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All-In Wedding Photography
The business podcast for wedding photographers who want to build a booking system that works.
If you're tired of feeling stuck and alone in your business, this podcast is for you.
Join wedding photographer Alex Stead with co-host Ren as they break down funnels, marketing, pricing, and business strategies together in a way that actually makes sense.
New episodes every Thursday - hit subscribe so you never miss one!
All-In Wedding Photography
The One Purpose of Your Website
Photography websites need one clear purpose: getting potential clients to email you. A simple, effective site can be built for under $50 a year and will convert better than an overly aesthetic portfolio with buried information.
• Location should be the first thing visitors see – people decide within 30 seconds whether to contact you
• Testimonials from past clients sell your services better than self-promotion
• Your "About Me" section should focus on how you help clients, not your photography origin story
• Include only 5-10 of your absolute best portfolio images that represent your specific style
• Add FAQ section with starting rates to filter out budget mismatches
• Always include a contact form directly on your home page
• Design for mobile first – 80-90% of visitors view on phones, not desktops
• Consider platforms like CARD for beginners, rather than time-intensive WordPress
If website-building makes you angry, hire it out. You can be anything, but you can't be everything. When you're starting out, your time is your currency – focus on learning the things that directly impact your client experience.
you can have one single sentence about how much you love your dog and that your dad gave you your camera when you were eight years old and blah, blah, blah. Nobody gives a shit at that point in the booking process. We just had a fun visitor in.
Speaker 2:Yes, he's going to be our voice actor extraordinaire.
Speaker 1:My dad and his partner came in for a little. Bring your dad to work day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he said. So what do you do always? Well, it changes occasionally.
Speaker 1:My favorite thing ever is that when I put my backdrop up, he looked around and went oh sure, this is just as nice as the walmart photo studio, which is high praise from my dad well, they came in my studio and they said I didn't even know you could get this paint it looks just like my grandfather's house.
Speaker 2:You nailed it. I nailed it, which is good, because I was really worried that it looked like a strawberry milkshake I think grandfather's house is definitely more accurate. It's definitely given poppy's house, that's that's I wanted to be poppy's house. That's, that's I wanted to be poppy's house. Yeah, yeah, all right. What are you talking today? Run well, we left off on really difficult like, wasn't it like techie stuff? You were doing seo?
Speaker 1:yeah, okay so we're talking about high level website stuff and then we were going to um reward you this week with some low level websites, some entry, entry entry level so for those of you here, maybe, who don't have a website yet, or you do, but you don't like it, and maybe you're not quite at the level of like keema SEO, but you're like. I would like people to be able to find my website and know what to have on it. This one's for you, so stick around. If you are in the process of like, you're not getting as many inquiries to your website as you'd like, or you don't have a website at all, this is this, is that episode?
Speaker 2:So break it down, how easy does it get?
Speaker 1:like there's gonna be some people who and I know these people who are, like, anything involving buttons just makes me so mad and I need you to like, like you know, like, shut up, shut up, shut up. The second anything website comes up, yes, it's, it's going to be hard for that person. You should just hire somebody. If that's you, yeah. If it makes you so mad that you just want to scream like, just hire it out. That's the benefit of small business ownership, I think, is that, like you can hire the things that make you so mad.
Speaker 1:Like I don't like anything to do with taxes or accounting, or like the percentage-y stuff. I like making money and I like knowing how much money I make. I hire out that. That was the first thing I hired out. Oh, my gosh, yeah, who'd you hire? So I still have to do it. It's almost worse. Who'd you hire? It's my mom. She's a professional bookkeeper. It would be so rude if I went anywhere else. She'd kill me and she's really good. Yeah, she'd put me in my room. I'd be grounded. But yeah, hire out the things that you don't like to do so that you can have more time to do the things you do want to do like book one more session, pay for it, right anyway, I think it's really important to remember that you are a good photographer.
Speaker 2:You can't be a good everything at running a business the best advice I ever got.
Speaker 1:There's a turkey tip today you can be anything, but you can't be everything you gotta pick.
Speaker 1:I heard that and I said bet, try me I like knowing a little bit of everything, yeah, but like you can't do everything all the time, like you do have to pick and choose and say like you know what, like this is outside my wheelhouse, I'm just not gonna bother with it there's also something that you've told me a lot, which is about like, when you don't have money in your business, your time is your currency, so learning things you can't have money in your business, your time is your currency.
Speaker 2:So learning things you can't afford to hire out is part of the journey.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, like you know, whenever you do something new, what's your answer? You're, like I used to be broke, and so I know how to do everything. Yeah.
Speaker 2:How do you know how to do that? Well, I was broke and I'm still now cheap. How?
Speaker 1:do you know how to do that? Well, I was broke and I'm still now cheap.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like you figured out like car mechanics and like lawnmower repair and the first 10% of a lot of things. That Plumbing yeah, yeah, like if it'll save me a few hundred bucks and take me several hours. I've, up to this point in my life, been in a position where I had hours and I didn't have dollars.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally so. Website if you are still in a position where you have a lot of hours, not a lot of dollars, not a lot of dollars, not a lot of dollars, and you're looking to build your very first website, I would recommend using the website builder called CARD, with two R's, two R's. So CARD is a online business card essentially, but actually more like an online PDF. C-a-r-dcom Card is what is it like? 30 bucks a year.
Speaker 2:I get the pro. I actually just renewed it and it was 49. But that's because, and a year, broken into For one full year, and you get your own domain with that right. You don't have to set anything up on your own. So I can speak to this pretty well, because in the last couple of years I've built a WordPress website from scratch and I've maintained a card website that I built from scratch and you've also worked on a few Squarespace websites, yeah.
Speaker 2:I've got, so you've got a pretty wide range. Yeah, those are the three.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't anything outside of that I've used also. I've used Wix and Pixie set also.
Speaker 2:Would you say those are similar to Squarespace. Very, very yeah, people also use GoDaddy, I don't, is that?
Speaker 1:a thing. Isn't that a website host? That's like a, that's where you can buy a domain. So, when it comes to websites, you have like your domain, which is like that's like how we use. That's your use, nixie. Yeah, that's like your Alex deadca Curd, it's all included in one. So you get your name and your website for that like 30 to $4.
Speaker 2:Making curd, kind of like setting up an Instagram yeah it's definitely got more of that vibe. It's like a level up from setting up an instagram account, but it doesn't have to be a hard level up, it's just totally you can see it's what I always recommend as the first start, because it's so affordable. I think the base package I think the basic one might be like 20 bucks a year. So yeah, you can't beat the price on that and and you do kind of want to pay.
Speaker 1:Squarespace is like it starts, I think 29 a month.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but WordPress is oddly free.
Speaker 1:I would never recommend WordPress for someone who doesn't know what they're doing. Yeah, free. I love WordPress. It's my favorite. It's so good because I love tinkering and I love building websites.
Speaker 2:I would say you're not saving money by using a free website. Yeah, because if you are not going like the amount of like, I end up paying more than I do monthly because the the base model might be free.
Speaker 1:But then you've got to customize and customize, learning how to use wordpress is the same as like learning how to use photoshop it is its own full skill. And if you are in the part of your business where you are heavy on the learning skills because you're learning how to use your camera, learning how to use lightroom, learning how to like build pricing guides, learning how to use canva, there's like a million things like don't add learning wordpress to your list. It's just unnecessary right now. Someday, and if you really enjoy building websites, that's like a fun thing for you, which it just is, sure but it's not the place to like start when you already have a laundry list of things you need to learn.
Speaker 2:Here's what card will do for you. Yeah, you can put your Google analytics tracker and your Facebook tracker into your pixel, your pixels into your card, which means that the internet is saying these are all the same business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you can. Also, then, if you want to track the people who are coming to your website from Facebook, from Google, from Instagram, and see where people are coming from when they come to your website and what? If they're coming from Google, what keywords they're using to find you. Are they just typing your name into Google or are they typing in, you know, newfoundland wedding photographer and finding, finding your website?
Speaker 2:that's just really good information to have it gives you a url that you can link with your google listing, which is really important to have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, when you're building a card website, if so, also, I'll kind of say a lot of photographers use pixie set as kind of their all-in-one, so I will just touch on that. Pixie set is best kind, I've got no qualms with it. Um, it's not what I've ever used. I've just had a like different system and it hasn't made sense for me to switch to pixie set. But a lot of people like it. They have a good website builder. It seems like, um, it's very similar to squarespace and card. I think it's kind of like an in between the two. So it's a little bit more, um, like intensive than card, but a little less so than squarespace, I think squarespace and card, like there were a lot of things that card does that squarespace doesn't.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was surprised because I expected squarespace to be more, uh, advanced than card and less than wordpress, and I found it to be similarly advanced but with different focus. I liked the focus of card for a lot of things personally yeah, my only concern with pixie set, I think, and we do with anything no, it's not even a qualm.
Speaker 1:It's that there's a lot of options and I think a lot of photographers and people in the wedding industry in general are going to set their websites up for like prettiness on a desktop.
Speaker 2:It's got to be for mobile.
Speaker 1:It's got to be for mobile and it's got to be for the way people are actually using the Internet. So we've seen this with people we know and I see this with my students all the time where they build this beautiful website with these giant photos and no information yeah, and it looks really pretty pretty, but it is not user friendly and therefore you're not getting inquiries. Your website has one purpose and that one purpose is to get people to send you an email. That's it. There is no other purpose to your website. It is a fun contact you, yeah. So if your website is just pretty pictures and no information and your contact is hidden away on a page, it's not gonna work.
Speaker 2:So the like magazine, like having this beautiful, uh, you know, minimalist, uh all those really soft colors that you want to open up on a coffee table. That is for real life and the internet. You won't keep attention, you won't. People aren't going to the internet to have this, like they're not looking at your website to have this like enjoyable that's for your client galleries?
Speaker 1:yes, once they've booked, give them a beautiful gallery. Yeah, online that looks like a lookbook. But your website? I'm just to split it right now. The one purpose is to get you an email, but you need to have five things on your website. Yes, the first one your location the amount of times I see people. The first thing I do when I go to someone's website is I look for where the hell are you, and oftentimes I cannot find it or I have to dig and I'm digging for like five minutes. The average person is spending less than 30 seconds on your website before they send you an email. That is people who they look through your website and they decide to contact you. 30 seconds If they can't find your location. You have 30 seconds. Yeah, if they can't find your location, they're not going to contact you because they don't know if you were in their location or not, unless they already know you.
Speaker 2:If you think you've put your contact or if you think you've put your location information on your website too much.
Speaker 1:Probably not enough, yet it should be the very first thing you see should be your location wedding photographer contact me. That should be the when you open up your website, whether on mobile or on desktop, that should be the very first thing you see. Before any pretty photos, before any whatever else, that should be the very first thing you see. The second thing they should see is a testimonial. Let your past clients sell for you. You don't need to do any selling. If you have great reviews, they will do the selling for you.
Speaker 1:So how I have mine set up is you know, newfoundland wedding and elopement photographer. It overlaid a beautiful image, inquire and then below that, three testimonials that speak really highly of me, what I do, and it's like specific testimonials of. Like you know, alex helped us to relax on our wedding day because she took care of everything. The pictures were great, um, she was really great with her family, like things that I personally want to highlight about myself, the one that I let them say it about me instead of me saying I'm going to make you feel relaxed and I'm going to make sure your family feels good. I'm going to make sure you don't feel awkward and I'm going to make sure that we go to beautiful locations. I just let my clients say it for me you just put the reviews there. People are going to believe that more and it's also less weird to one of my most referenced referrals.
Speaker 2:So when I at when I am talking to a newly booked client, they'll comment on one specific review. I got where, uh, the the client in the review was like ren, went above and beyond, even holding my nan's yeah, and that's like, like that's so specific, it's so specific and it's like.
Speaker 1:You know, even like in creative writing, it's like, instead of talking about the general, instead of saying ren was really nice with our family, ren held my nan's purse. That's much more memorable and engaging and you can picture it, you can picture it exactly your nan wanting to get in photos and having this big.
Speaker 2:We call them uh, the. It's a kosh, like the carpet bag. Well, we will like with the French in my family we go, uh, test, it's, it's, it's a person until it's a kosh. What's a kosh mean? It's like a. It's a lady purse, it's like. It's like you mean business.
Speaker 1:Okay, all, all right.
Speaker 2:You've got a change of shoes in their purse. You've got an orange peeler in their purse.
Speaker 1:You've got a bag of oranges in their purse. Yeah, if you don't have any testimonials, you don't have any reviews, you have to go ask for them. That needs to be the very next thing you do is reach out to your past clients. If you haven't done a paid photo shoot yet, reach out to anybody you photographed before. Tell me one thing you really liked Message them photograph before. Tell me one thing you really liked.
Speaker 2:Message them on facebook, email them that I don't care how awkward it is if somebody says thank you and they say anything in the thank you ask. Do you mind if I use this as a review?
Speaker 1:yeah, or message them again. Hey, would you mind telling me one specific thing so I can use it in review? Perfect, I've done that so many times. It's awkward people get it.
Speaker 2:They know that you're trying to hustle.
Speaker 1:You're hustling yeah, so that's the next thing is. So your first thing is your location, your second thing is your testimonials. Let your clients sell you for you. You can put photo review with the client right Photo of them and their review. Photo of them and their review.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:What's third? Third is about me, but not in the way you think it is. The about me is here's how I help you.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:You can have one single sentence about how much you love your dog and that your dad gave you your camera when you were eight years old. And blah blah blah. Nobody gives a shit at that point in the booking process. They don't know you yet. They want to know what is in it for me. So your about me should be About you, about them. Here is why you should hire me. That's the about me. The about me is not I got my first camera when I was eight years old. Blah, blah blah. The about me is I photographed 500 weddings. I've been featured in this article and this place and, um, I love what I do and you're gonna have the best day ever.
Speaker 2:And here's what we're gonna do and here's why it's gonna be the best day ever, and here's why you're gonna hire me instead of anyone else I noticed that, uh, wedding shows that I I would set up tables at and I was, I think, like they were great to workshop my pitch because you were just speed selling, right, like you were speed selling.
Speaker 2:And after several of these and seeing hundreds of people in a day, I realized that like the most valuable, the most impactful thing that I could say to the people looking at me is like you're probably in my head, I'm like you're not going to remember all the details of my packages, all the special things I do, how much I care. You're going to remember one thing and it's how I make you feel. So what I say now is I'm in charge, so you don't have to be. You have been in charge through this whole process. You have been. If somebody has a question, they don't ask you during your ceremony. They ask me I'm in charge, I take it over so that you get to enjoy your vision.
Speaker 1:My key message is oh, you feel awkward in photos, don't worry about it. I got you All these people and all these pictures. They all said the exact same thing and they look how great they look. That's how great you can look too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you would never guess that they had the same concern from the outcome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's your about me? It's not really. Don't tell your, I got my camera when I was eight years old. Story. Everyone else is also saying that it's not engaging.
Speaker 2:I think other photographers like to hear that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because that's a different thing, and often I think, when you're building your website, you're looking at other photographers' websites. Yeah, totally. So you're like that's what everyone else is saying, that's what I should say. No, whatever they're doing, you should do the opposite in terms of that. But there's this formula, this, you know location testimonial. They zig you zag. How do I help you? You know, just answer whatever questions you think they might have.
Speaker 1:This is again like what if I'm awkward in front of the camera? You know, do you only do weddings? Do you also do elopements, or something like that? What are your starting rates? Yeah, I like to have online in my FAQ section like what's the kind of? You don't need to have your full pricing packages here. This is a like prices start at here. Inquire for a full booking breakdown. This lets people know if they're at least within their range, because if your total budget is a thousand dollars and they email you and you're like, oh, my price is actually a startup four thousand, you just wasted everyone's time. Yeah, we've all, we've all just wasted. We could have all skipped. Yeah, so having just that like my prices start at that at least filters out people who their total budget is less than you're starting um and then a contact form. Yeah, right on the main page. You should always have a contact form on your home page. Do not make them click over to a contact me if have them able to scroll if you're using card.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you only get one page yeah, which is the best part of card, and you can also what you can do.
Speaker 1:What I like to do is, after my about me and before my FAQ, I put a small portfolio 10 or so pictures. It does not need to be big, honestly, five is fine. This is called the landing page. Yeah, this is like give us an idea of what your style is. You don't need to be showing every wedding you've ever done. This is your all-time best work. Yeah Right, this is where I only have pictures of couples here. Yeah right, this is where I I only have pictures of couples here. I'm not sharing reception dance, whatever.
Speaker 1:I've got different. Like you can, you can go through and be like view a full wedding, but these are like the wow photos are like you want your couples to picture themselves here and this is what you want to book more of and that's really it. That's your whole home page and you don't need any other pages. If you have that, that can be your whole website. So if you're building a card website, that's the whole thing, which is awesome. But if you're doing a squarespace or a pixie set, instead of doing it the way that, like you're kind of seeing everyone else do it, do it like this do that one page and then from there you can build out a like beautiful wedding. Here's family photos, like on a different page or whatever.
Speaker 2:But create it in the mobile view. Yes, create it in the mobile view. So important. It will stretch to desktop better than it will shrink to mobile.
Speaker 1:You look at your stats once you have a website. It's something like 80 or 90% of people view your website on a mobile device. Yes, so few people are looking on a desktop.
Speaker 2:I have think the ones looking on a desktop, it's just the data of you looking at your own website, honestly, because most clients aren't self-employed people who have a computer on them at all times. That's your experience. Because you're editing photos with like heavy software. Most people are walking around with their phones Totally heavy use software. Most people are walking around with their phones. Totally, they're scrolling your website while they watch tv, while they while they, you know, are just waiting in an elevator, they're with their kids, like they are not opening up a computer and doing this like major research that you might be familiar with doing because of you being drawn more to the tech side of the world but chances are they're just on their phone while their kid's napping.
Speaker 2:The 10% of people who are looking on desktop are at work yeah, at their office using their work computer, and you and other photographers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so build it with mobile first in mind. Yes, so just to kind of recap, your homepage can be built on card for like less than 30 bucks a year. That's with your own domain, so you can have like your namecom, which is incredible.
Speaker 2:It's like cardcom. Okay, that's how it's worked around, but it will work just as well Like okay, I see I.
Speaker 1:I'm on. You can pay a little bit extra to get it to not have the card. Okay, Um.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure. I think maybe it's always. Uh, I think I might. It's for me to have my own URL. I think I would have had to like set up a domain and bring it in.
Speaker 2:Okay, and because my website was already doing really well on Google, I don't think I went through that hassle Cause I do believe that I am Like I'm newfoundlandweddingofficiantcardcom or however that's formatted Newfoundlandweddingofficiantcardcom Okay, or however that's formatted, but I'm pushed to the top result. If you're looking up Wedding Officiant, marriage, commissioner, and the Google snippets are grabbing my FAQ answers which is what I want and the pixels track where I'm getting people from. It's doing what it needs to be doing. I don't think you have to worry about no, totally.
Speaker 1:All right. So card is a great option if you don't have anything right now. If you're already using pixie set, pixie set is totally fine. Stick with that. You don't need to like set up anything new. Follows format um location with a contact button, right, um? Then you want testimonials? You want? How can I help you? I would then put a small portfolio of images of just your absolute best. Five to ten photos, no more, that are all very clearly one specific style. Then we have our FAQ and then you have a contact form. That's all you need on a website, anything else is fluff.
Speaker 2:If you click contact and it's all a landing page, is it just bringing them down to the contact form?
Speaker 1:yeah, and you can do that on card. Yeah, you can just set it up, so it's like it's called an anchor. Yeah, you make it. So when someone hits the contact button, it just drags them down to the contact portion of the page. Well, yeah, yeah, that's all you need.
Speaker 2:Easy peasy, that's easy that's so easy, that's easy. And if you still struggle with it.
Speaker 1:You can always book like a one-on-one with me. Yeah, I'm always happy to help. You can DM me.
Speaker 2:Alright, that's it for today thanks for listening, thanks for listening to the. Uh, we'll call this, we'll figure it out the absolute, what you absolutely need, what you're the what you, the absolute, do, do.
Speaker 1:Do you're the what you?
Speaker 2:the absolute you, you, you, you.