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WEBSITE MUST HAVES

I see you-you’re just getting your photog biz off the ground and you’re trying to do all the things. Build a portfolio, settle on a pricing structure, stay on top of your inbox…it can feel overwhelming to try and complete the mile long list that you’ve made for yourself. I’m here to help! With ten years of photography experience under my belt, I’ve found that I’ve also become a bit of a specialist in other areas like correspondence, pricing, location scouting, and also…photography websites. I’ve been through several website facelifts over the years and I’ve studied what works, what doesn’t, what drives traffic, and what doesn’t and I have finally nailed down a short and sweet list of website must haves for you. Your website is the face of your business-literally-so it’s important to take the time to find a design that suits your business, style it to your brand and make sure these things below are all easily accessible to your potential client. The easier it is for them to find this information, the more likely they are to book you. So let’s do this.

  • Blog: A blog is the best place to display your most recent work and is an easy way for a potential client to view a bigger scale of your work vs just an image or two from social media. It also gives you content to double dip and pin to Pinterest which is just another way to drive traffic to your blog. Speaking of uploading your images to a blog…might I suggest BlogStomp? It’s the quickest and easiest way to prep your images for your blog while retaining as much image quality as possible.
  • Investment + FAQ page: I know that posting pricing, or investment, information on your website has its pros and cons. However, time and time again, I have decidedly kept mine up and available for all to see. I have several reasons for this-the first reason is that it weeds out potential clients who might not have the budget right now for my services. I only want messages hitting my inbox that have had access to my investment information so that we start our conversation on the same page. The second reason that I encourage you to post your investment information is to give potential clients easy access to it. In a perfect world, all of your photography inquiries would arrive from the contact page on your website but that isn’t always the case-or at least it isn’t for me. Perhaps it’s a word of mouth referral or someone who came across your work on Instagram…having an investment page ready and available to send them via copy + paste is a powerful timesaver. FAQ information is also a perfect way to answer, literally, the questions that you get in your inbox over and over again. By putting them all in one place (preferably with your investment information) potential clients have a slew of information at their fingertips and you can save yourself a slew of correspondence time by sharing as much information as possible. It’s a win win, really.
  • Social Links: Even in the social media hungry world that we live in, I am still a big fan of blogs. However, I think it’s equally important to have your socials linked to your website as well. You’re striving to really draw potential clients in and what better way to do that than by inviting them into every door-your website, your Pinterest page, your Instagram page…the more, the merrier. Plus, once they close out of your website but click ‘follow’ on your Instagram page, you’ll be front and center every single time you post something.
  • Contact Page: Potential clients are busy-you have to make things as easy as possible for them and contact forms are not only easy to add to your webpage, but they make it easy to get in touch with you.
  • Bio or ‘About Me’ Page: I’m not saying you have to list your degree and all of the publications you’ve been featured in (remember, potential clients are busy) but this page should serve as the salt + pepper to your website. Necessary, but you don’t need to overdo it. Speak from your heart and draw them into your world. In the end, clients are ultimately booking with you because you’re YOU, so don’t miss this easy opportunity to show your colors!

As always, I’m an open book so if you’ve read though this information and still have some questions-hop over to my contact page and let’s chat it out! See you in my inbox 🙂

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