One of the most important marketing tools for photographers today is a well-designed photography portfolio website (see also Two Basic Steps to Promote Yourself as a Photographer).

You can be taking the most amazing pictures with the world’s best camera, but if no one knows about you and your images (your brand), then all the time you have invested into photography is without much purpose.

photo credit: thom?

Establishing your presence online is one of the most powerful ways to get your work seen.

Whether your goal is to sell fine art prints, stock images or perhaps promote yourself as a portrait photographer, a good photography portfolio website is vital to promote yourself and your photography.

So how should you go about creating your photography portfolio website? Good question. I have been around the block on this one.

• I have used HTML-based photography templates.
• I have built and designed my own photography website from scratch in HTML code.
• I have run my own photoblog.
• I have used a Flash-based website.

In fact I have now come full circle by changing back to a HTML-based photography template again.

Recently I quit my Flash-based website and signed up for a Photoshelter account. I will explain why I chose Photoshelter for my personal photography portfolio website at the end of this post.

Considerations to Make

In my opinion the first consideration you’ll need to make is how much time you want to spend on creating your website. While setting out to build your own website can be a lot of fun, it can also be very time consuming. By contrast you can literally be up and running in 5 minutes with a great looking website by choosing a template-based website.

If you decide to build and design your own website, Adobe Dreamweaver CS5 is probably the leading web design software on the market today (November 2010). If you have little or no coding experience consider getting Dreamweaver CS5: The Missing Manual by David Sawyer McFarland or Dreamweaver CS5 For Dummies by Janine Warner.

If you decide coding is not for you, the next consideration to make is how much flexibility of design a template-based website offers you and does it meet your requirements?

There is nothing worse than ending up with a template-based website only to discover that you can’t change and tweak it the way you want.

It is therefore also a good idea to check if you can sign up for a free trial period which allows you to “test drive” the website before you open your wallet.

Here is a quick list of things to consider before deciding on how to create your website:

• Overall appearance
• Flexibility of design
• Blogging capability
• E-commerce functionality
• Print services
• Storage space
• Password protected client area
• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Cost and fee structure
• Free trials and cancellation policy

Comparison of Four Photography Portfolio Websites

When I decided to quit my Flash-based website I considered four different template based photography portfolio websites; Zenfolio, SmugMug, PhotoShelter and Photocrati.

As I already mentioned above I ended up choosing PhotoShelter for my personal photography portfolio website.

I decided to compare the four photography portfolio websites and here is how I scored them on the various considerations I made:

SmugMug and Zenfolio represents excellent value for money and are both solutions which are very rich in features.

PhotoShelter is a slightly more expensive option. It’s also very feature rich and at the same time very focused on helping photographers with their search engine optimization. It also comes with a very good e-commerce solution.

Photocrati is a WordPress-based solution offering a stylish way to display your work and blog about it at the same time. However it does not come with as many of the features included in the above solutions.

Why I Chose PhotoShelter

I decided to quit my Flash-based website primarily because it offered me no e-commerce options to sell my work. It was also a fairly expensive solution at around US$600 per year. PhotoShelter’s standard plan costs US$329 per year in comparison.

It also weighed into my decision that my Flash-based website was quite slow in loading up (around 15-20 seconds) whereas my new PhotoShelter website loads up in less than 5 seconds. I had several visitors commenting on the slow nature of the Flash-based website and Google Analytics indicated that many visitors abandoned their visit as a result of the slow loading of the Flash-based website.

While I think Flash-based websites are often much more stylish than HTML-based websites, some of the points mentioned above are quite important to the success of your website. Likewise search engine optimization (SEO) of your website is also an important consideration when you’re weighing up a Flash-based website against a HTML-based website.

The PhotoShelter website

OK, to the point now – why PhotoShelter? Well, it’s probably easiest to list the reasons, so here is a list of my main reasons for choosing PhotoShelter:

• PhotoShelter offers professional, good looking websites with just enough customization options for my needs.
• I can very easily switch themes at no cost if I wish to get a new “look” after a while.
• In my 14 days $1 trial period I directly interacted with PhotoShelter’s CEO Allen Murabayashi through their community forum inquiring about a small design change for the Crisp theme which was then implemented only a few weeks later along with a string of other improvements (some of which had been on the cards for a while).
• PhotoShelter’s e-commerce solution is very good and incredibly flexible which was an important factor for me.
• I have the ability to use my own domain name.
• PhotoShelter is very focused on helping photographers with their search engine optimization (SEO) and this is evident throughout the entire solution that they offer. I think this shows that they “care”.
• I like the fact that PhotoShelter’s product is aimed at “serious photographers”.
• PhotoShelter’s help documentation is excellent.
• PhotoShelter also works as an archive for my most important photos.
• The product is constantly evolving, but it also seems to me (from reading the forums) that new changes are not implemented without having been thought through with careful attention to detail on all levels.
• The online community of serious photographers associated with PhotoShelter is huge and very supportive.

You can see my PhotoShelter website at www.folkeandersen.com (please note my site is still work in progress at the time this post is published)

If you liked this article, you may also like these:

• Are You Photoblogging?
• Two Basic Steps to Promote Yourself as a Photographer

Self-promotion is something I often struggle with as a photographer and I know I’m not alone in this boat. Most photographers simply enjoy the act of creating images and are usually a little shy when it comes to promoting their own art.

You can be taking the most amazing pictures with the world’s best camera, but if no one knows about you and your images, then all the time you have invested into photography is without much purpose.

While many photographers are shy about promoting themselves, I don’t know any photographers who don’t want to share their images with the world and possibly see their images put to good use in one way or another whether it’s for advertising purposes or as wall art.

If you are serious about your photography, at the very least you should consider taking these two basic marketing steps to promote yourself and your images:

1. Build a Portfolio Website

If you don’t already have a portfolio website this is the first step you need to take to get your work in front of the world.

In this internet age it has never been easier to get your photography in front of thousands of people – people who could be interested to you buy your images!

There are several ways you can get your own professional looking website. Try to google ‘websites for photographers and artists’ and Google returns 810,000 listings (or thereabouts)! Some of the more serious choices you could consider include options like liveBooks, clikpic or picaholic.

If you want full control of the look and feel of your website, you can design and build it yourself. It’s not as difficult as it may sound. You can use a web authoring program like Adobe Dreamweaver CS5 to design exceptional websites, faster than ever. Dreamweaver is probably the primary web authoring program on the market today. It’s a very powerful program which you can you can explore in depth as your web authoring skills grow over time.

However, you don’t have to buy, design or build your own individual website to start sharing your images and get your name in front of people.

There are several excellent photo sharing sites which will allow you to do one or more of the following: organize, categorize, display, print and sell your images. To explore your options I would recommend that you take a look at a sites like Zenfolio, SmugMug, Photocrati or PhotoShelter.

My own personal favourite solution is PhotoShelter which is also the option I use for my personal website. I have written in more details about why I chose to PhotoShelter in this post: Choosing Your Photography Portfolio Website.

You can also visit Web Hosting for Photographers which is another great place to start if you want to get online with your photography (or if you’re simply looking for a host for your website). Web Hosting for Photographers is particularly interesting because they integrate with a number of different photography solutions which makes it easy for you to get started. Take a look at their ‘solutions’ link for some examples.

You could also take a closer look at products like Lightbox Photo Gallery and PhotoStore which integrate easily with Web Hosting for Photographers.

Whichever solution you choose, the important part is that you get yourself and your work online and in front of as many eyeballs as possible.

2. Print Your Own Photography Business Cards

While online marketing is indeed the buzz word of the 21st century, nothing beats a good old fashioned business card which you can hand over to people you get in contact with through your photography.

If nothing else keep a batch of photography business cards in your camera bag and hand it out to people you encounter when you are out photographing.

I have been approached so many times by people who are curious about what I’m photographing and while this sometimes interrupt the creative flow (it usually happens just when the light is right) I often try to take the time to talk to people and give them my card and tell them that they can see my work online.

This type of interaction can lead to sales. Many people buying art loves some sort of personal connection with the artist, so if you take the time to talk to people and tell them a little bit about yourself, you give them a small ‘experience’ which makes them much more likely to want to buy your art.

One of the coolest companies I have come across when it comes to printing business cards for photographers (or other promotional items relating to photography) is Moo UK or Moo US.

Why?

They are the only company I have come across that allows you to choose up to 50 different images to display on your business cards and still print them at a very reasonable price! They also offer other products like MiniCards, Christmas Cards, Postcards, Stickers and Notecards.

So don’t be shy, start promoting yourself and your art. You’re the best – and often the only – one to do it!

If you liked this article, you may also like these:

• Choosing Your Photography Portfolio Website
• Are You Photoblogging?