How to choose the perfect platform for your new photography blog

When it comes to websites and blogs, never judge a book by its cover. A website or blog may look great but could be a nightmare to use and manage. As someone who works in a visual profession, you also want your blog to stand out for all the right reasons. Finding answers to the following questions will make it easier for you to choose the perfect platform for your new photography blog.

photo blog design

Should I Get Advice from a Professional Before I Start My Blog?

Yes, but find someone reliable and trustworthy. Discuss your website requirements and concerns with a website development professional. These website experts should give you advice about platforms as a whole, rather than just discussing appearance.

Performance, ease-of-use, security, user-friendliness and responsiveness are just some of the factors website designers take into account before making a decision about what system to use. After a meeting with one of these experts, you’ll have a clearer idea about which blogging solution is best for you.

 

Can I Display My Work in a Professional Way?

Galleries, portfolios and blog post layouts are designed to display photographic work in the best possible light. Even if you have dozens of photos, they can be added to galleries and portfolio web pages.

 

How Much Will it Cost?

Most platforms are open source so they are free to install. However, you will need some kind of skin, theme or template to improve the appearance and functionality of your blog. High quality themes used by thousands of photography professionals cost less than $100 dollars. The cost to hire an expert to install the new blog varies so you will need to shop around.

 

Can I Add Content Myself?

Yes. Blogging platforms like WordPress have an administration area where you can login to make changes to a blog. However it’s safer to let your designer look after the design side of the blog.

To ensure this happens, your web design expert can set up 2 user accounts for this administration area so that both of you can modify the blog safely. One user account would be an administrator account for your designer that has full access to every part of the blogging system. The second account would be a contributor or editor account that only lets you create and edit posts and pages. This prevents you from making unnecessary modifications to the website design.

 

Will It Be Easy To Generate Traffic?

Many photographers’ main concern is the appearance of a blog. However, other aspects such as Search Engine Optimization and social media integration are just as important. These features help increase the number of visitors to a website. Without visitors, your blog is worthless.

 

Will It Be Responsive?

Website visitors use a wide range of computing devices including PC’s, laptops, tablets and smartphones. All of these devices have different screen sizes. This means the platform you use for your blog needs to responsive so a website can be viewed perfectly on different devices.

 

Does the Blogging Platform Include Clean, Minimalist Layouts?

Visitors should instantly know what your blog is about. Unfortunately many owners of photography websites let their creative side get out of control. They add random images and have a poorly laid out website. This may look great to the website owner but it can be distracting and confusing for website visitors. After all, it’s your visitors you want to impress.

 

Are there E-commerce Options?

If you decide to sell products or services on your blog, you want to be certain the platform you use allows for this. E-commerce capabilities add a lot of value to a blog. You could sell prints or list your services which can be selected and paid for through your website. This is a particularly effective way to increase your income when your blog starts generating a large number of visitors.

 

Can You Easily Add and Change Your Blog’s Features?

The internet and the photography industry continue to evolve. In a year’s time you may need to add new functionality to your blog. You want a platform that moves with the times and is designed to cater for future design changes. As well as this, you want a platform that’s highly-customizable now, so that you can make your blog unique.

 

Is It Easy to Customize and Change Your Blog for Different Occasions?

There are certain times of the year when you will want to change the look of your blog. Christmas, Easter and other events are examples of these special times of the year.

 

Does the Platform Make It Easy to Interact with Blog Visitors?

Starting a blog is an effective way to communicate with customers and online visitors. However, you want to be able to build your blog into a more advanced communications system. The platform you choose should include places to comment, share your posts and images and let you integrate social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest.

 

What Support and Maintenance is Available?

The platform you choose should be upgraded on a regular basis. Platforms like WordPress are open-source and have a huge community of users and developers. This means the security, design and other features of this platform continue to improve and evolve. The fact that so many people use a platform like WordPress means there are plenty of experts who will be able to support or maintain your blog, if the need arises.

 

How Well Does the Platform Perform?

A photography blog includes large numbers of images. Images can slow down the loading speed of a website. Make sure the platform you choose loads quickly and isn’t affected when large numbers of images are added. For example, some platforms have image compression plugins or add-ons that cater for this problem.

Starting a blog a blog is an important event for a photography professional. More people than ever interact and communicate with each other online. Photographers in particular make their living by providing visual products. Your blog has to be able to reflect your creative side but also has to carry out many practical functions. This is why it’s important to choose a blogging platform that’s responsive, reliable and immediately grabs the attention of your online visitors.


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