Hey everybody,
This is Rejaul Islam from rejaulsoft.com. I’ve got five tips for branding your website. So let’s take a closer look at these five tips and I will explain all of those tips down below.
(1) HAVING A CLEAR MESSAGE
Make sure that your website has a clear message. So what does that mean? It means what do you specialize in, who are your target clients, where do you offer your services, and who are you? When you look at a website you want to make sure that it’s really clear and easy to understand what you do. For example, if you take family pictures, you want to make sure that when people come to the site, that’s the first thing that they see. Somebody is looking to hire you to take pictures of their children and their family, they come and see nothing but bribe or they see no commercial works, they’re not going to hire you. They’re going to close your website as soon as it opens up and you lost the leads within seconds. So make sure that your site has a clear message. Whenever people come to your site make sure it’s easy to find out who you are. If you think about it and terms of what you’re offering. If you are shooting pictures for a living, people are hiring you to take pictures of special moments. Then it’s important to know who you are. So have a headshot on your about page, have your name on your site. I can’t even tell you how many websites I’ve been to, there’s no contact information, there’s no headshot, there’s no information about who this person is. It’s just the name of a studio and that’s it. make it very clear who you are. It’s easy to overlook that and we understand that photographers don’t necessarily like to be in front of the camera. But have a headshot of yourself at the very least on the site that way people know who they’re reaching out to, who they’re potentially hiring to take pictures of their kids, or shoot their wedding whatever it might be.
The next thing that you want to do is make it clear, what type of services you offer and where you offer them. If you think about it everybody worries about search engine optimization and SEO which is a whole other conversation. But one of the biggest things about search engines that people don’t realize that Google and the other search engines have become very localized. So what that means is, search results for you are going to be different than somebody who’s 50 miles away. Generally what you want to do is, make sure that you have it clear about where you offer your services. If you have a physical studio and you offer your services, typically you’re going to show up in search results 20 to 25 miles away from you on average. Now you know there are outliers just like anything else. But that’s where the bulk of your traffic is going to come from.
So with that being said, you have to make sure that it’s crystal clear where you offer your services, whether that’s in person, whether that’s in a studio, that doesn’t really matter. You just want to make sure that very clear, people can find that information from you about who are you serving, what do you offer? Is it in the studio, is it in person, is it on-site or is it in the person’s home? These are all questions that your website should answer. So that leads to some more content that is really important to building your brand as well. On your website, if you shoot in the studio you have people come into your studio, share your studio space put pictures of your studio on there. No one wants to take their kids or their family to a place without knowing where they’re going. So it’s important that people see hey, this is a warm inviting place where these beautiful images are going to be taken. If you shoot in person have a picture of yourself, talk about the experience so that people know who’s coming into their home. These are all things that are really important. If you can even do a video that’s great as well. A great intro video on your site is really helpful because that stands out, it’s not just a giant wall of text. You think about it, people love YouTube videos. Guess what, an intro video to yourself would be absolutely no different and it’s great content. It really is something that will make you stand out versus your competition and the other people that are out there.
(2) PICKING THE IMAGES TO SHOWCASE IN YOUR PORTFOLIO
This is really important and it’s, how to select the images that you’re showing on your website. Show the best of your best work and what does that mean showcase your signature work. I mean, what are you known for, what are the images that you’ve taken, that are just jaw-dropping. Less is more in a lot of ways out. If you just have a million images on your site, no one’s going to sort through them. So you really want to highlight the best of your best work, showcase people hey, this is what you’re going to get when you hire me. That really will help you in terms of people coming to your site and wanting to know more.
(3) HAVING AN EFFECTIVE LOGO
When you think about your logo, it’s the most important piece of your brand in a lot of ways. Because it’s what speaks for you when you’re not there, it’s what sticks with people when they see it. Everybody knows what the target logo looks like, what the McDonald’s logo looks like, what the Starbucks logo looks like, what the Nike logo looks like. We go down the list there are so many brands out there that have a logo that they’re known for. Apple, it’s a good another great example and your logo is not different. Make sure that you have a great logo and make sure it’s on your website. Beyond that make sure your logo is everywhere that your clients interact with you. So whether that’s on social media, make sure that your logo is on your Facebook business page. If it’s on any other directories that you might have out there, whether that’s Twitter or Instagram or Pinterest or any of the other places, make sure that your logo is everywhere and it’s the same. Other stuff that’s easily overlooked if you have a business card. If you have any other stationery that type of thing, make sure that your logo is everywhere. That goes a long way for a good interaction with photo bids. For example, if I hand you my business card as it has our logo on it. If I email you it has our logo in it, if you go to our website our logos on it, if you go to our Facebook page our logos on it. Everywhere you go that’s related back to us, you’ll see that logo. Your studio should be no different. Your logo should be out there and then everybody’s face so that they see it, they recognize it and they know hey, I’m going to get great photography and a great experience from this photographer. So, hope you guys now understand the importance of a logo.
(4) HAVING A COLOR SCHEME THAT ENGAGES WITH THE AUDIENCE
You’ve got your website put together, you’ve got your content, your portfolio work is sort of through and you’ve got a logo. So, now it’s time to style that website. your color is very very very important and this goes a lot of different ways. You want to look at the first part that we talked about which is identifying your audience and being clear about your message. That’s going to lead into your color scheme, you want your color scheme to reflect not only who you are but also the clients that you’re going after. So what does that mean, if you take pictures of family portraits as a great example, make sure that your colors are soft warm they’re inviting pastels are very popular.
Now, the other side of that is if you go to a website that has a terrible color scheme, involves seeing the bright colors stacked on top of each other or the old flashing gifts that type of thing, it’s not going to help you. People are going to open that site, they’re going to go back and they’re going to go to the next site and they’re Google search. It happens every day, we’ve all had that experience as consumers where we’ve opened a website, looking for something then we see the site’s terrible, the colors are terrible then we hit back and we’re gone forever, we never think again. Your website is no different so your color scheme is absolutely key to making sure that your website is branded effectively and that also carries over into your social media and other things that you do online. Make sure that your color scheme is consistent across as much of your presence online as possible.
(5) ENGAGING WITH BOTH YOUR WEBSITE AND YOUR FOLLOWER ON SOCIAL MEDIA
A big mistake that I see a lot of photographers make is, posting everything to their social media without a link back to their website. You’re doing it backward, what you want to do is make sure that you’re posting to your website and sharing it out to your social media. The reason for that is because places like Facebook have no follower, so content that you post there, it doesn’t get indexed with Google and with the way that Facebook’s algorithms, go in these days you’re going to have to pay him to get people to actually see it for a lot of your following.
So, what you want to do is post to up your blog, share it out to your social media with that’s driving traffic back into your website inbound traffic and your website is one of the biggest factors when it comes to search engine optimization and getting a good rank with Google. Make sure that everything that you do online points back to your website whether that’s posting to a Facebook page or if you have a strong following on Instagram, make sure that there’s a link in your bio back to your website. If you’re sending out emails make sure that there’s a clickable link in your signature on your emails. Everywhere that you do business online that you can have a link back to your website to make sure that you have it. Getting social is absolutely key to engaging with your audience.
The other side of that too is, making sure that you’re being social in the right places. So what does that mean, if you’re taking pictures of family portraits and children and babies those moms are on Facebook, if you’re taking pictures of high school seniors typically they’re going to be more on Instagram. Identify where your audience is and get social with them. Because that engaging audience is, where you’re going to build up your client base, and featuring your images is going to make those clients get organic with you and share yourself, it’s all going to drive traffic back into your website. It’s absolutely key to building your brand and it’s also about having that consistency in your presence.
So, hope that 5 tips on branding your website help you to get some knowledge about that. If you need more information about online business and thinking about making a website, just fill up the form below and feel free to contact us.
