Business name vs website name

marikris

So I registered and have a business license under my full name, but decided afterwards that I really wanted to be associated under "kris hearts..."

Is it necessary for me to rename my business? Can't I still operate but just make sure clients put my business name on the check?

Here's my website: http://krisfulk.com

I thought I might change the splash page to say "Kris Fulk Hearts..." to make it easier, but not sure if that's even necessary.

What do you think?


Erm...if you want to give your opinion on the way my website now looks, I'd love you x times more

WillCAD

marikris wrote:

So I registered and have a business license under my full name, but decided afterwards that I really wanted to be associated under "kris hearts..."

Is it necessary for me to rename my business? Can't I still operate but just make sure clients put my business name on the check?

Here's my website: http://krisfulk.com

I thought I might change the splash page to say "Kris Fulk Hearts..." to make it easier, but not sure if that's even necessary.

What do you think?


Erm...if you want to give your opinion on the way my website now looks, I'd love you x times more

I don't know if it works the same in Texas, but in Maryland a business can operate under multiple names; a friend of mine operates under two different names, one for his wedding business, and one for his pet portrait business. You might not need to change the business license. Check with your state's licensing bureau to find out for sure, and perhaps you could operate under Kris Hearts without paying to have the license re-issued.

Check with your bank; most business accounts are accustomed to accepting checks with several slightly different company names on them, as customers don't always write the name correctly. My friend can deposit checks written to either of his operating names.

I like your web site a lot. But I'm a hard-core traditionalist in many ways, and I prefer to have a common header on a site that has the company name and logo in an easily-readable format. The header should be identical on every page of the site, to tie it all together and provide an immersive experience for visitors; you want every page to look like a different page in the same album, as it were. The gray vertical stripe might work well for this purpose, if you tie your logo to the top; you could put the name of each individual page into the gray stripe in place of the words "portrait" and "lifestyle".

The blue Kris Hearts signature you use is a little too stylized to be easily readable (though I love the blue color and the gray "photography" beneath it). The Kris Fulk sig you use as a watermark in your gallery is much easier to read and, IMHO, is more suited for use in a logo and web site header. Make a blue Kris Hearts in the same style, make it blue, and use it instead of the current Kris Hearts. You can also use it as your watermark, keeping everything consistant and establishing your brand.

The full-screen option is excellent and looks terrific on my monitor.

The style of your site's design is very sleek and minimalist, a style which lends itself extremely well to a high-end photographer's web site and gives the impression that you are THE photographer for Muffy and Thurston's engagement party, or a high-falutin' coutillion at the local yacht club. However, the informal, 20-something terminology you use in your various pages ruins the effect. I recommend more formal language, written in the third person, and more formal, traditional names for your packages.

As the home page loads, all I see is a gray progress bar in the lower right corner. Is it possible to have your logo in the center of the screen along with the progress bar? That way, the loading screen won't just be a blank white page.

The least successful part of your site that I saw was the "About" page. It reads like a blog entry or Facebook profile; customers looking for a professional photographer don't want a personal bio, they want to know about the photographer's skill and experience as a photographer. I recommend that you replace all of the text on that page with a more detailed write-up of your education and professional experience, and leave out all of the personal stuff; the personal stuff is better used for making your clients feel at ease and comfortable when you meet them, and during the shoot. But first you have to get the gig, and to do that you need to convince people that you are THE photographer they want, with nothing more than the text on your page.

marikris

Hey, Will. Thanks for all of that. Guess I hadn't thought about the About Me (etc) section that way. I'd been browsing a lot of other websites and was torn between the more personal or the other, more formal approach. I failed to consider that wording also falls into consideration for the markets we're trying to entice. Thanks and I'll look into these changes.