Having recently got back into wildlife photography after a long spell away I decided that the way forward must be the addition of my own website. I had worked as freelance wildlife photographer and illustrator during the 90’s however with the addition of a young family had to look at diversifying towards the graphic design industry to realistically look at earning a decent living. As any self-respecting wildlife photographer will tell you choosing it as a means of earning a living is very rarely as glamorous or as profitable as it’s portrayed.

The challenge now was to acquire a website, with my own skills very much aimed at the offline design and print industry looking at doing it myself seemed daunting therefore I began looking around at getting a professional design agency to create something to my requirements. What I was looking for was simple, a resource I could point customers and potential photo agents and libraries towards that would give them a profile of myself and to show off a handful of my best images and previous commissions, just like an online brochure. Additionally though I also wanted to be able to sell a selection of my photos online as I display some of my photos in and around my local area of South Somerset and often get orders for them particularly during the height of the tourist season. The buying online bit seemed to be the sticking point and increased the quotes I got from professional design agencies by a substantial amount.

Due to this I decided that I would have a go at the project myself however before I had properly got stuck into it a colleague pointed me in the direction of a template website company called Liquidsites which he recommended was the way forward as it was specifically targeted at small businesses and individuals who are looking at a simple and cheap website solution. Additionally it had the benefit of an online shopping system built into it. Having looked at Liquidsites it became very obvious that it ticked every box I needed and more. With a unique ‘reseller’ option available I have also been able to earn £150 every time I refer a successful buyer to it. Within just one weekend I had been able to put together a professional looking website and three months on and with a little advice from Sitemakers.com a search engine optimisation company in Somerset I received over 50 photo orders over the Christmas period.


About The Author


Jason Venus is one of the UK's most inspiring wildlife photographers having won the most prestigious prize of them all in 1996, the BG Wildlife Photographer of the Year.

www.venusstudios.co.uk

jason@venusstudios.co.uk

Creating a Basic Web Design Template

A ""template"" is simply a design format which you can apply to all (or most) of the pages in your web site. The first advantage of using a ""template"" system is that it allows you to make your most important design decisions at the beginning, and then just

Website Template Usage, Beyond What You Already Know

When it comes to search engine ranking ""cute won't cut it"". While search engines can generate a mind staggering volume of traffic what they feed off specifically is content. Search engines utilize software known as crawlers or spiders. Unfortunately spide

Using Webpage Templates to Build Websites

Web page templates have been used by web experts for quite a few years as a highly inexpensive technique of building value Websites. HTML web frame templates allow you to select a pre-designed appearance add some text and you are done. You have an instant

Free Website Templates - Top 10 Things You Need to Know

When building your website you might not have a large budget to devote to website design or a designer, so the best option for you might simply be to use free website templates. However, consider the following benefits as well as drawbacks before you deci

How To Choose Right Web Site Template

With the popularity of one-click web publishing, the Internet has never been the same. Even individuals who lack technical background can make professional-looking web pages in no time. Thanks to web templates, you can forget about the hard part of web de