In July 2020, we launched Photocrati 10, built on our next generation WordPress theme framework, which is faster, slimmer, robust, and more capable than any of its predecessors.

On December 8th, 2020, WordPress 5.6 will be released and updating one of its core third-party libraries, called jQuery, from version 1.12.4 to 3.5.1.

This is a significant change that will affect all WordPress plugins & themes. WordPress 5.7, which is currently scheduled sometime in March 2021, will include more jQuery-related changes. WordPress is quickly moving forward to take advantage of the latest technologies, which is excellent news for all Photocrati customers.

Today, we released an update to ensure that the Photocrati 10 theme is up-to-date and ready for WordPress 5.6 and 5.7. You can update now and not need to worry about compatibility concerns later when WordPress 5.6 is released.

This update to Photocrati 10 will also include 53 of the most popular presets available in Photocrati Pro (version 5), and some new features like a full-page background slideshow. Login to your account now to download the update.

IMPORTANT: With the release of this Photocrati 10 update, we will be discontinuing support for Photocrati Pro 5.0.x. This codebase is based on older technologies that will not work in WordPress 5.6 and later.

We encourage all Photocrati Pro 5.0.x customers to migrate to the Photocrati 10 theme.

Because this is a brand new theme framework, you will not be able to swap out Photocrati 10 from previous versions. However, between the new preset system and the stunning customizer controls, we are confident you can switch to the new theme and have an incredible site in little to no time.

To learn more about the new theme, Photocrati 10, click here.

The theme is immediately available to all current members. Download the theme today to take your website to a new level.

As always, our support team is available if you run into any questions along the way.

Thank you, and enjoy the new theme.

Changes from 10.0.0 to 10.0.11

### **10.0.11** - 2020.11.04
- NEW: Header Background Image Control
- NEW: Background Slideshow Control
- NEW: Added Classic Presets from Photocrati Pro 5.0.x
- Fixed: jQuery 3.5.1 compatibility
- Fixed: WP 5.6 compatibility

### **10.0.0** - 2020.07.02
* Initial release

• Why gallery descriptions are important for SEO
• How gallery descriptions impact the user experience
• Ideas for what you can include in your gallery descriptions

Why are gallery descriptions important for SEO?

Search engine optimization, or SEO, can have a huge impact on the success of your website, and by extension, your business. Even if you’ve just created your gallery website to share your work with others, having strong SEO will mean you get to share your work with more people! One of the biggest factors for strong SEO is having relevant, descriptive keywords. This is particularly important for a photography oriented website. So much of your content is going to be visual, and since search engines can’t perfectly understand the content of photos, your descriptions will be very important in helping the search engine understand what it’s looking at. If you want more information about how to optimize your images for web display, check out our guide on 3 essential tips for presenting your images on the internet.

What’s great about optimizing for SEO in your gallery descriptions is that you’re also optimizing for the viewer’s experience. By using descriptive keywords, you can help your viewer understand what they’re looking at, navigate the website more easily, and even help make the web more accessible for people who use screen readers. Also, if you’re not a writer, don’t be intimidated! A good gallery description can be just a few lines. If you’ve got a story to tell, however, you can write a more in-depth description, creating both a richer experience for your viewers, as well as a stronger piece of optimized content. With Photocrati, you can choose to just show a preview of the text.

How can you improve the user’s experience with a description?

There’s a number of different ways a well-written gallery description can improve your viewer’s experience, but they’ll depend on the type of photography your gallery features. Consider the difference between a landscape photographer, a wedding photographer, and a travel photographer. While the landscape photographer might want to share some facts about the mountain range and plant species featured in the shot or provide some information about the lengths they went to get the shot, that wouldn’t be relevant to a wedding photographer. Instead, they might choose to share a short story about the couple, the venue, and the feeling of the special event that they captured. 

By providing more context-specific to the type of shots featured in the gallery, you can help the viewer understand what makes those shots special. If you have a potential client looking at these galleries, you can help them understand what makes your photography perfect for their objective. To go back to the wedding example, a well-written description can help them connect their feelings with the experience of your clients, and can help them see how you can play a role in their special day. Even if you’re sharing photos with your existing clients via your WordPress site, the gallery description can provide that personal touch that is so important.

For other types of photography, providing a backstory to the images can help turn them from just another photo into a viewing experience. More information can always be helpful. Understanding the artistic process behind the image can play a significant part in moving your photos from the category of “just photos” to an “artistic endeavor”.

What are some things I can include in my gallery description?

If you know you want to include a strong gallery description, you still might not feel comfortable just sitting down and writing a description. That’s OK! Getting started with writing a strong description doesn’t have to be difficult. Instead of trying to start with a full description, consider brainstorming some keywords that are important to this gallery. 

If you’re writing with search engine optimization in mind, consider paying attention to the keywords important to your intended audience. You can choose a mix of the broader, more generic terms, like “wedding photography”, along with more specific niches like “Los Angeles journalistic wedding photographer”. Don’t be afraid to include a broad range of similar terms – there’s a number of tools available online that can help you think up similar keywords to include. This can be particularly helpful if you’re writing multiple gallery descriptions, as having a diverse, deep pool of keywords centered around a similar concept is one of the keys to ranking well for that subject. For SEO oriented descriptions, prioritize the where and what: “Dallas senior photography” is going to connect with your desired audience’s searches more than “Sarah’s 2020 portraits”.

Writing to connect with your audience and enrich their experience, however, gives you much more license to be creative. Instead of prioritizing the audience’s searches, consider answering the questions your audience might have. Remember the 5 W’s taught to reporters: who, what, when, where, and why. Now, not all of these will be applicable to every gallery, but by identifying those that are, you can get a great head start on writing a strong gallery description.

For “who” consider whether the identity of the subject of your photos is relevant. For some travel photos, understanding the cultural context and significance of the subject can make a massive impact on the viewer’s perception of the photo. Don’t be afraid to research a bit of background and share it with your viewers, you might both learn something useful! For the “what” and “where”, try to identify anything that might be relevant to a viewer. You don’t need to provide the exact hiking trail you took each shot on, but pointing an interested reader towards Zion National Park can go a long way to enriching their experience. Identifying the “why” behind a set of images might be one of the trickiest, and you might not even be fully aware of it, but by taking some to draw connections between your images can turn a set of photos into an artistic experience.

For any gallery, it’s always helpful to share what makes the photos inside special to you. By opening up, you can help your viewers understand your connection with the image, and maybe draw a connection of their own – there’s something magnetic about a shared experience. What were you thinking about as you composed those shots? Did you face a challenge in making them? Did you approach a problem in a unique way?

Conclusion

Writing a strong gallery description might not be the easiest task for a photographer. You might find yourself saying, why can’t I just let my images speak for me? The answer to that is to remember that the gallery description doesn’t replace your photos, but instead compliments and amplifies them. By employing an SEO focused strategy, you can help more relevant viewers find your content, and enrich their experience once they’re on your website. Writing a strong gallery description can also improve any visitor’s experience on your website by giving them more context for your work, deepening their appreciation for it.

When you go to write a description, plan out some of the keywords you want to include, then try to tie things together with a story. In that way, you can write a gallery description that delivers value to both you and your viewers. That’s what makes a gallery description so important: it’s one of the best returns on invested time for multiple aspects of your website, business, or artistic endeavor. Hopefully, this article has left you eager to try out writing a gallery description! If you’re looking for a versatile WordPress theme designed for photographers and visual artists, check out Photocrati!

For more tutorials and guides on setting up your WordPress site for the best viewer experience, make sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook for more updates!

Professional models and photographers, on the other hand, can’t afford to keep their art for themselves. Since they make money from it, they need to continually improve and change to get as close as they can to perfection.

To do so, it’s vital to receive and pay attention to feedback. But for many, the first problem is getting it in the first place. How to nudge your audience to write reviews? 

There are a couple of simple tricks to get people to interact with you. So, without delaying it further, let’s look at how you can initiate a dialogue with your online judges.

Extra Materials

The first stage begins even before you have posted your work for everyone to see. You have to make sure every aspect of your work is as good as it can be. And it doesn’t only concern your photos. 

Descriptions, captions, little stories, tags… Whatever it is that goes with your photos, all should be polished, double, and triple checked. Poor grammar just doesn’t invite the reader to leave a review.

Brief descriptions are easy enough to manage. Yet, if you are going for something bulkier, you might find out that it adds a lot of work that you might not be too fond of. 

In that case, outsourcing that aspect of your work would be the best course of action. The most accessible way to straighten up the materials you deliver and polish grammar would be turning to professional write my essay services like this one. They are pretty used to dealing with this kind of work and will be happy to see your request in their mail. 

In addition, there are plenty of programs that will help you fix your style and grammar quickly and efficiently. 

Maximum Exposure

This one’s kind of a no-brainer, but beginners often forget about the simple fact – the more exposure your work gets, the more people are going to see it. Thus, the more feedback and reviews you are likely to receive.

Use all the tools at your disposal, social media, photo websites, maybe even make your own website to publish the photos.

Put your finished work everywhere you can, preferably somewhere where you can easily keep your hand on the pulse of the flow of comments. For the sake of science, you can check the number of reviews you receive on one website against the other. 

Comparing the results may give an insight into who your audience is and what they want. Use this intel to become even better professional.

Engage with Active Audience

Here comes probably the most important thing on the list. Create an incentive for your audience to be active. Reward comments and reviews, respond to them, talk to people who appreciate your art, show that you are there and that you are grateful for each review.

Show that their contribution means something. You don’t have to respond to every single comment but try your best. The effort is definitely worth it.

Do mind what you step into, though. Prolonged discussions and arguments about why this particular photo is worse than it could be don’t look good. Those may take a lot of energy you can spend on something useful. 

Don’t take criticism personally. Accept it and make a note if you think this particular remark is valid. Imagine that every author of every critical review just really wants to see you become better and succeed.

And when you start feeling confident managing your community relationships, you can take it one step further. Hold interactive events, let them have a slightly more direct impact on what’s happening. A vote on the theme of the next photo set, a competition of the best community photographer, get creative! 

All of this will make your audience feel welcome and encourage them to come back.

Final Words

As you can see, getting your audience to engage with you is no big deal at all. Marketing and promoting can be scary to get into for some, even when it comes to promoting their own work. But once you begin, you’ll see it’s not much different than just talking to your friends.

So, what you need to do is:

• Perfect your content;
• Showcase your work on niche-relevant platforms;
• Appeal to search engine algorithms to maximize exposure;
• Do your best to engage with your audience;
• If you feel overwhelmed – outsource.

There’s one thing you might need to be mindful of. While you can use these and many other techniques to grow, never forget where you started. It’s vital to preserve your identity in work and not be overshadowed by material gain. 

Keep true to yourself, and nothing will be impossible.

Elizabeth Price is a freelance writer interested in education, marketing, and business-related topics. A former Psychology student at Montclair State University, she is still an active learner eager to research almost any topic. You can reach out to her on Twitter.

That’s false.

Sure you could do anything and everything you’ve ever wanted with WordPress if you know code.

But you can also do a heck of a lot without knowing code.

Simply put – by using products like Photocrati Pro, Elementor and many others, you can build your dream website with sliders, dials, and other settings. The possibilities are endless.

One of our ideas is related to booking troubles that we have faced as photographers.

So we’re wondering what troubles you have faced, to see if the product idea is worth pursuing.

Please comment and share some of the struggles you face while trying to book photography clients.

Feel free to include stories about the clients (keep names off of it) and difficulties with booking software and desires you have for such software.

• Compression
• Resizing
• EXIF Stripping or Retaining
• Search Engine Optimization

We want to touch on the first three on that list. But there are so many image optimization plugins available for WordPress. So we spent a month churning through all the most popular plugins to share a comprehensive comparison.

We published this comparison on the Imagely blog. Please head over to the article to see what image optimization plugin works best for your photography website.