Address for the site: www.burtonjoycehome.co.uk

The cost of moving
Estate agents locally are charging between 1 and 2% of the value of a house. That’s a lot of cash, for really not doing very much. They measure up, take some dark rubbish photography, do a poor write-up, and slap you on a popular house portal website and wait. If you don’t believe us, go and look at more than 10 houses on any of the housing portals, and you can see what we mean

As you will probably know – the most popular house sale website in the UK is a run by a cartel of estate agents, who basically don’t allow private sales. Apparently we just can not be trusted to purvey the property information accurately. Having seen some of the descriptions that estate agents manage to write, we think somewhat this is a pot calling the ‘shiny’ kettle black situation!

There is however a way around this – some estate agents will market your house for you for a low fixed fee. By providing such an estate agent with a write-up, photography, and producing a more than decent website, we managed to negotiate the fee down considerably to a few hundred pounds. Google “internet estate agents”

What we did
We produced a super website, with fantastic photography (we are professional photographers). We made sure the website was optimised for search engines by design. We promoted the site carefully – locally and on Google. We had 500 leaflets printed for £35.00 and then had the leaflets delivered locally. We brought some signs that we designed ourselves from a printing company advertising on a popular online auction site

The content of the website and the leaflets, and the photography revolves around honestly presenting the property. We can see no point in someone driving for hours to see the property, in order to find out it isn’t what they wanted. This approach is paying off. Preparing for a viewing takes time and effort, and we definitely don’t want pointless viewings

Presentation
We are looking for houses, and we are appalled by the poor photography for houses on estate agents brochures. Remembering they are charging £1000’s to the vendors of these properties – what exactly are they spending the money on?

A professional photographer session in your home will be £300 upwards depending on the size of the house, but then the estate agents fees increase on a larger house. We are providing downloadable brochure, high resolution image packs, and HIP pack etc. The point being that we don’t want to show people around the house who don’t want the house. By actually being honest about the property, all of our viewings have been spot on

Results

The site did the job THE HOUSE IS SOLD STC! and within a few months too!!!! we are calling that a A1 result

Costs
Website: We did this in-house. A similar website would be in the order of £500
Photography: We did this in-house, similar photography would be in the order of £300
Leaflets: designed in-house, design costs – unsure – but printing was £35.00
Delivery of leaflets – local paper shop – £15.00
For sale boards – we designed these in house, available for 6.99 each + 6.99 postage from a seller on a popular auction site

Assuming a sale – (we will keep you posted); we have spent a grand total of:

£245.00 – one of payment to internet estate agent in order to get our house listed online on the most popular auction site
£35.00 – leaflet printing
£15.00 – leaflet delivery
£20.97 – for sale boards
£50.00 – for a premium home.co.uk listing
5.99 – for a .co.uk domain name
£371.96 – grand total

This represents a saving of £4328.04 on the amount the estate agents wanted to charge us!

Even if we paid a photographer £300.00, and a web designer £500.00 we would be saving £3528.04

What else can you do?
There are plenty of private sales sites – home.uk being the best, which has generated us 1 viewing

Advice
Take a step back, and understand what your estate agent actually does for you. They will argue they contact customers and drum up business. In fact 70% of what they do, we did for ourselves, but to a much higher standard

That means that in our case we would be paying £4328.04 for that 30% we are missing out on. In fact, estate agents who have sent us details to “our brief” have bee way off. Our brief is “Rural, isolated, period or character + space for the business” what has been coming through the door in the post is “estate, small, modern” In essence that 30% isn’t looking that rosy after all

We are not suggesting all traditional office based estate agents offer poor service, it is that so far we are struggling to find one that offers a good service at a reasonable price

Do you want to do what we did?

Sure – contact us. We will happily photograph and produce a website for your house. You will need to provide a good high quality write-up

We can provide you contacts for the boards, and HIP packs, we will provide you contacts for the online estate agents. If you want a leaflet designing, or the board designing, we can do that for small fee. We can provide you contacts for printing etc. We will do the initial Google promotion, and SEO, and give you guidance on how to promote the site locally

We are based in Nottingham, and do travel, however if you are too far away, we can find a local photographer to do the shoot for you (We have a network of very good professional photographers to call on)

For an average sized house, we will charge £500 for the website and £300 for the photography. Large houses will be proportionate to the amount of extra work involved (not the amount the house is worth)

Want to find out more, just contact us

Example #1: Commercial archetectural photographer: will be creating and distributing files 50 – 200mb in size, and the worth of each file will be staggering. This photographers need will be: be able to deal with the large files (which online poses a range of issues), be able to show the full size high res files in a secure environment, be able to ensure his liscencing terms are not breached. This photographer may not produce a lot of photographs, but each one has a huge ammount of effort and work in it, and the commercial value is reflected in this. There not normally the need for need for e-commerce for this type of photographer, as money is dealt with via invoicing

Example #2: Ameuter photogrpher: typically these photographers produce a fair amount of files, security isnt really an issue, neither is licensing

Example #3: Wedding photographer: Typically generates about 1000 files a week, which have a limited commercial value – print sales online etc, album orders. Typical original image size size 20 – 50 MB per file – which can present some problems online. The value diminishes over time, many wedding photographers depreciate images out of thier gallery after 3-6 months. There will be an element of certain shots having a huge value in promotional terms to the photographer. There are several security issues – initially the bride and groom are the first people to see the shots, so the images may need a passworded gallery somewhere. After a period of time the gallery may go public. The photgrpaher rarley puts a high res file online, because people copying and printing the images is a high risk. There is often the opportunity to sell a download, this will need to be a file that is securley held elsewhere behind a firewall etc.. and then managed in terms of access, after a sale. EXIF data is often manipulated by software and then read by galleries to aid serching. There is a need for e-commerce for this type of photographer – which in general is pretty busy

Example #4: events / sports events photographer e.g. balls, horse trials, dog shows: Typical original image size size 20 – 50 MB per file – which can present some problems online. This photographers scenario is similar to the wedding photographer. More files are generated, and the turnover is faster. The photgrpaher rarley puts a high res file online, because people copying and printing the images is a high risk. Some events are private, others public. Galleries amy need to be priate or public to reflect this. There is often the opportunity to sell a download, this will need to be a file that is securley held elsewhere behind a firewall etc.. and then managed in terms of access, after a sale. Due to the volume a soloution is required to aid uploads. EXIF data is often manipulated by software and then read by galleries to aid serching. There is a need for e-commerce for this type of photographer – which in general gets hammered

Example #5: portrait photographer: Typically they generate 20 – 30 images in a session, which will need a private online gallery. Typical original image size size 20 – 50 MB per file – which can present some problems online. The photgrapaher rarley puts a high res file online, because people copying and printing the images is a high risk. There is a need for e-commerce for this type of photographer

Example #5: Fine art photographer: This one requires a fine balance – to secure the file online, but show enough to sell the image. Good money is commanded for a good image. Because of the subsequent printing procces, downloads are rare. Image numbers tend to be low. There is a need for e-commerce for this type of photographer

Example #6: specialist stock phootgrapher: (example food photographer). These photographers shoot stock photography either to a brief or on spec. The images need licencing, the image sizes are normaly 20MB+ which present all sorts of issues online. The comercial value of the images can vary form £1.00 to £1000’s per image depending on license. Customers usually need a lightbox type facility, and account management. Often teams of photographers work on a library. The photgrapaher rarley puts a high res file online, however they do sell high res images, which causes some logistical issues. Because people copying the images is a high risk. There is a need for sophisticated e-commerce for this type of photographer

Where does Picassa fit in with this lot – well for the Ameuter photographer it fits in nicley, for all other examples, the environment is either too clunky, or not secure enough, or doesnt provide the correct licencing / sales environmnet

There is another set of things to balance as well.. what the rest of the website needs to do for the photographer

Example #1: Commercial archetectural photographer – the website is a calling card. These photographers are very well known, they are not really looking for work, work finds them – the website is about image and status
Example #2: Ameuter phootgrpher – N/A
Example #3: Wedding photographer – very much so the website actually sells the photographers services, and needs to be very visible, very few wedding photographers are well known by customers. SEO, great copy and good images are a must
example #4: events / sports events photographer – the website often sells the concept of event photography quite hard – it is a competitive market, SEO is a must. The site needs to appeal to consumers and event organisers
Example #5: portrait photographer – Tend to be known locally, but in essence the same requrements are there as for the wedding photographer
Example #5: Fine art photographer – Mixed up this one – these tend to be known quite well internationally, but the website needs to be artistically spot on, and conveying the right feeling
Example #6: specialist stock photgrapher – Tend to be Niche markets, so there is an element of “we know that chap allready”, however, this is a numbers game, the site requires good SEO, as they sell worldwide, although customers do repeat visit.

In conclusion
In photography / art websites you are always balancing a variety of needs

• image security
• licencing
• overall site visability
• being able to show off the work
• style & design (they are artists)
• ability to mass upload images
• ability to allow downlaods securley
• user friendlyness for the photographer
• user friendliness for the visitor
• ability to have accounts and present images to individuals/groups

Ohter considerations
On top of that, artists and photographers often show “work in progress”, they often discuss thier projects, and may require blogs which show off images too

About the author

I am a professional photographer and website designer.  I understand the photography industry backwards.  This places me well to understand and resolve the online needs of photographers

To speak to Richard King, call 0115 845 8953

The brief
We were to design and develop a bespoke site, which represented the way the customer sees her business, both in terms of style and delivery.  The site would have a portfolio, secure contact form – along with a tightly integrated gallery and blog

Site history
Caron previously had an incomplete Joomla installation, which was attempting to sell and show photography using a Virtuemart store.  Joomla + Virtuemart is normally an excellent combination, but as a vehicle for showing and selling photographs, it really doesn’t work

The design
We worked really closely with the client to produce a template, and the typography for the site.  We bounced around ideas for a few weeks, fine tuning some ideas, and resigning others to the recycle bin.  In the end, we produced a really clean fresh airy template, that lets the customers photography shine out

We wanted the blog and gallery to have a total visual integration with the site

Working with the client
We had a very close working relationship with the client allowing us to produce exactly what the client asked for.  We developed some ideas, demonstrated them to the client, and then had a 2 way discussion with the customer.  We then modified these ideas, taking onboard the clients comments.  Working like this allowed us to produce a unique site, which the client is delighted with

Feature list
- Customer updatable portfolio – with a beautiful slideshow
- Static information based site
- Fully integrated, secure, fully featured photo gallery with e-commerce
- Fully integrated blog
- Security by design
- SEO by design

CSS & Typography
The typography for the site was developed in-house, and then tweaked to the client’s specification.  The seamless integration of the very diversely different dynamic parts of the site with the static parts of the site is due to the smart way the template and CSS are put together

Cross browser support
By design the site is coded to support and display correctly in Safari (on a Mac + PC) IE 5,6,7 Firefox 2, 3 and Opera

Technologies
This site uses HTML, PHP, SQL, DHTML, AJAX, A server firewall,  CSS and Javascript

SEO
As with all of our sites – the site has SEO built in – across both the static and dynamic parts of the site

Portfolio’s
The client shoots a range of different types of photography.  The portfolio section is simple, and to the point, allowing the work to showcase itself.  We used a particularly pretty reflection slideshow which we heavily modified and crafted into the site design

Photography gallery
We used a standard installation of Gallery2, and then got to work on the templates to fit the site design.  This has produced a visually unique installation of G2 retaining all of the backend and front end functionality.  One feature that is particularly excellent for photographers is Gallery Remote – which allows drag and drop of images from the photographers desktop

Blog
We used an installation of WordPress, and then wrote a template for it, to match the sites template

Training
We don’t just install and run.  We install, and bring our customers up to speed with the front and back ends of the website.  WordPress and Gallery2 have fairly steep learning curves, and we are there all the way through the learning process with the client, ironing out issues, and explaining how to use the site

Total integration
It might seem that we are banging on about this, but a bespoke static site, with a blog, and gallery, with a seamless integration between all of the component parts is a big deal, and not seen very often.  Often, sites have 3 different looks, as users jump between the different sections.  We are really pleased with the overall look

The future
We will continue to support and work with the customer over the following months and years, providing further training, minor tweaks and updates as required