So what needs to be on your website Now, the structure of building it out can kind of depend on how you want your style to be. And we'll go through some more examples during our case study. But here are the most important things that you need to get on your site to get going. A portfolio that's actually probably the most important thing. If you don't have anything else other than contacting you, a portfolio is huge because your new clients are gonna want to see what you're capable of and what you're gonna do for them. Now, if you're just focusing on one style of photography, like we said, weddings or events or headshots, that'll be the only thing that's on there. But if you're doing multiple different parts of like just weddings and different types of events, maybe you're gonna want to have to two or three different tabs of the type of photography that you're doing. Again, If you remember back at the beginning of the course I said to start out, you should probably focus on one thing. I...

t'll get your business going faster and you'll get to start to be making money a little bit quicker as well as reaching your audience faster. If you have a variety of things that won't actually work as fast. But this is where you would put in just your portfolio or different types of portfolios. The next thing you're gonna want is about me or a contact page and you can either marry these pages together or separate them, depending on your style of website. But the about me part is a little important. I think a lot more for weddings mostly because you want your couple or you want the people that you're shooting for to see who you are. You're going to spend a lot of time with them. And even with headshots and stuff, it's important because people who are hiring and being and putting themselves in a vulnerable position, vulnerable position by being shot with a camera. I want to know who it is behind the camera, They want to know who is capturing them physically. And I think in about me page with a picture, a short blurb about who you are, what you do, showing some personality goes a long way and sometimes I know it's a little awkward to promote yourself and have a self portrait on the issue photo but I found that candid photos work really great for that. Maybe have another friend who's a photographer do it for you. But those are really a really good way to connect with the people that you're about to meet and hire as far as the contact page goes clearly. This is very important because they need to get in touch with you to hire you. So having your email address on there or actually with some sites Squarespace actually is a really cool built in contact form that you can customize and you'll be able to put in like what the date of their wedding is or what kind of head shots or portraits are looking for with a little message and will automatically send it to you. So they don't have to copy and paste your email address and put it somewhere else. They just right in your website on their phone and that's really important. And that's kind of nice when it's its own page as a contact page cause you just click on it, type it into send, it will go right to you and there are other apps that we can talk about later that will start an action item to keep you on task. We'll talk more about that later. So the social media links can be done several different ways. I know a lot of photographers that put them at the header and the footer of their actual home page, They have a separate tab for it or they have it on the contact page and this is where someone could click instantly and get to instagram, twitter, facebook, anything that you've really gotten connected with with social media. I know a lot of other photographers who actually include a Pinterest board which is really cool because then you can go on Pinterest and create general looks for a lot of different people. So this might be helpful for you to get access to your social media very quickly. A lot of people nowadays are using their phones and their tablets to look through uh contacts and websites. So it's a very quick and fast way to get it. And I think it's very important. So there's a few extras that you can put on your website that you may or may not want, and it may depend on your level of shooting photography. The first thing is testimonials. Um these can actually be hooked up to yelp or google, or you might pull them from yelp or google depending on how far you go, or you can ask for quotes from your clients and you can actually kind of build out in a creative way, how they are on your website, or you can create links for those. And sometimes those are really nice. Um sometimes they're gonna be a little bit too much and they might take away from the rest of your site. But I've known a lot of people that have actually liked using those pricing versus no pricing. This is, I feel like it kind of a debate with a lot of different photographers and I think it depends on what you're shooting. I've seen people actually list out all their packages on their website so people can see them immediately, But that kind of marries you into a lot of prices. Um and it also already is putting you at a disadvantage when you're competing with someone else. Now, if I was looking for a wedding photographer, a headshot photographer and I had two different photographers that I liked. one. Head pricing one didn't. I probably get in touch with the one without the pricing and start a conversation where I can talk to someone because I don't need to talk to the pricing one because they already have the prices on. What if this person is cheaper, What if they're not cheaper but they're better quality. The point of not having the pricing on is to get the conversation moving and get you kind of in the room or your foot in the door with your client. So that's always been my school of thought on the other end. Some people put pricing starts at a certain price, get in touch for more prices. So that's kind of like a nice way to kind of ward off maybe someone who's looking for something super cheap. Um, so that's also a really good way to kind of start the conversation. I think the most important thing is to get people talking to you without giving away too much information right off the bat. A lot of ways that I did when I had my wedding photography was that I have a price sheet ready to go. If someone emailed me and asked me for prices. I would just send it off to start a conversation asked when we can talk again for the next inquiry and sign them up when you get really advanced and you start moving. I know a lot of photographers that start putting their availability calendar on their site. Now, this at this point means you are full time full blown in photography mode. And a lot of this has to do more with events and weddings because you start booking weddings out, sometimes six months to a year, two years in advance. Um and if you're really popular and you live in a really densely wedding photography area, this may help because it will start to ward off people who see that you're already booked and it will cut down on your immense amount of emails because you're so good and so popular that it will help a lot. And that's a little bit harder to structure. Like you really have to dive into how to build that on your website. But it looks, it makes you look really professional. It makes you look like you're really booked up and people are booking you and you're working a lot and it just, it just makes you look like you're you're doing it and you're worth the money. Also, something you can start is a blog. Now, I know a lot of photographers who are just getting started actually talking about how they shoot the events that they go to, what equipment they use. They talk about how to work with their clients for weddings for headshots and that will get you a lot of notice on google and stuff like that. And so that's something to think about putting on your website to also keep people updated with what you're doing. It's free advertisement that you can start creating a mail list through. Again, it kind of depends on your style and what you're willing to put into as far as work goes, when you're just starting out, if this is a part time thing, you may not want to spend too much time on your blog because you have a lot of other things to do. But if you can carve out some time, I think it's really helpful to have the cool thing about the blog is that you can create a blog post for every shoot that you do and that creates this shareable page that both your clients and friends of clients can then share. That helps generate word of mouth and starts building out free advertisement for you to get a job in the future. Start building out your website, create a space for your portfolio, create your About me page, write something about me, create your contact page, have your social media links up and ready to go now that you have all that together, we're going to talk more about your actual portfolio and how to spice it up and make it really great

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What Needs to Be On Your Website

What Needs to Be On Your Website

Lesson Info

32. What Needs to Be On Your Website

Lessons

Welcome

Why Do You Want to Start a Photography Business

What Kind of Photography Business Do You Want to Start

Important Personal Note from Instructor Will

Case Study Starting a Photography Business

Quiz - Chapter 1

Introduction to Basics of Starting a Photography Business

Choose Your Business Name

Choose Your Business Structure

Register Your Business Name

Get Your Federal Tax ID

Get Your Business License

Get Your Business Bank Account

Register Your Online Accounts

Branding Your Business

Set Your Prices

The Photography Gear You Need to Start a Business

Case Study - Business Basics

Case Study - Equipment

Quiz - Chapter 2

Intro to Getting Your First Paying Clients

You Need to Prove Yourself

The Best Place to Find Your First Clients

What to Charge for Your First Clients

On Set - Partnering with Other Creatives

On Set - Getting Work in a Competitive Environment

Use Your First Shoot Wisely

Case Study - Getting Your First Clients

Quiz - Chapter 3

Introduction to Create Your Photography Business Website

Why You Need a Website and Platform Options

What Needs to Be On Your Website

Design the Perfect Portfolio

Case Study - Looking at Photography Websites

Quiz - Chapter 4

Introduction to Expanding Your Online Presence

Use Instagram to Grow Your Business

Use Facebook to Grow Your Business

Get Listed on Google

Get Listed on Yelp

Get Listed on Review Sites

Using Craigslist to Get Work

Case Study - Expanding Your Online Presence

Quiz - Chapter 5

Introduction to the Photography Business Workflow

Step 1 - Meeting Your Client

Step 2 - Booking Your Client

Step 3 - The Shoot

Step 4 - Editing Your Photos

Step 5 - Delivering Your Photos

Case Study - Business Workflow

On Set - the Shoot

On Set - Backdrop Placement

On Set - Paper Backdrop Rolls

On Set - The Back Light

On Set - Interacting with Clients

Quiz - Chapter 6

Intro to Business Infrastructure and Continued Growth

Productivity Tools to Make Your More Efficient

Get Business Insurance

Accounting Tools & Tips

Business Tax Tips

Scaling Your Prices Up

Use Conventions and Meet Ups to Grow Your Business

Case Study - Business Growth

Quiz - Chapter 7

Intro to the Selling Prints Section

Why Should You Sell Your Prints

Choose a Printer

How to Price Your Prints

Selling Your Prints Online

Selling Your Prints in Person

Wrapping up This Section

Quiz - Chapter 8