If you have been listening to the podcast for a while you are familiar with Carolina Guzik. Last year, she came on the podcast to talk to me about Pinterest Marketing. And today she's joining me for a deep dive on websites, why we need them what we should be including on them and some of the best practices to get your website ranked on Google. This one's a bit longer than my typical conversations. But that's because there is just so much good information packed in
here. So I am going to cut the intro short and we'll dive right in. Welcome to this can't be that hard. My name is Annemie Tonken. And I help photographers run profitable, sustainable businesses that they love. Each week on the podcast, I cover simple, actionable strategies and systems that photographers at every level of experience can use to earn more money in a more sustainable way. Running a photography business doesn't have to be that hard. You can do it. And I can show you how.
Carolina Welcome back. It's so great to have you on this can't be that hard. Happy 2022.
Happy New Year. I'm so happy to be here.
I know it is. It's been a hot minute since you and I got to chat. And I'm really excited. You reached out about talking about websites. And I was like, yes, let's talk about websites. And then when I was chatting with you more about that you were like the importance of having a website and I was like what? Everybody
has a website. But the more I thought about it that is like my old school old lady way of thinking because when we started, everybody did have a website because social media was like in its
course. Dinosaurs like remember the old days?
Yeah, it's not even about age so much is like time in business. But you're absolutely right. Like there are so many photographers out there who are relying on their social network. So I'm I was like, This is great. This is why I love chatting with you. You always have such good insights about like, what's going on in the industry and like, good, important things to think about. So I'm excited to dive in.
Awesome. I love talking about my pet peeves, like not having a website.
Yeah, I think that like the number one important thing to starting a podcast is being an opinionated person, which is how I'm here for those of you who don't know who are listening and have never come across Carolina before Carolina is a podcaster herself. She has an amazing podcast called The Tom Republic, which just recently crossed 100,000 downloads, yay. Like applause machines, I would I would make a studio audience clap for you. But that's such a huge
milestone. So we should start there and say congratulations.
Thank you. It was it was a good okay, it was a feeling good woman there was like, oh my god, I can't believe my podcast had has been download all this, you know, times. And also at the same time, you know, like it creeps like they, but other people have a million and I'm like, hold on a second. No, no, I'm gonna enjoy my party. Because for me, it's a huge
accomplishment. And I think this is one of the things that made in 2022 We need to start kind of like, as you know, as people may be celebrating our own wins, maybe little maybe big but embrace it, you know, you accomplished something. So yes, I'm happy about you know, all the people that get to listen to me and my Colombian accent.
I love it the way that I always try and remind myself when I think about like my relatively small social media reach or my relatively small podcast reach or anything like that. I try and picture all those people sitting in a room or you know, 100,000 people you're talking about a big stadium or something.
I know this is like concert type you know?
Just you know, we'll call you your Lady Gaga up there and yes amazing and I also don't know that I've ever mentioned I am quite partial to Colombian accents my sons both they're the woman who took care of them and who started them on there. So they are both fluent in Spanish they they were they went to this woman's like in home daycare when they were little little and then they have been in a dual language school their whole like from preschool on so whereas I am sadly pretty, you know lingual
they are about to ask you how's your Spanish but
yeah, I mean I can I can like make very small conversation but I was an Italian minor in college. So like Italian and Spanish are pretty close. So a lot of the vocabularies a little overlap B but but yeah, so Lucy their babysitter when they were little was Colombian and I was so in love with her that like now to me, the Colombian accent takes off The other ones and Ah, awesome. Well, I
love that.
Um, okay, so that was off topic back on topic. Um, why don't you jump in and just sort of give your give your spiel on the importance? First of all of having a website? Why is that so important?
Well, I think that nowadays, as you mentioned, like a lot of new photographers, and not even new photographers, I will say people that are in that have been in business for, let's say, three, four years, that for me is not a new photographer, right? For me, a new photographer is like six months, right? They are not using websites, they're completely relying, as you've mentioned, on social media, and although that is great, I believe that just kind of like, part of the pie is just part of
the equation. If you don't focus your efforts in social, like in your website, first of all, how could clients see more of your work? And you could argue, like, literally Carolina, they can go to my Instagram, which is fine, but is it easy to navigate? No, there is plenty of distractions on Instagram, they can be you know, taking a look at your work, and then they can they get a notification, they get a DM, immediately, they gonna leave, they kind of forget about you.
So that's one of the things, too, how do you use your brand voice on Instagram? Very difficult, because as we all know, a lot of people struggle even with, you know, writing captions for their own Instagram. While in your website, you are kind of like forced to think a little bit about what are you going to write what is going to be like your about page about what's going to be your homepage about another thing? Obviously, Instagram is not searchable in you know, let's say Google,
right. So if somebody is typing Miami wedding photographer in Google, my photos from Instagram are not gonna show up there. So I'm, you know, I'm missing a huge market, because although we want to believe that everybody is on Instagram, not everybody thinks of Instagram as a search engine platform. So we're missing a lot of content there.
Another thing that is super important, and this is kind of like, what's the word that I'm looking for, like, controversial, or maybe not controversial, but you know, like, right on the edge of people being like, I don't like it, which is like, we are content creators, whether we like it or not, we're not only taking photos, and if we don't change the mindset about like, hey, yes, we're taking beautiful photos, we're interacting with families weddings, but now we need to use our work, to promote
ourselves to get new clientele to create more stories, or more articles about why we are the right person for the job, then again, we're missing a huge part of the pie. And you can do that really on Instagram. That's where you need a blog. So I am maybe old school. But I do believe that having a website is crucial for your business. Not only that, but let's go in something as silly as
credibility. Right? Let's say that you're a photographer, and you want to charge good money, because you deserve to charge with money, right? I don't know. Like, if I see that you don't have a website? Am I gonna give you $2,000? For a family session? I don't know. Because now it's loose, in all honesty, a little bit sketchy or amateur like, oh, I don't know. So if this is not convincing enough, then I don't know. You need it for credibility?
No. And that was actually when you were going through the all the other ones I was like, and what about trust, like trust is such an important thing in our business, because most of us if, I mean, if nothing else, they're paying some kind of upfront fee. And then they're trusting you to see them in a particular way, and
everything else. And the more so when I was relatively early in my career, I actually, in order to set myself apart from the competition, I spent a lot of money to have an actual storefront, like I had a studio even though I wasn't a studio photographer. So I would host my meetings there at the time I was doing in person sales, and I would host my sales sessions
there. And it really was great, because even though I was relatively new to business, the fact that I had like, put in the effort to set up this physical space in like the downtown area where people could come see it. And there was like money invested in all this other stuff. It was like, instant credibility that I didn't have before. And these days, I wouldn't necessarily recommend I mean, a studio makes sense if you have reason for a studio, but it's also it is a big piece
of overhead. But I feel like on like a baseline level to not have your own piece of real estate on the internet, ie a website to not go to that trouble to kind of give people a storefront to come to seems like well, what if they literally just started their business yesterday and copied a bunch of other people's photos and put them up here like how do you know 100% Yeah, so and not that a website completely means that you didn't do that, but it certainly is like an additional layer
requires a lot of effort to do that. And another thing as mentioned this, you know, we don't own Social media, I've heard so many horrible stories of like my account disappear, I have no access to my account anymore or my account got hacked. Obviously things like that could happen on a website. Yes, but it is way more more difficult to hack a website, it is way more difficult for a website to
completely disappear. Because that's when you have like a backup server, that's where you have other companies that are involved, they're going to be like, Hey, we're gonna help you recover this. So for me, it is crucial. And when I do business with people, not only within the wedding industry, but in my own personal life, like the first thing that I do is check their website. And if they don't have a website for me, I'm like, we're not doing this because I don't feel comfortable.
Yeah, no, I totally agree. Um, I think back over the course of my career, and my different websites, and it makes me laugh. If you ever played with the Wayback Machine.
I, you know what I regret not having either like a screen recording of what my website was, or like photos. But overall, I feel that it was in dad bad. Like, for the time, I felt like for the time, it was like, wow, I really committed to this for the time, but like, Yeah, I wish I had like all these photos. So I could, you know, be like, Hey, this is what my website looks today. This is what it was in 2000. And I don't even know 10 Yeah,
no, no, and I don't I mean, I think that I was putting in a very high level of effort. And, of course, the technology has changed. Like, it's become so much a flash
website, you remember the flash website?
I also took a class on how to code a, what's it called a WordPress site. So like, You're doing all this backend coding, which to me is like, why why, why, why, but yeah, the Wayback Machine. If you type in, like Wayback Machine, calm into Google, you get a website where you can type in your website, and you can go see old versions of your website. It's not complete, but like the web, spiders crawl it and like, index all these historical pages.
I'm doing this right after this. Like,
for fun. I mean, I just did a deep dive the other day on my website, and it is it's kind of like looking back at myself. Dressed in my like, teenage garb. Like, like, Oh, she has amazing skin. But also Wow, that's a terrible pair of jeans or whatever. Oh, my
God, when I'm just like, I remember right now. Like, I just got this flashback like my homepage was beautiful. And I remember opening with like, a pair of shoes for our wedding. What the heck, I was kick? What What? What? No sense. Why am I leading that I'm a wedding photographer with a pair of shoes. Oh, Lord, it was a miracle that I got business. Like, you know what?
Well, first of all, I mean, let's just be honest, like the competition has only gotten stiffer. Right? Yeah. And at the time, like those wedding details, that was sort of a was a new thing. Because before when it was filmed, they were like, you get 80 photos from your wedding. You really want me to waste one of them on your shoes. So yeah, it is it has come a long way. But it was super fun. And I suppose if you are someone out there listening who suffers from
imposter syndrome. And you think like all these other photographers, they know what they are doing. They've been in business for such a long time, like the Wayback Machine, new website. You'll see everybody starts somewhere. It's an important thing to remember.
It's so funny, because I took a class with a very, very famous photographer, but don't say names, but like, talking about like 4050 grand per wedding. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yes. And they were showing their kind of like wedding collections for like, 10 years, you know, go. I was in shock of the photos. I was like, Oh, my God, the only thing that was lacking was confidence because we had the same images friend.
Yep. Well, I mean, and again, I feel like that is a that is something that all of us can use a reminder about and you were talking about imposter syndrome with 100,000 downloads, if you listen to somebody else who has a million downloads or whatever. I mean, it's that whole like your don't begin don't compare your beginning to their middle, right, like 100% It's an important reminder for all of
us. And if you're an I'm sure you are like me in this way, it's like every time I set a goal when I need it, then the next time I'm like, well, that goals that's in the rearview mirror now where's the Where did the goalposts move in the meantime? So 100% Man, okay, so let's get back to websites. I'm apparently super chatty today. I told Carolina we started recording that I was given a gift certificate for a massage at Christmas and I booked it and so now I'm like loosey goosey, like, just chat.
You guys have to see how glow ish is looking beautiful, like a million bucks. Looking like a perfect website that is ranking on number one and
that's my whole life. It's ranking number one.
Exactly.
Just kidding. So So, um, so let's talk a little bit about if you were, let's pretend we're starting over, let's pretend that we are brand new photographers. And it's like, Okay, I'm going to put together a website, and I feel totally overwhelmed. Like, how do you break that down and just talk about where to start? Like, what is the basics that every website needs?
Yes, I got overwhelmed right now. So yes, I would say the first thing that you need to do is be realistic with how much money you want to invest. As we mentioned, 10 years ago, when we started, it was still 1000s of dollars, right to hire somebody to do your website. Nowadays, there's so many companies out there, then you can still obviously pay, let's say, 500 600 $800. But you have to spend $10,000.
So that will be my beginning, how much money do you have, because I believe in every budget, they're really, really good, you know, options for you. Right? I would say, a stick to WordPress, unlike an old school. So try to find a company that you know, is based on WordPress, or SquareSpace is also really good to host your website. So those will be my two
recommendations. So understanding the platform and finding out somebody that can do the design for you, or that you can buy a template, something like that, that is simple. Once you have that is where things get a little bit more dense. And that's when people get really, really overwhelmed. And I would say is like, first of all, your website is never ever going to be perfect. I've been doing this
for years. For the past two years, I've been doing websites, reviews, and even my website, like if I go and take a look at it today, I think it's really, really good. Is it at 100%? Probably not probably there's room for improvement. So that's one of the things to consider, your website is never going to be send Nish per se you know, quote, unquote, and it's never going to be perfect. But what we need to aim is to get as close
as good as possible. Now, once you have that, I think that it's important to take a look at and this is when it gets tricky, because a website has to be obviously a reflection of your brand. Who are you as a photographer? And who do you want to attract. And this is when people get really, really stuck, right? Because they're big questions. And probably, you're not gonna get that in an hour or two hours. And again, this is something that with time is gonna evolve, and it's gonna
be dynamic. But I think it's really important to identify this because that's gonna lead the images that you show, this is gonna lead the actual voice that you use on your website, what do you write about the words that you use, are you a little bit more formal Are you super laid back, so all that it's gonna be affected by which client you want to target your website to be? So let's say that we get that figure it out.
Obviously, once you have your target audience and all that, we're going to look at our portfolio. And I think this is also where people get like, you know what, I'm going to put every single image on my website, because the more the better, I want to make sure that they know that I do everything. And that is not so great.
Because one, you're going to give like the visitor like client fatigue, right, they're going to come to your website, they're going to scroll and scroll, and it's like the never ending scroll. And instead of like, selling them into how good you are. Now they're like overwhelmed and confused. And what happens when somebody gets overwhelming a website, they leave. One of
the examples that I use for that all the time is Netflix, like, I have to go in. In fact, I almost always if I have an evening, where I'm gonna sit down and watch a movie, I will do like pre work where I go into Rotten Tomatoes, or one of those and search for like, what's the best streaming movie available right now? Because if I just go in and start deep diving, and of course, it's not just Netflix, I also have like, HBO, Max and Disney plus. And oh, like 400,000 movie options later, I
just go to bed? Because I'm like, I don't know, I don't even remember which ones looked good. So it's totally true. Like, you have to give someone enough to be able to say like, Yep, I like their work. I think that they're a good match. But then you have to stop and be like, Okay, time to do something about
take action. Yeah. And that's another point, you know, right. We want to make sure that as you mentioned, that we give them enough to kind of like, get them curious about and then enough to be like for them to be like I want to see more they need to say like I want to see more, and that's how they contact you. And then when obviously when they contact you, you know, you can show more but like putting every single image that you have on your website, it's it's not good for you.
Right? And it comes down also like if you're starting out and you're like well, I the families, I do weddings, I photograph pets, I do headshots, and you just have a gallery with all of them. Again, it's like what's happening in here, the client is going to be completely confused because now they see a beautiful photo. Let's say you have a wedding. And then they see a picture of a baby and they're like, Well, I'm not there yet. So we need to understand that your website should have a place for
everything. This is really important. I am a wedding and lifestyle photographer, I photograph tons of families and tons of weddings. And I don't want to have two websites. I don't I don't have the mental capacity to do this. But I am very strategic on the way that I have my website. My homepage is just about weddings. That's it. And my keyword and like all the targeting that I'm doing for my website is just about weddings.
However, within my website, there's like a little button that says, if you are looking for families, click here or something along those lines. And then inside my website is a space for family photography. So I'm not mixing on my homepage, like babies, families, click here, even if you are putting just kind of like, like a photo that is gonna link to like a separate page. You're confusing, not only your possible clients, but you're also confusing Google. And again, we start
confusing Google. You don't?
Exactly. So I would love to get your take on this. I know that you teach a lot about websites and marketing and all that sort of stuff. So what is your answer when you get somebody who says, right, but I do photograph five different things. And I like all five of those things I don't want to niche down I don't want to be just a wedding photographer. I photograph maternity. And newborns. I also do weddings and branding and fill in another one
families. How do you recommend without having five different websites? Or four different websites? How do you recommend that somebody navigate that? Showing it but not overwhelming or confusing?
So my first question will be Which one do you like? Do you love most? If you tell me all of them, my love is SQL for all of them. Like, Well, money doesn't like which one makes you the most amount of money. Okay, good. Yep. So then that's your answer. So let's say if your answer is like, well, the one that makes me the most amount of money is weddings. But I really like families, that's your answer to them, we're gonna have to focus on that homepage
only on families. And then you can have a little button that says, weddings or something like that, but your home page has to be just focusing in one general or photography. Which one makes the most money? Which one? Do you enjoy the most? If you cannot answer those two questions, and I don't know, we need to go back to something else. But those two questions always lead the way. Yeah,
very good. Yeah, I have a similar kind of feeling, which is that if, let's say that you you know, you do weddings, and maternity and newborn, and families, those are all they're at different stages of life, but they're all connected in a way or in for many people, they are connected in a way. If you also had brands, I would say that's something that you should maybe consider probably yes. But within all of those, yeah, you
it's like you lead with one. And if people love your work, they will they will dig deeper to find the rest of it.
I think that, again, you have to be strategic about it. Because let's say let's look on my own website, because you know, it's my website, we've got that about it. I have, you know, a homepage just for weeks, and I have a button that says families, right? Let's say that I don't have that button that I just have, like hidden somewhere, you know, let's say I have a drop down menu that says actually hold on a second. Let me open this for a minute. So I can actually give you exactly what I have.
So if people want to follow along at home, tell me what your what your actual photography website is.
This is Catalina Gu seek that calm, very Catalina ca R O Li Na GZ IK. So if you let here you get into notes, as always, if you were to go to my portfolio, I only have engagements, weddings. And that's it. That's all I have there. So let's say that I want to believe that well, if they love me enough, they'll find it. Probably not because maybe a family photographer or family that I have photographed, tell their friend like hey, check out
Carlina she's really great. They know nothing about me, they come to my website and they don't see a direct button that says looking for a family photographer. Most likely they're not gonna go diving deep into my website. So that's a reality.
I totally agree that actually was what I meant like you would have to have it somewhere but it doesn't need to be front and center
correct. So like I have my button that says actually it's at the top says looking for a family photographer, but if you were to scroll down I don't have it anywhere else. As I mentioned, I don't even have it on my portfolio I don't have like a
family gallery. However, once you click on this looking for family photography, even though is within the same website, the same kind of the negotiate photography, once you click there, it's kind of like its own homepage, all targeting families because even though it's within my own website, I want to make sure that when somebody lands there they feel welcomed they know what I'm all about. So I'm kind of like repurposing you
know, content. And of course, maybe these on a podcast sounds a little bit though like oh my God, what's going on here, but pretty much what I'm saying here is like you don't need three five different websites with you You need to be strategic with how you organize your website. So you can still photograph everything that you love. But it still makes sense. And you don't turn people off.
Yeah, I agree. Because it really is, if well, it's like, I will never go to a restaurant that claims that they do, like amazing Italian and sushi and Thai food, I'm like, Well, those are very different cuisines. And my guess is you're not good at any of them. And I
feel like that's a red flag. And so you know, same thing with photographer, like a wedding photographer, or a wedding client, like, you know, a bride or a groom, or whomever is hunting around for a wedding photographer, they want to feel really confident that the person they're going to hire knows exactly what they're doing that they're not like trying it out for the first time, because they think they're pretty good with a camera, that is not the vibe, you want to give off.
100%. And this is why having a website is really good, because then again, you can dive deep and you can actually showcase, you know, different couples, you can showcase different aesthetics, you can showcase, you know, diversity, wherever, you know, it's important to you, for people to feel seen, or to recognize themselves within the photos, it is really difficult to do that on Instagram, because again, it's a free for all everything that's happening on Instagram, you post that
wedding, maybe tomorrow you post the baby, so people cannot get the same level of connection with you. And we would you do.
Yeah. 100%. Um, so back to, we're starting out, we're new photographers, or, or we're just starting, you know, we're creating a website for the first time you find a platform that works well. You settle on some sort of design aesthetic, you keep it simple in terms of targeting one, or maybe a couple kinds of clients, but not like, you know, like vomiting, everything you've ever done all over them. Alright. Any other pointers?
I think that you need I mean, we're gonna talk about keeping it simple. One thing that I constantly see what I do websites, reviews, and this is so obvious. And I think it's because it's so obvious people don't overlook it, right? Yeah. What are you located? The amount of websites where I land on the homepage, and I'm scrolling? And I'm like, I have no idea where they live? Are they even in the
US? I don't know. And then you know, I will tell the photographer and then they would say like, well, it's it's on my about, or it is on my contact. Or they would even say like, well, I don't put my location because I want to photograph all over the world. And those are big dreams and go for them, you know, more power to you if that's what you want to do. But again, unless you're super famous, that's not going to cut
it. Because once again, you need to tell Google all these little details so they can help you rank. And also, let's forget about Google, let's say that you don't care about Google, which we shouldn't be saying that. But let's say that your while and you don't care about Google, you need to tell somebody when they land on your website immediately if you're going to be the right
person for them. Because the more work that we need to do as visitors on our website, right, the more is crawling, the more thinking that we need to do, the easier the person is going to exit because the brain is still we have advanced but the brain is still prehistoric, they're not gonna waste energy in something they don't need to
waste energy in. Yeah, so immediately subconscious has like, I don't know, I don't know, friend, let's accept because this is like wasting energy that you need to survive somewhere else.
I mean, we have all been in a situation where we wanted to go out to eat, and you webs or restaurants are terrible. Like, I feel like whoever is in charge of restaurant websites, they should all be fired. But it's like, I need a phone number. I need your hours. And I need a menu link really very prompt right there. And so many of them are like look at this beautiful piece of piece of bread that's on the front, and like you can't find anything else. That's crazy.
100%. So the same thing goes for you know, for photography, like I could guarantee you like if you are tracking your websites, which really important you need to have Google Analytics free for all friends, just free and really simple to you know, put
on your website. You can see how long people assume your website, you can see the bounce rate, which means somebody land on your website, and they scroll for two or three seconds and then they literally bounce like they're out of here by so all that information is going to help you also get your website better. I know that's a little bit more advanced. But it is important that you understand that literally you have all these tools that give you all this data for you to tweak your
website as you go. So super important if you see that alert frequently. In your website, then you need to like double check. Am I being super confusing? People will know what I'm selling. People don't know where I'm located. Are my pictures, maybe not that great. And I need to work on that. Because we need to be honest. I mean, your website could also be fantastic. But if your work is not there to support what you do, you know, it's a whole ecosystem.
Although, you know, yes, I 100% agree, but also a really beautiful website, I've also seen the flip side of that, where somebody has really great work, but it's in and not to pick on Zenfolio. And maybe they've way up their game. But you know, there were those Zenfolio sites for a while that were pretty rough around the edges, they just weren't up to date. And I do think that they've put a lot of work out there. So apologies to anybody who feels passionately about
that. But where you have a, if you've got a beautiful, photo printed, and it's like glued to the wall, it loses all of its luster, and then you can have kind of a less good photo. But when it's beautifully framed, that looks way better. And like lighting, it makes a big difference.
I see where you're going with this analogy, and I completely understand I rather have okay work, you know, I'm talking about mediocre like, okay, work, but tons of people looking at my website, because I have more chances to, you know, to convert them, instead of having amazing, spectacular work that nobody sees, yep. Because at the end of the day, this is a business, if you're doing this for funsies. And it's a hobby, nobody needs to buy anything, then go and be artistic, you
don't need this. But we're on a business, you know, podcast, you're here to make a living out of photography, whether we embrace it, whether we like it, whether you think it's a dirty word or not, for me money, I love it come to me, I embrace it. So I do believe that I need to be in a position where like, people get to my website, and they get excited about working
with me. And as you mentioned, that technology is here today, like if I go to your website, and you are uploading images that are so large that your website is literally and I'm not exaggerating, if your website is no loading in a second, I am also going to leave you because not even your mom is going to see through a website that is
taking forever to load. And that is another mistake that I constantly see, people want to have these gigantic, big size images like full resolution, we don't need that on our website. And also there is so many companies. So there are so many programs that you can use to like shrink your images. There is JPEG Mini, there is our first one that I use, forget about it, but I'll tell you later, and then you can add it on the nodes that you can use this programs
to compress your images. So like the image still looks beautiful, and the website loads fast.
Same thing with mobile ready, like there's zero excuse these days to have a website that doesn't look good on mobile.
And not only that, but if your website doesn't convert into mobile, Google penalize that, right? So there's so many things that Google is penalizing us from because, again, what they want is for the user to have a flawless experience. Google is not going to showcase a website that is not doing its thing to somebody that is looking for information. Right.
The good news is though, I mean, again, back in the day, this was like a very difficult, expensive thing to do where you had to pay somebody and you have or learn how to do it yourself. And it took so much more time and these days, there are so many just plug and play templates, that you do not have to be some sort of like tech guru to
100% It's like buying a beautiful home, you go and you see the model home and you're like, Oh my God, I want all this and then you buy the basic model and is like, well, I'm because I can paint this myself on, you know, make it look pretty, you can do it yourself. You just need to buy it kind of like the structure. And as you mentioned, there is so many companies nowadays that
are really, really good. Again, I'm gonna say I'm gonna stick to WordPress, because for me is like, the again, WordPress is not a company, of course, is a company but I'm saying as a WordPress platform, and there are many, many companies that sell templates for WordPress, right? I myself, I use portfolio. I have been with them for like, eight years. I cannot speak highly of them. They're like the best. So if you need a suggestion, go there.
Yeah, I know. Well, and I've been on Squarespace for so long that it feels like Oh, it feels like the learning curve would be too much. But at the same time, I do feel like um, yeah, there are some really, sometimes I get a wandering eye and I'm like, Oh, those are some fancy websites. Yeah. Well,
talking about wandering eyes. I think that sometimes is how we get to where we want it right. We're like, oh my god, this website looks so amazing. And the design is so pretty. And this is definitely what I want. Great. But as women, you know, we were talking about before. website have they have many, many elements? One is kind of like the structure of the website and I want you to think about a house right? The structure of the house, is your house going to enjoy a hurricane
five? Category is your house going to endure an earthquake
lives in Miami. So this is something she's familiar with.
Exactly. So that's kind of like the structure. And then we have the design, you know what, when we see the layout, the colors and all that, you need to make sure that you are not just getting a design that is really, really beautiful, but then the structure is crap, right? Meaning that you're going to have a beautiful, you know, website, but then nobody gets to
see it. Because it is nowhere to be you know, it doesn't rank that you didn't do the enough steps or all the work that you need to do on your end to make sure that you tell Google and off information about what this website is about. And I think again, I think this is something that photographer, sometimes we have kind of like a hard time understanding because we're like, bad. My website has so many beautiful images. Well, I have news for you, Google cannot see images. They don't say
they're blind. They read text. So if you have a bunch of gorgeous images that have won so many awards, but there is no alternative text, there is no tax on them, then they're doing nothing.
Yeah. Which is where something like a blog, or some kind of regular, regularly updated, worthy content comes in, right?
Correct. But also even your homepage, like so many home pages that you just go there. And it's just kind of like a carousel of images. And then that's it. You add literally giving several contexts to Google about what your website is. Having a blog is great, because on top of having, let's say, your homepage, on top of having a new gallery page, and let's say that you've done everything that is possible, all the alternative text, all the words and all
that. Now you have a blog, where you constantly or maybe not even constantly, because I'm going to be honest with you, I blog five times a year. So I'm not even blogging every month. But every single time that I blog, the really, really good articles, talking about weddings, talking about topics that are relatable to weddings. So what's happening is Google sees my website, they read all the texts that I have, they have kind of like the structure of my website, right?
They see the whole structure. They're like, Oh, this website is about weddings. Now she has a blog where she's talking about wedding. So definitely this website is about weddings, then they see that I have been featured in other websites about weddings. So they're like, oh, this other website that are about weddings are backing up this website. So for sure this website is about wedding. So when somebody asked about weddings in Miami, we're gonna
showcase this. So this is kind of like the easiest way to explain it. And you know, change that for families or whatever they are genre photography, you do.
Yeah, you're building trust with a robot. Exactly. You
want to make sure that you're not only and again, this is not I remember, you know, I don't know if you remember this, but like, when we started doing blogging, you know, 10 years ago, it was like, I'm a Miami family photographer, and I look families in Miami, and my Miami family clients are the best. And it was like, crazy, like nobody writes like that. I know, oh, man. So I think that nowadays, when you blog, if you are writing like that, again, the internet, the robots, the spiders and Google
are super smart. And now they're gonna be like, Ah, this person is just trying to rank the old way. And we're not doing that anymore. So now that's also gonna hurt you. So when you write on your blog, whether it's a blog post, or even, you know, the text that you put on your homepage, it needs to feel like a human. It's writing this like you are talking to a human.
Yeah. So again, and another thing is, let's say that, let's say that my website, again, is Miami wedding photography, that's like the main keyword that I want to rank for. If I have that keyword all over, I'm gonna get penalized. So you need to be strategic, you need to be smart. And this is what I say we need to be content creators, all the blog posts that you were about, like, if you are just writing about like, oh, I photograph and me and her kids,
and they were so cute. And then you're like, Oh, I photograph Catalina, I'm her dog. And it was so cute. Oh, I photographed Susie and her family. It was so cute. You're not keeping any context. You need to talk about like, best locations for family sessions, what to work for a family session, what to do with cranky kids through a family session. Those are the topics that you should be writing about. Yeah,
yeah. And I think addressing it if you approach blogging, which can also be done with video content these days and then if you take the transcript of the video and plugging it, plug it in, you've got an automatic blog posts, but the The idea of creating content that is specifically geared toward answering the questions and hesitations and objections that your ideal clients have, then what they are searching is going to bring them to you. If it's location based all the
better. And then you're positioning yourself as the expert, like you're actually answering their questions and helping them. So like, Yeah, I mean, it's always the the easy answer is how to make how to make something good will create
good content. But I love the fact that you're sharing that you only blog five or six times a year, because I do think that a lot of people get stuck on this, like, I cannot commit to doing this, like it is better to do it to some degree than to just say, Well, I can't keep up with some schedule that somebody else said. So I'm not going to do it at all.
100%. And I think that people get a lot of like hesitation or maybe even kind of like, what's the word I'm looking for when you want to do something like, like, like, not rejection, but like, you're like, I don't want to do this dance or assistance. That's the word that I was looking for. Because it's like, oh, you need to block every weekend. I mean, I don't know like, I rather have one good content that is going to be also evergreen than having to sit in front of my computer
every weekend. I'm not gonna sugarcoat sugarcoat this blogging is tedious. Creating a good blog article is it takes me five hours, and I know exactly how to do it. But I need to research I need to research my keywords, I want to make sure that the images that I'm using are the best images, and then I obviously have to write it down. Obviously, once I publish it, I have to promote it on social media, then hopefully, I've done
my homework, right. And within a couple of months, it's going to start getting momentum in Google, right. So it's also important to understand that this is not a post on Instagram, where you're going to get 100 likes immediately. That's not how it works. And I think that turns people off, because they want to see results right away. But I rather play the long game than the short game.
I think we just landed on somewhere out of this, the title of this podcast is going to come but it's like that idea of I'm, I don't need a website, I'm just gonna put together an Instagram page because I get that sort of instant gratification and it's easier and all that sort of stuff. Yes, that may be true, but you are, you're just you're like, going all in on something that is very superficial versus planting those deeper seeds that will come back and like become much more hardy
100% Another thing is like, let's talk about Instagram, right? People you know love it. They want to post an image, they read whatever caption that photo lives on Instagram for like an hour. Yeah, after an hour, there is a billion photos that have like, packed on. And that's it. Nobody is doing fighter scrolls on your Instagram, I can guarantee I mean, unless somebody to stalking you. But other than that, nobody is doing more than
five scrolls. If you write evergreen content on your website, literally evergreen, that's what it's called, it lives forever. And if you write content that you can update, let's talk about what to wear for family sessions, right? In Miami, because it's hot, right? So make sure that I get family sessions in Miami, because if somebody's in California looking on my website, lovely, but I'm not a destination photographer. I'm not doing that. So like I
need people local to me. So let's say that, let's talk about five years ago, let's say that I wrote that blog post five years ago, probably things have changed a little bit and the styles have changed. And probably even the styles of my own clients have changed. So that is a blog that I don't need to rewrite completely, but I can just go and update it. And then Wallah, new content is still there. I just kind of like went and changed a couple of things.
And the content is evergreen, that is what I want.
Yeah, and more importantly, or just as importantly, you're able to update it with like your more recent images. Now, that's a great point. It does not you do not need to recreate the wheel each and every time.
No, absolutely not. I'm all about working smarter, not harder. Yeah. Even saying, Yeah.
And I'm right there with you. I'm all for it. I'm excellent. Okay, so let's think about the recap here. So we're definitely creating a website, we're keeping it simple. We are not confusing our clients or Google about what we're there for. We are creating Word content. And that makes it sound like a Word document. But I mean, like written content, not just images that we're relying on. Anything else that we need to be thinking about?
Well, make sure that once you have your website, right and you have pages within your website, right, you're gonna have a homepage, you have obviously a portfolio and about page, maybe a pricing page that you don't let people to add that meaning, let's say that I'm on your homepage, and I like it. And then I go to your portfolio because I want to see your images. And I see a bunch of beautiful images. And then that's it, there is no call to
action. I don't want to see a call to action in every single page. And I don't want the call to action to be booked me now, or book or something like that. Because although this sounds, it's gonna sound really, really silly. Again, the brain works in silly ways. But if I just got you website, let's say enemy, I go to your website, and I love what I see. And then there's a button that says book. Now, I might be turned off by it, because I'm like, I love what I see. But I'm not ready to book.
And that could be something that is silly, but instead of that be like, find out more information. Let's chat, I don't know something that seems a little bit more inviting, instead of just like book now. So always have a call to action. And make sure that again, this is why your your brand voice is really important. Because what kind of things are you going to put right? I work my own business. My clients are very stylish, but they're also kind of like down
to earth. So let's say one of the call to actions right on my homepage is let's get this party started. We're in Miami, people come here to party. So instead of like find out more information, it's like I'm giving them the kind of lingo that they want to hear that gets them excited. Then I think on my let's say, actually on my engagement session, let's see what I have. My call to action is ready to get some information contact me. So there is actually
no skin in the game. But just when I get information, there is no book me there is no like, give me your money now. Nothing. No, that is simple seems approachable. So don't leave your clients or don't lead visitors to your website and then lead them to a dead end. Because again, you might say, well, there is literally a menu bar at the top, they could scroll back and just fill out the contact form. Yes, they could do that. But tell them what to do.
Yeah. And don't make them work for it. Exactly. Yes. So good. Karolina, this has been full of so many good little hints. And honestly, even if you know everyone out there, as to your point from before, even the people who have websites like they're never perfect, they're never finished. And you know, we're here, it's for many of us, not you because you're in like high wedding season in Miami. But like if this is for many people a slower season. And it's a great time to go back and
reevaluate. I try to do a, I try and keep my website maintained regularly. But I do a deep clean, deep refresh, usually every two years.
And I feel like are you up to that refresh? Now?
I'm probably up to that refresh. But I am probably not gonna be doing my website for a little
while we can do I feel like this. It's ton of content. And I feel like for somebody that perhaps is thinking about doing a website or like now it's like, oh my god, do I need to go and check on my website. Maybe. Obviously, this is like a visual thing maybe we can do in your group is like a couple of like, you know, quick, easy, like, kind of like a speed dating but for websites.
Like you're gonna come and do it.
Yeah, we can't do that. I feel listening to this podcast, probably. I'm like, What is she been talking about? So I think that maybe a visual would be kind of like a good kind of like, compliment to like, I don't know, why do you think this?
Yes, I love that idea. So this is what we're gonna do. I will when this episode drops, you and I when we finish recording, we'll look at the dates and all that sort of stuff. We'll pick a time when this episode drops, I will send out that week's newsletter. And I will invite people to submit websites and then we'll pick a couple and
we'll see what the volunteer see who do I can this thing or whatever her name. Yeah,
right. Raise your hand. Oh my goodness. Yes, that would be so fun. Excellent. So you guys, if you're listening to this around the time that it drops, be sure to keep an eye out in your inbox and in this can't be that hard Facebook group. And we'll do a live website couple of website reviews with Carolina. One. Yeah, and you I mean, I know that this is something that you do regularly, you have a Patreon, right? Or I don't know how to pronounce I have
a Patreon account. And I do have also an option for Websites Review. So let's see. Let's let's say that somebody is listening to this and is like, oh my god, I think I need my website review. I believe it's only and I want to give you exactly the price is really affordable friends. So give me just one second it is $150 The way that I do it is if you are new to me and you don't know me by now you should know that I don't like any fluff. And I'm not here to like talk about
nonsense. So the way that I do it is like let's say that you want to book me, I would send you a whole questionnaire about your website. The current status of your website and where you want to go. So when we jump in this call, I have already done all my homework. It's not like, oh, well, let me take a look at your website and see what I can tell you, when we jump on a call, I know exactly the steps that you need to take your website to the next level, the
call, obviously is recorded. So you can go back and take a look at it as many times as you want. The people that I have done websites, reviews, it has been really, really fun. Because it's kind of like a live thing, there is obviously time for questions. And my goal is to give you tangible steps that you can do to make your website better. And I'm talking about kind of like not only branding and design, I'm talking about this structure of your website, but that's
really what's gonna matter. So there is that, and then the patron is only $10 a month. And it's like meetups and you know, like, tiny websites, reviews. And I go into I break down more content about blogging and content planning and all that. So a good little space to you know, learn a little bit more about branding and marketing, and SEO and all those good things.
That's awesome. You have so much like knowledge about all of this stuff. And I love how generous you are with it. And I really appreciate you coming on again to share all of that with my listeners, they love you. And it's so nice. Back,
I am so happy to be here and mentioning how I know all this is because I'm obsessed with my own website and I have paid 1000s of dollars to people to tell me about it. And I feel like in 2020 during the pandemic since I had all the time in the world was when I really really understood SEO in a in a way that was really simple to me, right? It's not like fancy words, nothing like
that. And I was able to move my website I believe I was like on page six of Google which is like the dead zone who goes there. And on page one I am ranking I have I believe when I got my stats for December, I had like 15 different pages ranking on top five of Google for different terms. So I lived it I've been through it and that's what I can you know that I feel comfortable sharing this knowledge with
me so amazing. So good. Well, thank you again and and why don't you I know we've mentioned your website and your Patreon and all that but what's the easiest place for people to find you
that talk Republic t OG Republic that comm that's where you find links to all the podcasts and classes and all that good stuff. So I love to see you guys there.
Yay. Great. Well, thanks so much again, and I hope you have a great day.
Thank you. Thank you.
I'll see you again soon.
Ciao. Oh,
well, that's it for this week's episode of This can't be that hard. I'll be back Same time, same place next week. In the meantime, you can find more information about this episode, along with all the relevant links, notes and downloads at this can't be that hard.com/learn If you like the podcast, be sure to hit the subscribe button. Even better, share the love by leaving a review in iTunes. And as always, thanks so much for joining me. I hope you have a fantastic week.