*For more information visit AdoramaTV YT page, and of course you can keep up with Vanessa on Instagram  @VanessaJoy

How should your website look like to attract a significant number of customers? Today we are learning from Vanessa Joy with AdoramaTV and her quick marketing tips of what things you must have on your website!

Vanessa shares: “I want to be clear  about real estate on your website,  the top right corner of your website that’s  like the good real estate…  that’s where everybody’s eye just goes to.  So some kind of call to action…  should be there – something like contact  us or here’s where you get your free quote,  or free download or whatever it is.  I think if you look at my website it says  “check your date” . Make sure that upper  right hand corner that has your call to action.”

“Number 2 is  you have to talk about what the heck you  do. A really good book about this is a  story brand by Donald Miller, and he talks about  creating a brand message, which is just  you communicating to whoever’s on your  website, about what it is that you do”

“And the way that you think about it is that  you want to be able to repeat your brand  message like a Neanderthal…  so think of it this way…  I’m a wedding photographer I  need a Neanderthal to be able to look at  it and go oh…” she shoots weddings”, ” she  take wedding photos.” You need a super clear brand message.”

 “Number 3.. you want to have an About  section but don’t make it this long blubbery novel. Today most people just want  bullet points, so make your About section  bullet points about you:  things that seem relevant.”

Number 4. Building a website. Photographer Mark Wallace has a great advice on it: “here are a few places you  can go to build a website – Squarespace,  Live  Books and then WordPress. So if you’re a little  bit tech savvy and you want to own the  look and feel, and be able to change it  anytime you want – you want to put your  good stuff. Nothing shouts amateur like one  model posted in different poses over and  over and over again. Instagram is a good place to build  your portfolio but I don’t think it  necessarily replaces an actual photo  website. The reason for that  is on Instagram you can’t easily put  contact information information about  yourself. It’s just so limited just in  that little couple sentences in your portfolio.  You can’t really customize it,  you can’t add a blog posting videos  longer than a minute right now,  that’s not something you can do,  so there’s just a lot of things that you  probably want to do on your own website.  So use Instagram to feed  people to your normal website, and vice  versa – keep people engaged but those two things  should work as a team.”

“Number 5…  you want to make it easy to contact you.  So have a contact button on every page,  top right – because that is your most  valued Real Estate’s…  where people kind of automatically go if  you have a contact form on your website,  give them the option of just emailing you because  maybe they like that better calling you. Don’t ask too many questions –  you need the barrier of entry to be as low  as possible to get them to contact you. Some of them will see your long form,  too many things to fill out on the  contact form, and they just won’t contact  you.”

“The last thing we have to talk about are the  images on your website. Your portfolio  should have a couple of  different galleries, if you do different styles of  photography, or if you’re just an event  photographer, maybe you break up  engagement sessions detail photos,  and wedding moments of the  couple,  you  probably need to  cut down  the number of images by half. No one’s  looking through them all. And you want to have these 10 to 15 hero  images that you know they’re gonna see.  So that you end up creating a brand  around it, and they recognize those  images really, really important that they recognize your photography.”

Check out our WORKSHOPS in Los Angeles that teach you hands-on how to make great photos!

Watch the full episode with Vanessa Joy and Adorama TV: