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1. Planning Your Project
Your very first 'job' is to plan the experience you want to offer your visitors,
and to do that you need to identify your audience. This first step is one that most
people either skip altogether, or else get completely wrong.
People get all caught up in the excitement of making web pages, they forget why
they're doing it.
It's not about you ... it's about your customer
Throughout this guide we'll refer to 'visitors' and 'traffic'. You can take that
to mean your photo-buying Clients, the people who want to buy prints or other 'products'
from you, people who want to commission you or hire you, and anyone else who stumbles
across your website.
They are all potential customers and your website's whole reason for being is to
cater to their needs and desires!
So first of all, give some thought to who your visitors are going to be and what they'll be expecting from their visit to your website.
If you grabbed a copy of Websites That Work you'll probably agree with me that the vast majority are not going to be commercial photo buyers, so the challenge is to work out who they might be and what content and services you can offer them.
Once you identify your potential markets you can design a site that will attract them, hold their interest and keep them coming back. Once you do that, you'll have the foundation for a successful commercial website.
Of course you need to know what can be done before you can plan what you want to do, so you really need to spend some time looking at other photography websites and websites in other fields, to see what people doing.
For most people, this is what the internet is all about -- open source development -- you see something you like, work out how they did it, and then improve on it. (So you also need to accept the fact that if someone likes what you do, they're probably going to copy you as well!)
Additional Resources:
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Insider Secrets To Online Success
Six Steps You Need to Follow to Guarantee The Success of Your Online Business! This is a short but simple blueprint from the Internet Marketing Center packed full of ideas and strategies that can be applied to any business.
These guys have been around for years. I did their original Internet Marketing Secrets course way back in 1998 when we were getting OzImages up and running. It was invaluable then and they're still delivering the kind of content that gets results. Highly recommended!
Download File
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