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If you are trying to grow a profitable photography business, chances are you already know how important a strong website is for long-term success. And while you may have a great eye for composing and editing beautiful images, you may not have the right level of expertise to know what does and doesn’t make a great website.

As you work on your new website’s design, be sure to avoid these common mistakes made by photographers on the web today.

Too Little Content

Even if you have some of the most stunning photographs and would prefer to let them do most of the selling for you online, it doesn’t mean you should rely too heavily on only letting them do the talking. Content is still a vitally important piece to your website’s user experience!

Not only do people who visit your website want to know what you offer, but they ideally want to have enough information to connect with you personally before even reaching out to you through your contact form. You’ll also reap the benefits of higher search engine rankings with a strategic content strategy as well.

Too Many Images

As the artist, you probably have a similar challenge to most other artists out there: you have a personal love for all of your work. Although that is completely understandable, it doesn’t mean every image you’ve ever taken deserves to be front-and-center on your website.

Whether you ask friends and family (or other experienced photographers) to help you, or you practice being a little more critical of your own work, it’s extremely beneficial to narrow down to the best of the best before putting them online.

Why? For a couple of great reasons. First, you should make sure that the work you publish online depicts your best and most relevant work that speaks to your brand and ideal clients. Secondly, too many images (especially with large file sizes that aren’t optimized) can slow down your site load speed, preventing users from enjoying your site while also harming your SEO.

Lack of Contact Information

You also want to make sure your contact information is easily accessible across your website. Far too many photographers make the mistake of linking to social media handles and a contact page, but forget to list a phone number or email address. Be sure that anyone who comes across your website and is interested in hiring you for your photography skills can actually contact you.

Start Your New Website Design Today

With a liveBooks website, you’ll be able to use our stunning, customizable website templates that look great on any mobile device!

We’ve also got a top-notch support team who’s here to help you every step of the way. Start for free today!

On your journey as a small business owner, there will be a few tools that come up that make your life a whole lot easier. One of these tools is Google Analytics.

Google Analytics allows you to track traffic and data coming into your website. This information can make a world of difference in how you market your business and build your online presence. You can use the data Analytics collects to help you determine your next steps when it comes to revising your website and marketing to your customers online.

If you don’t have time to do an in-depth study on all that Google Analytics entails, then here are a few quick tips for navigating the analytical side of your business.

Audience demographics

As a business owner, you’re well aware that knowing your audience is key to building your audience and gearing your products or services towards them.

Google Analytics is an extremely helpful tool you can use to understand your audience. Under the ‘Audience’ tab, you can find a general overview that includes the percentage of users divided by country, city and language.

You can also enable the Demographics which can give you more details on the gender and age of your users. Knowing this information can help you determine who exactly is visiting your website and how you can cater your website to them.

Page traffic

While you can see how much traffic your overall website is getting by day, week, or even month, you can also determine which sections of your website are seeing the most traffic. By segmenting your analytics by page or post, you can see where your visitors are navigating to or spending the most time on. This is helpful knowledge as it allows you to see what your visitors are most interested in on your website.

If you received a significant amount of traffic to a specific blog post, for example, you might consider writing a similar blog post on that topic because it’s clear that it’s something your visitors are interested in. Similarly, if your About Page is receiving a lot of traffic, that tells you that your audience is interested in the story and people behind your business and you can build upon that.

Traffic acquisition

In addition to knowing who your audience is and learning where they navigate to on your website, a key piece of helpful information is knowing where your audience is coming from. Under the Acquisition tab, you’ll find ‘Channels.’ It’s here that you’ll be able to see which sources your traffic is coming from. The main channels include Direct, Organic Search, Referral, Social, Paid Search, and Email.

This information can give you a lot of insight into how people are finding your business online. If you’ve put a lot of effort into your SEO marketing, then you’ll likely see significant traffic coming from Organic Search. If you’ve been focused on social media marketing, then you’ll probably see a good amount of traffic from Social.

Bounce rates

Bounce rates can be tricky to understand. Put simply, they are the percentage of visits in which a person leaves your website from any page on your website without browsing further or clicking on any other pages.

Most businesses will likely want their website visitors to navigate to more than one page or blog post. A higher bounce rate (such as anything above 50%) means that many of your visitors aren’t exploring more than one page or blog post before leaving. This is seen as a negative “score” in Google’s eyes, because it assumes that those who leave that quickly didn’t find the information engaging and/or useful.

Focus on improving user experience on pages or posts with high bounce rates, and encourage them to click on other pages through buttons and links.

Optimize Your Website’s Design Today

If the data you see in Google Analytics isn’t what you’d hoped it would be, then it may be time to change up your design and content.

With a liveBooks website, you’ll be able to use our stunning, customizable website templates that look great on any mobile device!

We’ve also got a top-notch support team who’s here to help you every step of the way. Start for free today!

If you’re in the process of building a website for your business or redesigning your website, the homepage is typically the first place you start with.

Your homepage needs to provide visitors with a quick rundown of your business; think of it like your elevator pitch. Who you are, what you do, and why they should be interested. It’s important to sum up the important parts of your business and to “hook” the users so they want to keep scrolling and check out every page.

Need a little guidance? Here’s a brief checklist of the top things every website homepage should include.

Logo

First and foremost, give your website a piece of your brand identity with your logo. Your business logo needs to live at the top of your homepage in order to stay top of mind to your visitors.

Logos let consumers know more about you and gives them something to remember and identify your brand with down the road, so it’s an essential part of your homepage that shouldn’t be overlooked.

Give your brand identity and website some thought to figure out the best placement for your logo — maybe it’s the top corner, maybe it’s front and center. Either way, make sure it leaves a lasting impression on your website visitors.

Introductions

This is your chance to quickly communicate to a new visitor who you are and what you do. While you can save the details and backstory for your About page, the intro on your homepage should hone in on exactly what you want your brand to represent — this is where your tagline or brand statement should go.

Include a heading and a subhead to give consumers a bite-sized idea of what your business is, who it’s for, and what they can get out of it.

Navigation

Your website should provide a good user experience, and this is especially important when designing your navigation menu. The navigation on your homepage should feel intuitive; it should flow easily, guide visitors from page to page and take them where they need to go.

The navigation bar is often the first place users check out so they can get a feel for what the rest of your website has in store for them. Be strategic when thinking about how you want your navigation bar organized.

Products/Services

You will likely have a separate page that lists your products or services and into more detail, but the homepage is your chance to highlight a few of them.

If you have an online shop, this is where you can feature your recent products, a new collection, or seasonal picks. Use this page to draw them in and give them a sneak peek of your product offerings.

If you have a service-based business, use the front page to talk a little bit about each service you offer, and link it to the page that goes into more detail.

Contact Information

Once potential customers or clients have scrolled through your homepage, have a solid idea of what your business is, and are attracted to what you offer, they will be looking for a way to contact you.

Whether you have a brick and mortar address or you solely operate online, include your contact information on your homepage.

As a business, the last thing you want is for a potential client or customer to struggle to find a way to reach you. Make it easy for the user by having a space on the homepage clearly dedicated to your contact information or including a button that links to your contact page.

Start Designing Your Website Today!

liveBooks offers mobile-responsive, customizable website templates for creative professionals and businesses worldwide.

The best part? Our website designs are ready for search engines and look great on any mobile device!

We’ve also got a top-notch support team who’s here to help you every step of the way. Start for free here.