Those of you who follow me on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter would be well aware that my portfolio site has just undergone a huge transformation, and as I expected I’ve received quite a few emails from friends and colleagues wanting to know why I have done what I have done.

The dust has now settled a little, and I’m slowly getting acquainted to my new online home, I still have a few things to put up and one of the main items on the list is my portfolio. Perhaps I should start at the beginning.

Late last year Mona and I decided to sell a few of our photography prints. This slowly morphed into an online store and a few more prints were added to boost up the catalog a little. From there not too much was done it was up and sales trickled through, nothing ground breaking but sales are sales right.

The print side of photography has always been something of a mystery to many people. There are lots that try to very few that make it, but I’m not one to back down from a challenge and decided to look at selling prints from a different angle, as a kind of experiment.

Instead of the usual portfolio type website that everyone seems to use, where the ability to purchase prints is almost just an add-on I went the opposite way where the site is all about selling prints and the portfolio will be still visible but the site will be geared towards selling prints.

It’s an experiment really, testing the waters for other photographers out there. Will it work I’m not really sure yet? In theory it should but time will tell.

The site is separated into two layouts. The first on which you see is a self hosted WordPress website with a theme designed for selling products. It has a custom shopping cart and everything an online store should have. Our portfolio is through photoshelter. The reason for that is simple, it’s the easiest most efficient way that I can upload and deliver photos to our clients, and while doing that it also updates the website galleries so there is very little added work involved with keeping the portfolio updated.

So far I can report some very interesting stats. First up sales in increasing through the website along with site traffic. I’ve found that there is a different mind sent when I work on this e-commerce website. Before the prints were just an add-on to a normal portfolio site, now I find myself thinking of different marketing techniques, running specials and various other tasks that a successful online store should do. It’s a completely different mindset which may be what is required to break into that illusive print market.

The above image is the home page. As you can see it has the ability to market brand new images yet it’s very easy for someone looking to book a shoot to go straight through to our portfolio site.

Where to from here? Well unfortunately this post in unfinished. In the way that although I have given you some insight into my reasoning for changing up my site so much, but I can’t yet tell you if it has been a success or not. That will come in time and I’ll constantly be updating you on how things go.

I urge you to head over to the site and check it out, perhaps share it around. Don’t forge the first POP+ workshop is coming up very soon so if you haven’t reserved your spot just yet then head on over the page and get on that list. Register NOW.