[Peer Review 3] A Close Snapshot of Towhidshoots ft. Towhidur Rahman

Towhid Shoots is a site that is completely marketable towards their intended audience group.

– Jim, 2022

Here’s why.

Impressions

The focus of this peer review is to analyze the website marketability of its particular audience. The site I am assigned, and the pleasure of reviewing is named “Towhid Shoots” (https://towhidshoots.com/) by Towhidur Rahman. In my past two peer reviews, I scattered my suggestions and compliments throughout the post. As my final peer review, I will change up the style and have my suggestions towards the end.

From the name, the first glance at the site, and the overall setup already made me physically nod. If anything, I could say nothing and simply show how Towhidur already has a marketable site. Barring a few notes at the end.

It is clear to me the following information relevant to marketability is present:

• Audience: Photographers, potential clients who want their photography skills, those who were referred to their site, friends who are interested in their activities.
• Content: Photography, modelling, street or portrait photography, personal portfolio, equipment and process

Here’s the Short Why

I mentioned this in my design and vision post a few weeks ago that I like a particular creator I found on YouTube. They are a fantastic photographer, videographer and editor that has a site to showcase their own content. Featuring: https://www.petermckinnon.com/

Towhidshoots’ homepage:

I will briefly establish who Peter McKinnon and his authority on the topic and field.

• Canadian content creator on YouTube with over 4 million subscribers
• His ‘worst performing’ videos rarely (if ever) drops below 100,000 views. Consistency in his quality videos and content is maintained.
• Most videos are above 500,000 views to the millions.
• An established professional in editing, photography and videography.

By looking at the way Peter McKinnon has set up his site to showcase his own content (photos), we can see a striking similarity between the site Towhid Shoots and Peter McKinnon. That said, Towhidur proceeds in their own style and way on their site.

The impression I had observed the moment I landed on Towhidur’s site is the ability to recognize the codes and conventions of a ‘typical’ photographer site. With my own understanding and exposure to photography portfolios, I was able to immediately recognize what Towhidur is building right away. This indicates that they are doing a few things ‘correct’.

General Codes and Conventions:

• Large, clear, and crisp photo background upfront.
• Name/brand of Towhid Shoots is in the middle, drawing attention to it.
• Clean interface and lack of interruptions.
• Site loads quite quickly, nonetheless. Despite being a media-heavy website. Well done in this regard.

It is clear that Towhid Shoots’ is all about photography and showcasing what they have to offer with their skills with the camera. As their quote on the site says, “see the world through my lens” which leads to my next section of this review.

You may wish to continue the “Long Why” below.

Embracing Their Own

It is clear that Towhidur has taken Tanya Basu’s definition and argument for digital gardens. Basu describes that some sites “are works of art in themselves, visual masterpieces that invite the viewer to explore.” Towhid Shoots represents visually from the beginning and invites the audience to explore their site even more to see what they can do. They have made their site and digital garden as their own to showcase their camera lenses in this PUB 101 project.

In their website, they have embraced their own site and passions through elements of design. While this peer review does not need to focus on design, the design itself is essential to the site marketability. In some ways, Towhidur’s site IS marketing. They are marketing themselves.

They have created a simple, but relevant logo for their site as seen above. Their site maintains consistent font and typography throughout. All of which are elements of design that has a professional touch. Which is important for the other considerations in my next segment.

Advertising and SEO

Here’s the thing, how do we know if Towhidur’s site is marketable? As Hollingsworth’s article discusses reasons why SEO is important, Reason 5 highlights the increased engagement a site can have from optimizing local SEO. This means expanding to other areas in the digital space to take root such as review sites and relevant industry related sites. Reason 10 mentions how SEO builds the brand and trust. It helps raise awareness to the site.

In some ways, Towhidur’s site is not really marketable. It depends on which perspective is taken when we discuss “marketability”. If we look from the owner to advertiser’s perspective, it may not be a fitting professional choice within the design to run advertisement sections on their site. However, they could have affiliate links that Tom Bleymaier critiques on Popvova’s site (as long you disclaim it properly).

The other perspective is that the site is already serving its role and marketing: Towhidur and their photography.

Looking at Keywords {Trigger Warning}

Let’s briefly take a look at Google.

I searched “towhidshoots” in Google and as expected, their site appears on the first page. This is a good sign that Google is not suppressing the site and the connection to the world wide web is active.

However, I noticed something interesting. While it makes sense for us as the informed audience to read “shoot” as taking a photo, this keyword means the weapon kind as well. Take a look.

The search results pull up news about the Towhid brothers and the incident related to it. Subsequent links and sites are news and media coverage about this 2021 tragedy. (Honestly, not the rabbit hole I wanted to find out and read about at all… So, proceed at your own risk.)

This is a surprising search result which led me to a heavy topic and news. As a result, I would suggest that some degree of re-branding is needed if Towhidur wants to avoid this association.

It can be simple as TowhidurShoots. The results draw their Instagram account and miscellaneous results that does not have the previous association.

Furthermore, I have noticed the word ‘shoots’ as part of the site brand. Given the associations with the word, it may be worth researching how this keyword performs in the SEOs and search results, lest we want to appear among other undesired search results.

Suggestions

Some additional suggestions and observations that may require some time to ponder or create is:

Homepage:

• It is a little long. It could be shorter before the user loses interest. Having it shorter would reduce scrolling and prompt the user to explore via menus.
• About the Site Segment: I think the About section in the menu is already excellent in introducing you. This About the Site banner on the Homepage is a bit redundant as Towhidur has done a brilliant job in design to indicate it is a photography site.

Content:

• This will require time and it applies to any site. With a site that relies on content and media, more content showcasing the photography that Towhidur takes is beneficial. In order to establish a stylistic reference for future clients (marketability) to create that expectation or standard requires sufficient content to make that judgement. Thus, I suggest having more of your content on the site will greatly help with marketability of publishing yourself or marketability for clients or advertisers.

Design:

• Although the design element of the site is mostly well done, I have focused on the codes and conventions of what makes up a “photography” portfolio site. However, strictly from the user interface and experience perspective, there is some areas that require some attention and redesign.
• In Skytrain Shoot with Miah – Towhid Shoots, the end is a bit confusing with the big banner of featured photo of the next post. Since your site is mainly relying on photos, any imagery is essential and grabs attention. This can be distracting with anything irrelevant beyond your photos. (And you want your photos at the center of attention!)
• For a second, I thought the featured photo from your other post was actually an advertisement!

Thank you for reading!

References:

• Basu, Tanya. September 5, 2020. “Digital gardens let you cultivate your own little bit of the internet” MIT Technology Review.
• Hollingsworth, Sam. April 13, 2018. “12 Reasons Why You Business Absolutely Needs SEO.” https://www.searchenginejournal.com/why-seo-is-important-for-business/248101/#close
• Tom Bleymaier. 2013.  On Advertising – Maria Popvova