There are many ways creatives can make money online, and if you’re a photographer or have an eye for great images, running your stock photo site could be a great opportunity for you.
If you’re not sure where to start, I’ve got it.
In this article, I’ll show you how to start a stock photography website, step by step.
Best of The whole thing is that you can run a digital products business from anywhere in the world and since your products can be delivered on autopilot, you can earn money 24 hours a day.
Even while you sleep.
Sound good?
Read on to find out everything you need to know about starting your stock photo website.
The benefits of running a stock photo Website
Running any business online can have huge benefits for your lifestyle, as well as your finances. In addition to the freedom, the earning potential can be much higher than a typical 9 to 5 job.
Here are just a few of the benefits of running your stock photo website:
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You don’t have to be a photographer either, but it’s great that you are! You can hire freelance photographers, developers, and virtual assistants to help you get your business up and running.
How to Start a Stock Photography Website
In this section, you’ll find everything you need to know about starting a stock photography website, from choosing a niche to getting stock images. and of course, getting the word out about your business and finding paying customers.
Let’s dive in!
Choose a niche
Unless you If you have millions of dollars of investment to start a general stock photography site like Shutterstock or Adobe Images, your best bet is to pick a niche and dominate it.
The options are endless when it comes to choosing your niche. Think of all the companies and industries that might need stock photography for their marketing materials.
Some great niches might include:
- Animals and Pets
- Business Coaching
- Interior Design
- Babies
- Adventure Travel
- Health and Wellness
- Sports
Once you have chosen a niche, you will have an obvious target audience that you can serve. Take some time to understand what kind of stock photos they need and fill that gap.
Samples of Niche Stock Photography Websites
There are many niche stock photography sites out there. but some do it better than others. Here are some brilliant examples.
Styled Stock Society
Styled Stock Society is an excellent example of how a subscription site Stock photography can serve a niche audience. Their target audience is women entrepreneurs, providing their members with access to curated, beautifully designed stock photography that they can use for their business for a fixed monthly or annual fee.
There are thousands of high-quality images to choose from, but they all have one thing in common: They’re meant to help women entrepreneurs build their brands.
This offers tremendous value at an affordable price and saves business owners time and money. money from having to take your own pictures.
Styled Stock Society offers monthly, yearly, or lifetime membership to their website. This gives members access to unlimited downloads for the duration of their membership.
Animalhaus Media – Pet Photography
Another example is Animalhaus Media, a Stock photography and media company targeting the pet industry. It gives brands in the pet industry access to high-quality, royalty-free animal images at an affordable price.
Although you can find pet photography on more generic stock sites like Shutterstock, iStock, and Getty Images, Animalhaus sets itself apart from the competition by going the extra mile when it comes to categorizing and classifying its images, making it very easy to find what you are looking for.
Animalhaus Media prides itself on paying its photographers fairly for their work. You pay a flat fee per image, which allows you to use the photos royalty-free.
There are some restrictions, so if you want to learn more, check out this page for everything you need to know about how to their pricing and licensing work.
Medical Imaging
Medical Images is another very niche stock photography site. In fact, I’m not sure it’s much more niche than this one. Stock medical imaging of microscopic organisms, viruses, X-rays of the human body, and more.
There is a clear target market for this, which is the healthcare and medical industry.Medical imaging has been around for over 30 years old and are clear leaders in their niche.
They offer royalty-free images, with pricing calculated based on how and where you intend to use the image.
As you can see, choose A niche for your stock photography business is the key to standing out (and you can start brainstorming with these photography business name ideas for different niches.) Think about industries and topics that you are passionate about, and take some time to investigate whether there is a gap in the market for high-quality stock photography .
Choose a name for your business
Choosing a name for your business is more important than many people think. Your name will become your brand, so it’s a good idea to choose a name that reflects your business and appeals to your target customers.
You may also want to think about selling your business in the future. If your business has a great name and strong brand, it is likely to be more desirable to investors when it comes time to sell.
Your business name should be:
- Easy to spell
- Memorable
- Not trademarked or in use
- Not offensive in any other language
When you’ve chosen the perfect name for your business, you can check to see if it’s available by doing a free online entity name check with a company like LegalZoom.
If your business name is available, you can go ahead and register your business as an LLC. All of this can be done online and usually costs less than $100. It’s usually tax deductible too!
Decide on your business model
There are a few different ways to make money with a stock photography website. Each has its advantages and disadvantages, so one will probably suit you better than another, depending on your chosen niche.
These include:
- Monthly Memberships
- Pay Per Photo
- Free Photos
Free stock photography websites often make money from the traffic they receive. This could be with display ads or affiliate marketing, so it’s best suited for sites with a high volume of traffic.
Contributors can typically upload free stock images, which can usually be used in exchange of attribution.
For smaller niches, a monthly or annual membership is usually the best option. This gives members access to a certain number of image downloads each month for a fixed monthly fee.
The pay-per-photo model is also nice, if a bit more hit-or-miss. One month might have a lot of downloads, while the next month might be a bit slower. This can be a great option if you like unpredictability and like to go with the flow.
Choose photographers to work with or take photos yourself
If you want to start a website stock photography, you’ll need to create a large bank of high-quality photos that your audience will love.
If you’re a keen photographer, you can do it yourself. This is a great option for photographers who want to start a stock photography business on a shoestring budget.
If you are not a confident photographer, however, your best bet is to hire a stock photography photographer. file for you to work with. . Depending on their budget, you could offer to pay them upfront for a set number of images.
Alternatively, you could offer a revenue share from each photo sale or monthly membership sold. This could potentially prove more lucrative for them in the long run.
You can find photographers to work with, or partner with, in many places, including:
Make sure they only use high-quality photos. quality on your website. If you want to do it right, you need photos that will impress your target customers and keep them coming back for more.
How To Start A Stock Photos Website: How To Create Your Website
WordPress It is undoubtedly the best option when it comes to building a website to host your photos. Using WordPress will give you endless possibilities when it comes to the design of your site and a lot of flexibility as your business grows.
Step 1: Choose a domain name and hosting plan
If you can, try to buy a domain name that exactly matches your business. For example, if your business name is ‘Underwater Photography’, choose ‘underwater photography (dot) com for your domain name.
This will make it easier for customers to find your website when they need something.
Try not to make your domain name *too* long. If it’s too long, it may be more difficult for your customers to type it correctly. A good rule of thumb is to aim for 1-3 words.
You’ll also need a good hosting plan. Bluehost is the best option for businesses just starting out. It’s reliable, affordable, and easy to navigate, so you can’t go wrong! Bluehost has a variety of different shared and dedicated hosting plans, making it easy to switch and upgrade as your business grows.
You can get a free domain name and over 60% off Bluehost hosting here.
Alternative hosting options are WP Engine and BigScoots.
Step 2: Install WordPress
You’re going to want to install WordPress. If you’re using Bluehost, you can do this with one click from your dashboard.
Next, you’ll want to start building your stock photo website. On your Bluehost Dashboard, click ‘Add Site’; this will give you the option of building your site using WordPress or Bluehost’s site builder.
Choose the WordPress option, as this will give you full control over designing and customizing your site. site.
Once you’ve done this, you’ll be prompted to choose a theme. You can change the theme at any time, so don’t get too hung up on it just yet.
If you haven’t purchased a theme for your stock photography website yet, just choose one of the free themes for now .
Step 3: Choose the Right Theme and Plugins
It’s important to choose a suitable theme for your stock photography website. Your website is the face of your brand, so it needs to look good. It should also be fast, flawless, and easy for your clients to navigate.
Pixefy is a great theme choice for anyone looking to build a stock photography website. It’s elegant, easy to use, and WooCommerce compatible, allowing you to sell your images.
It also uses the Elementor drag and drop page builder, which gives you full control over how each page on your page looks like. look of the website and allows you to easily make changes when you need them.
The GraphPaperPress Sell Media plugin is another great way to let people buy photos right from your WordPress . place. It works with any WordPress theme, so you can use it in conjunction with Pixefy or any other photography theme of your choice.
This Addon allows you to:
- Create and assign different types of licenses to your photos
- Set prices based on the type of license to sell your photos online
- Bulk Image Uploads
- Create automatic archives for the keywords assigned to your photos
Everything integrates with your WordPress dashboard, so you can manage all easily from one place.
The selling media plugin is completely free, but there are some premium plugins you can purchase if you want additional functionality, such as selling memberships or subscriptions to your s stock photos site.
Get the free Sell Media plugin here
Step 4: Organize and categorize your photos
Organizing and categorizing your photos correctly is crucial because it allows your customers to find exactly what they need quickly. Label each of the images you are selling with 30-50 tags that accurately describe the photo.
In addition to describing the image, you can note the type of image, for example:
- Flatlay
- Mockup
- People
- Indoors
- Nature
You can also group your photos into different collections, such as by color or theme. Haute Stock does a great job of this, offering clients several collections that they can easily search to find what they need.
Step 5: Make sure you get model releases for each photo
If any of your images include people, the people in the photos will need to sign a model release form. This goes for friends, family, and even people with their backs to the camera.
It’s important to get your model releases up front. Otherwise, you may have trouble tracking models at a later date when you want to sell a license for the photo.
The Sell Media plugin has a model release extension that you can use to easily attach a model release copy of your signed model release form to the photo.
Licensing Your Photos
Licensing your photos allows you to earn money from them by letting other people use them. There are many different types of licenses available, so depending on your chosen business model, you may want to make one or more license types available to your customers based on their needs.
The main types of image licenses are:
- Creative Commons: The photographer’s work is protected, but the image can still be used for free. with attribution.
- Public Domain: The image is not protected and can be used for any purpose.
- Rights Managed – The purchaser of the image must specifically indicate where and how the image will be used. This includes the size of the image and how many times it will be used.
- Royalty-Free: The photo only needs to be purchased once, and usually the user has unlimited use. buyer. Sometimes there are restrictions, in which case an extended license can be purchased.
A royalty-free license is the most popular type of license for microstock websites. However, if your chosen business model is a free stock photo website, you’ll want to offer public domain or creative commons images.
Launch your business and start building your list
Now that your website is up and running, it’s time to spread the word about your business. Set up social media accounts for your business where you can give your target audience a taste of what you have to offer.
Instagram is one of the best platforms for stock photography websites. Since it’s a visual content platform, it’s a great place to showcase your stock photography.
To get the attention of your target customers, create a special offer for your launch week. This could be a pack of free stock photos, a free one-month membership to your site, a free downloadable social media planner, or something else they would find useful.
You can offer these freebies to your customers Target through:
- Facebook Groups
- Paid Ads
- Pop-up or sticky bar on your website
- To an existing email list
The idea here is to start building your email list by offering them something of value in exchange for their email address. If you haven’t set up your mailing list yet, you can get started for free with ConvertKit.
ConvertKit is very easy to use and gives you your first 1000 subscribers for free.
The Email marketing is an essential part of marketing your stock photography business. Once you have access to your customers’ inbox, you can let them know whenever you have a special offer active and generally offer value to keep your business at the forefront of their minds.
Start building your list with convertkit
Boost sales with an affiliate program
Affiliate marketing is one of the easiest ways to get the word out about your stock photography business.
The great thing about affiliate marketing is that you don’t pay a penny until after your affiliates have made a sale. Everyone wins!
The Easy Affiliate plugin is the easiest way for WordPress users to start their affiliate program. It is compatible with WooCommerce and gives you everything you need to manage your affiliate program.
You can reach out to influencers and bloggers in your niche to see if they are interested in joining your affiliate program. affiliates.
One of the best things about running a digital products business is that you can offer your affiliates high commission rates without taking a financial hit.
This makes it more They are likely to spend time promoting their products. But it doesn’t cost you any money as each photo and membership can theoretically be sold an infinite number of times.
How to Start an Income-Generating Stock Photo Website: Final Thoughts
If you’ve been wondering how to start a stock photo website, we hope this article has given you everything you need to get started.
The most important thing is to choose a niche that you know you can dominate. .
Using affiliates is one of the best ways to promote your business if you start on a budget, so make sure you take advantage of it.
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