, 2012)

Just a bit of an update.

I finally motivated myself and created my website... well, not 'created', but customised. 

I bought my own domain (absolute nightmare to come up with the name (all the ones I like were taken already), ended up with some random name) and email address. Hosting and template is from Zenfolio, I'm still on trial, but I like what I see, so will pay for a full year soon. 

There is still lots of work needed on the website. I keep tweaking the look, but still have lots of important decisions to make, like pricing, which products I want to offer, also (right pain in buttocks) needs to come up with my own rights for digital downloads, as I don't like the Zanfolio default ones. Need to create something like 'rights managed' on Alamy.

I would like to thank you all for your help


----------



## adarlingshot (Jan 6, 2012)

love to see it when it is done


----------



## RBL (Jan 6, 2012)

adarlingshot said:


> love to see it when it is done



I will post the link as soon as I will be happy with the results. At the moment I keep redesigning it every 5 min


----------



## katerolla (Jan 6, 2012)

I do CSS and HTML wedsites and Hosting but I can't guarantee business


----------



## RBL (Jan 6, 2012)

Here is the website

Dark Box Photography

now, bear in mind that the website is only 2 days old and it is still, very much, work in progress. I need to think about better pricing, remove some of the products, come up with digital downloads rights, work on background, re-write the welcome message and 'about us' tab, work more on the homepage menu etc. 

But I would like to ask for some tips and comments. Please feel free to visit and comment either here, or on the website


----------



## o hey tyler (Jan 6, 2012)

Well, the first thing that jumped out to me is that the two fonts at the top clash hard. I understand one is your logo, but together with the script font, they are not cohesive. The Nav bar is also kind of small, and should have a bit more emphasis drawn to it. 

Other than that, it looks like a servicable website.


----------



## RBL (Jan 6, 2012)

o hey tyler said:


> Well, the first thing that jumped out to me is that the two fonts at the top clash hard. I understand one is your logo, but together with the script font, they are not cohesive. The Nav bar is also kind of small, and should have a bit more emphasis drawn to it.
> 
> Other than that, *it looks like a servicable website*.



Doesn't sound optimistic 

I just made the menu font bigger, I will also play a bit with its colours.

Logo + banner, where do I start on that  Initially I had my logo on the website's background and the banner (ie name) bang in the middle above the menu, but I changed the background and decided to place the logo on the banner together with the name. I guess it doesn't work. And to be honest, I'm not very happy with the logo. Must design something better. I like simple logos, but as you say, both logo + banner doesn't work too good together. Might just remove the logo from the front page altogether, or I will design background already with the logo. There is still so much to do, but I am enjoying it so far.

Really appreciate your comment. Thank you


----------



## o hey tyler (Jan 6, 2012)

I wasn't trying to discourage you. You've got a decent looking website so far. For what it is, it's serviceable. It's not going to win any awards, but what does that matter? I am sure you will continue to improve on it regularly. :thumbup:


----------



## RBL (Jan 6, 2012)

I was only joking  

Nah, don't care about any awards (not that they give awards for websites anyway). I also don't think it will bring me any profit as well, but it is still nice to be able to showcase some of my pictures. Whenever somebody asked I always had to give my flickr name and ask them to look me up. Kind of unprofessional. 

I removed the logo as well and will probably re-design it. Just the name left on the frontpage now. 

Thanks again :thumbup:


----------



## RBL (Jan 6, 2012)

I forgot to add, if anybody thinking about going Zenfolio way, I have the referral code that could save you some money. 

I used somebody elses when I was paying for my website and it went down from £100 to £90. So £10 for beer :thumbup:

When in checkout just enter this code and see the price go down by 10%:

*G7Y-JQH-W9X*


----------



## etnad0 (Jan 7, 2012)

I'm not sure why people suggest Zenfolio. However, if you go through GoDaddy you can get your domain for $1.99 per year and hosting for $5.00 per month. They also install wordpress for you if you request it. Usually takes about an hour. Wordpress also has a ton of themes, plugins, and support. I'm not a fan of the website design, but if it works for you stick with it. 

My main issue is the flash at the top. Flash is terrible for SEO. You're better off having a tagged picture gallery. If you don't care about people actually finding your site through search engines, the design will work.


----------



## RBL (Jan 7, 2012)

I got my domain through 123 (I'm in UK) and hosting is from Zenfolio, so is the template. Zenfolio is actually very helpful with SEO and their templates are already SEO optimised (at least that's what they say). All I had to do it to prove ownership by including metatag onto my homepage. I can use keywords to make the wbsite easily searchable. I am yet to tag my pictures. I want the website to look as good as possible, before going public (not that I expect much interest anyway).

Can't see anything wrong with Zenfolio TBH. Yes, their templates are nothing spectacular, but spectacular is not what I need. I want the website to be as simple as possible, the photos should be the main interest, not flashy animations (at least that's what I think). I paid Zenfolio for 1 year. After that, I can migrate somewhere else if needed. 

Thanks for taking time and looking, also for your suggestions. I will definitely check the GoDaddy and Wordpress out.


----------



## RyanSands (Jan 7, 2012)

etnad0 said:


> I'm not sure why people suggest Zenfolio. However, if you go through GoDaddy you can get your domain for $1.99 per year and hosting for $5.00 per month. They also install wordpress for you if you request it. Usually takes about an hour. Wordpress also has a ton of themes, plugins, and support. I'm not a fan of the website design, but if it works for you stick with it.
> 
> My main issue is the flash at the top. Flash is terrible for SEO. You're better off having a tagged picture gallery. If you don't care about people actually finding your site through search engines, the design will work.



Actually Godaddy is horrid for Wordpress installations. Go use Hostgator...its light years faster, installs Wordpress in about 5-7 seconds...yes I said seconds and their support is ten times better then Godaddy's. Not to mention they are cheaper and their interface is way better.


----------



## RBL (Jan 7, 2012)

Question: Google Analytics is showing that I had 38 unique visits  yesterday, while Zenfolio stats are only showing 4. Confusing. Any ideas  who's right?


----------



## etnad0 (Jan 9, 2012)

RyanSands said:


> etnad0 said:
> 
> 
> > I'm not sure why people suggest Zenfolio. However, if you go through GoDaddy you can get your domain for $1.99 per year and hosting for $5.00 per month. They also install wordpress for you if you request it. Usually takes about an hour. Wordpress also has a ton of themes, plugins, and support. I'm not a fan of the website design, but if it works for you stick with it.
> ...



I disagree, I've been using wordpress on GoDaddy since 2007 and I've never had a problem. Wordpress can't install in 5-7 seconds. It takes longer than that to put in your log in information to get it set up. I highly doubt they refresh their servers ever 5-7 seconds where you can use it immediately. I've manually installed wordpress and at best you can expect 20 minutes. As far as interface, I guess that's opinion. I've used host gator back when I dabbled in internet marketing and that's all they promoted because of affiliate commissions. I was very unhappy with their service.


----------



## TimGilbertson (Jan 17, 2012)

RBL said:


> Question: Google Analytics is showing that I had 38 unique visits  yesterday, while Zenfolio stats are only showing 4. Confusing. Any ideas  who's right?



Google Analytics is generally right.

Looks good, I think. However, it looks like your flash isn't loading for me. I can't get it to run.

Websites can be tough. I've spent a lot of time with HTML and PHP (I just wrote a reciprocal backlinking program for photographers if anyone's interested in free backlinks!), but I'd never be happy with what I could make myself. We just bit the bullet and dropped a big chunk of money with Deb at dstripe.com | custom flash websites. Best decision we ever made.

I think if you keep tweaking it, it'll be a pretty nice site. But yeah SEO is a HUGE thing. Don't trust when a web hosting company says things are SEO friendly. Everything (keywording, backlinks) comes from what you put into the website, not what Zenfolio does. Flash is a hinderance (I've got an entirely flash site) but it's not a non-starter. It's not 1999, Google can crawl flash pretty well I assure you.

Ours is Edmonton Wedding Photographers | Paper Tiger Media


----------



## Bossy (Jan 18, 2012)

What about something like etsy? They get a lot of traffic, it would be less work for you I'd think.

I looked at your website. I'd either make it All Photographs or Gallery, I wouldn't do both. I like where you're going with street signs.

Have *you* printed any of these and hung them on your wall? 

I would put portraits and creative editing together, as well as street people. You could condense even more and put most of your misc into landscapes, along with signs. Or create an Architecture tab.

Your homepage takes forever to load, I've been to your page 3 times and haven't waited for it to finish yet. I also didn't scroll down until the 3rd time. I would either make it a splash page with an Enter link, make it a single photo, or ditch the photo completely and just have your entry words. You don't need the About on the main page and in a About tab 

I would also show photos of your actual prints or canvases (professional photos of photos, crazy ) and narrow down your offering list. Select a couple print sizes, canvas sizes, and maybe a couple more things, then add a "I can also do shirts bags stamps dancing unicorns" disclamer on your contact me or about me page. 

Just my 2 cents!


----------



## RBL (Jan 19, 2012)

TimGilbertson said:


> Google Analytics is generally right.
> 
> Looks good, I think. However, it looks like your flash isn't loading for me. I can't get it to run.
> 
> ...



Fantastic page, simple yet effective. I was thinking about replacing the slideshow gallery with a video montage as well, but am yet to try it out.

Zenfolio has a nice SEO tutorial, with all the steps that I, as an website owner, can do to make it more SEO friendly. I followed it and included most of the stuff already, but more work is, obviously, needed. This is never ending story actually. I keep getting new ideas and keep changing the website every few days. Probably because it is all still very new to me.

I don't even have a clear idea what I want my website to be. Is this going to be purely a portfolio website, or maybe I'm trying to sell prints, or maybe provide photo editing service, or maybe jump straight in deep water and offer photo service? I'm pretty sure my website is showing my indecisiveness, which, I'm sure is not a good thing.

One thing for sure, I am happy I got it. I can learn all the basics BEFORE showing the website to potential clients/customers. The website is there now, I know, but I haven't really advertise it anywhere yet. I'm giving myself this year to decide what I want this website to be and also where I want my photography to go. I don't think I'm ready to go pro just yet, that's for sure. Because I paid for this years hosting already, I will also decide do I want to stay with Zenfolio, or go somewhere else. Maybe I'll try building my website myself, I'm not bad with PCs. Never tried creating websites before, but I'm sure its doable.

I am a bit worried about your and Bossy's comment about the flash gallery being slow/not working properly. I'm hoping this was because I was tweaking something at the time (I got the new idea for slideshow I work on), but am not sure. I tested it with another computer and it seemed to be fine.




Bossy said:


> What about something like etsy? They get a lot of traffic, it would be less work for you I'd think.



I'll have a look on Etsy. I'm just not sure I'm ready to go out to the world with my photography just yet TBH. That's why I don't have a clear idea what the website is for yet. I know, crazy! :er:



> I looked at your website. I'd either make it All Photographs or Gallery,  I wouldn't do both. I like where you're going with street signs.



Initially I had only 'Gallery' with the drop down menu and 'All Photographs' tab wasn't there, but I tried the website with my mobile phone and the flash gallery did not work (stuck on the first image and linking didn't work) and also the Gallery drop-down menu did not work, so there was no way to enter the website to see the pics at all. I added the 'All photographs', as the link to the master gallery, just for situation like this.



> Have *you* printed any of these and hung them on your wall?



No, I haven't print any of my photographs yet... ever... I know crazy, isn't. Trying to sell prints, but never actually seen one in real life. I'm thinking about ordering a canvas for my living room as I have space for that on one of my walls. The thing is, and I'm sure I'm not alone with this, is that I have seen my photographs so many times already, that I'm sick of looking at them  I know that I'll hang one of them on the wall and take it down after few days. Though, I know I should order bunch of prints to: 1. see how they look with and without the Printlab colour correction (I'm not sure I should allow this for customers to do), 2. to test the service. It's on my list 'to do'.



> I would put portraits and creative editing together, as well as street  people. You could condense even more and put most of your misc into  landscapes, along with signs. Or create an Architecture tab.



The idea was to spread pictures accross few galleries to make the website look more professional (doesn't work, I know). I didn't want to end up with either one or two galleries on its own. I also have some more older photos I am yet to add to the website, so the collection should grow and maybe it will make the amount of galleries more relevant. I also wanted to create 'Creative Editing' gallery on its own, to promote the photo editing service. Not so sure is this a good idea, but I think I'll keep it like that for now. There is many more pictures to add to the Street Life gallery. I stopped, because I'm not sure selling prints/photos with people on them without the model release is a good idea. For now I have the 'buy' option disabled from few of my galleries (like portraits, street life and creative editing). I need to read more on the subject, as I don't want to get myself into any legal problems.



> Your homepage takes forever to load, I've been to your page 3 times and  haven't waited for it to finish yet. I also didn't scroll down until the  3rd time. I would either make it a splash page with an Enter link, make  it a single photo, or ditch the photo completely and just have your  entry words. You don't need the About on the main page and in a About  tab



The comment about the front page is very worring, as I spent lots of time tweaking the slideshow, adding/removing photos from it and also I work on a completely new slideshow at the moment. I need to gather some more feedback to decide what to do. I like the idea of a slideshow, but on the other hand (like Google Analytics is showing) most visitors never go beyond the front page and after watching the slideshow they just leave. Like I mentioned before, replacing the slideshow with a video montage is one of the ideas. 

I added the text on the front page as a Zenfolio recommendation for SEO. The words from the text are used by search engines to make the website easier to search (at least that's the theory ). I probably added too much text as well, but this is something I need to work on some more. The text on the front page and the 'about' tab, both have been created in few minutes without giving it much thought. More work is needed.



> I would also show photos of your actual prints or canvases (professional photos of photos, crazy )  and narrow down your offering list. Select a couple print sizes, canvas  sizes, and maybe a couple more things, then add a "I can also do shirts  bags stamps dancing unicorns" disclamer on your contact me or about me  page.
> 
> Just my 2 cents!



This is a very good idea, to show the clients real life examples of the products they can buy. This is added to my 'to do' list now. I was advised to narrow the offering list already, and I've done it already, but then changed my mind and allowed bigger choice. I need to decide which sizes and which products are the most important and apply it. 



I can't thank you enough, Tim and Bossy, for taking time, looking at my website and commenting on it. This is invaluable to me. I haven't got much feedback yet, so any piece of advice is very imporant and very welcome.

Big THANK YOU!


----------



## RBL (May 2, 2012)

It's me again 

Just a quick update.

I decided that I don't like the name of the domain I had and that it won't fit to my new idea, so I paid for a new one.

I also decided to take my photography to the next level and go pro. I'm not sure if this will work, but I won't know until I try. Worst case scenario is that I'll have to sell all my equipment and give the money back to my bank. I hope this won't happen though.

My new website is


Please wish me luck, I will need it


----------



## o hey tyler (May 2, 2012)

I guess I'm having a hard time remembering what separated your previous site from this one as being a "pro" website, other than the fact that it has 'pro' in the name.


----------



## RBL (May 2, 2012)

There is much more content, it's more organised and it has a lot more information about what I offer. 

Yes, it's still Zenfolio template (with a different theme) and hosting. It might look a bit similar (all Zenfolio themes do), but this time it's directed at costumers. Please feel free to say what you don't like about it. I don't think it will win any awards, but it's functional.

It also has a portfolio (which I still build), it has my contact details, it has information about what I do and offer and basic pricing, I added a blog. Previously the website only had few of my landscape pictures and that was about it.

The website is still work in progress, so please feel free to comment if you wish.

Besides my costumers won't know that this site is similar to the one I had before, because the other one does not work anymore.


----------

