Website Problem

[creative_one]

Hi Everyone,

I would like to build a photography website as close as a professional photographer's website as i can but i don't know if i should add any of the other things that i was working out on paper like the index.
Example :

helpful websites
photography quotations
Articles
Guestbook / comments

Would that make my photography website look non-professional if i put that up on there?
Any Advice?
Thanks

[theArchitect]

To be honest I'd say no to all of those things. If you're setting up a website to advertise your services, do just that rather than getting distracted.

The only thing I might have from that list is a select few quotes from clients but not in the format of a guest book.

[Free]

Hey, great to see someone actually thinking rather than just throwing whatever random crap they think of on there.

To look professional, I'd say a big no no to the guest books and tacky photography quotes.

However, it wouldn't be a bad thing to run a blog/articles section in the site and have the latest few posts showing up on the front page.

A blog/articles section can help SEO like nothing else if it's done correctly, but more importantly it lets potentials get to know you and establishes you as an expert in your field (assuming you're writing good articles).

A links section can be good as long as you're only putting links the your customers would be interested in, rather links you like (eg. you wouldn't link to DPS, but you might to an album supplier). But you wouldn't put it on the front page.

As the Architect said, putting quotes (testimonials) from your happy clients is a great thing!

The way I go about planning a website is - establish every little section you're going to need (gallery, testimonials, booking form, price list etc etc etc) then I write each one down on paper and then group them together in a logical order until I have a good site structure. You might scatter testimonials on all pages, you might have a small contact/booking form on your gallery page so punters can drop you a line without needing to leave your gallery.

Always think "what will help the users on my site" rather than "what do I want on my site". Plan your end goal first and design with that in mind to build the site easy for the user to get there. Eg. You probably think the goal of your website is to showcase your work???

Wrong!

The actual goal of the site would be getting leads from your site and converting them to sales. A pretty portfolio is a strategy, not a goal. So spending lots of time and money building the biggest, best looking gallery in the world that blows everyone away and then making the contact page hard to find and use wont help your business as much as making an average gallery but building your contact form to be get to and use will.

And please don't use Flash, I'm really getting over every second website question here being about Flash based websites! They suck people, get over it!

Hope that helps
Free