Let’s dive in:

Last chance to register for the free live webinar I’m hosting on November 7th together with professional copywriter Zoe Barnett:

Here's what you'll learn:

• How copy and design can work together

• Content mistakes we see on photography websites

• Website user-experience (UX) mistakes

• Copywriting trends

• Business positioning

• Optimizing your homepage

• Structuring your photography service pages

• Bio/About page recommendations

• SEO and copywriting

• Website copywriting example

• And much more...

QUICK TIPS

1. Don’t confuse visitors

When building a custom website, the possibilities are endless. But with a larger degree of freedom comes… exaggeration.

There is a balance you need to master between being creative and going too far.

It’s perfectly fine to try to be different than everyone else, but you also need to make sure your audience understands you, that your website is still user-friendly.

So unless you have a lot of experience with building websites and agree to properly test your site (when breaking the rules), you’re probably better off sticking to the design best practices.

It can hurt to be too creative with:

• where you place your search box

• fonts (type, size & color)

• unorthodox menu item names

• too many links/options etc.

As a general rule of thumbs, your website should require as few steps as possible to get visitors to your desired destination, whatever that may be: browsing specific galleries, a purchase page, the contact page, a signup form etc.

However much value you place on people sending you messages/emails, I recommend always having a menu item called “Contact” in your navigation. If you’re a group of people, using “Contact Us” is also common. Any other phrasing (“How to reach me”, “Get in touch” etc.) is not as recognizable and might create confusion and limit the number of messages you get from visitors.

I know you might already be having too many items in your navigation, but don’t sacrifice “Contact”, it’s one of the most important links to have there.

In terms of placement, people expect seeing it last in the menu, so unless you have good reasoning not to, that’s the place to put it.