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How to create a photography website
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Hey guys, welcome back to the YouTube channel. Today, I will be showing you guys how you can create a website
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for your photography practice. So check the link in the description box to get started
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Now, we're going to be using Wix and Wix is amazing for building
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your own websites, may it be photography or anything else. Now, all you have to do is go on over to Wix.com and it is
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linked in the description box and you will enter your email address and it's free to sign up and you can start building
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your website. Now, I am on a premium plan of Wix. So I have logged on to my account over here and I will click
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on create new site. And once I click on create new site, it will ask me a couple
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of questions of what kind of website I want to build so you
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can answer these questions. I'm going to skip them for now because I am going to directly
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head on over to the template gallery. So after that you can enter your website name
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You can change this later on. So I'm going to skip these questions. They're just moving forward
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I'm just going to go ahead and go into the template gallery. Now you also have the other option to get a custom built site
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Now this actually works via the Wix AI. It asks you a couple of questions and depending on your answers
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of those questions, it gives you a template to get started with
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but we're going to go with the general template gallery and you can see that there are a bunch of different templates
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You can pick out from on the top, right? You have a search bar where you can search for a specific
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niche of templates. Then you also have these categories over here. So in the creative section you have photography and I'm just
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going to click on photography over here. So you have multiple different templates and you can customize
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these to make these your own. So we're just going to get started with a template that I
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find to be, you know, nice and something I might want to get
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started with. So I really like this template over here and I will just click
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on edit over here and while our template is loading in a couple
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of seconds, I'm going to discuss the pricing of Wix with you
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guys because I'm on the premium plan of Wix. I'm on the business unlimited version and there are two basic
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sections of Wix website building. So first off you have your basic website plans where you can
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create a basic website. You can connect your domain, you get free SSL certificates
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as well as 3 to 35 gigabytes of storage space and 30 minutes
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to 5 hours of video hours and lead capture forms as well
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But if you want to create a business site, so if you want to
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accept online payments on your Wix site, then you have to go into the business and e-commerce plans for a business that
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might be, you know, if you're a photographer and you're taking deposits, if you want to take, you know, online deposits from
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your customers or clients, then I would recommend go with the e-commerce plans
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If you don't offer, you know, if you don't take advanced payments
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and you don't mind not having e-commerce options where people are able to book you in advance and pay at the time like a
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deposit fee or a security fee, then you can go with a website
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plan. But for most website builders, I would recommend the business unlimited
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Currently, there is a 50% discount to check the link in the description box down below because you can get started with
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the business unlimited version only for 12 euros and 50 cents. So that is my personal recommendation
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After that, you also have to take into account your domain name. So with any kind of premium plan on Wix, whichever one
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you might choose, you get a free domain name for one year. So you can choose out a domain name
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So you can choose out a domain name. You can go into the Wix.com slash domain and check the availability
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of multiple different domains and you can register your domain within the initial subscription of Wix that you're getting
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Now, after that, the renewal of your domain is going to be anywhere between 12 to 17 dollars after one year of your subscription
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and you can easily connect your domain name with your basic website. Now, moving back to our website editor
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So this is the Wix website editor and it's adding all the components. So this is our template
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Now, the first thing I want to do is I want to select the text on the top left and I will change the text to my own photography
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name. So it's Sarah's Photo Studio. And then I'm just going to add Sarah Austin Photo Studio, and
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then I'm just going to reduce the size of this column over here
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And for most people, I would recommend, you know, adding their own background
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They can enter their own background just to, you know, you know
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display their services. Now, after that, this is like the basic homepage. On the top left
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you can click on manage pages. So this will show you all the pages that are present within the
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template. Now, if I click on pages and menus on the left side
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I have multiple different pages. So I'm going to click on the portfolio one or even in the website
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editor. You can just click on portfolio. And now this is showing me the portfolio section
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So from here, you can just simply click on add elements and you
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can click on images and add your own portfolio images. And you can see in the portfolio section, there are, you know
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subcategories, which is family, portraits, family, maternity, commercial, and if you have multiple different categories, you can
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enter that. If you don't have, you know, multiple different categories of your photography, you can go into menus and pages
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and remove any page that you don't want. So let's say I only do family or portrait photos so I can remove
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the commercial and other sections. So like so, but I'm just going to keep it simple
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I want a one page portfolio and I'm just going to delete all the
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sub pages. But if you want to create a sub page, simply click on add page
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and I'm going to use a blank page. Once you've added a blank page, go into your menus and sections
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pages and menus, then you're going to just click on the newly added page and make it a sub page by dragging it to the right
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side. Now, this is going to be a sub page of the portfolio section and I'm going to click on over here to click on the
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settings and I want it to appear on the menu. If you don't want it to appear on the menu, you can remove it
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and then you can rename the page. So portraits, that's the page that I want to have
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Now, after that, you have your services in this template you have in your services section
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We have like a submission form as well. And then the services we have portraits, we have family bookings
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we have maternity. And for this, I'm going to show you guys later on how you can
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edit it. But for now, I really like this template because it has bookings
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and all those applications added. So if you don't have bookings in your template that you selected
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simply click on add elements or you can just click on over
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here into the add app section and go into the Wix apps market
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From here, you're going to search for bookings and you have Wix bookings over here and you can add Wix bookings to your
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website. Now, I'm just going to click on save and publish and
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you can connect your own domain name here. This is a sample website. So I'm not adding a domain name currently, but after I have
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published my website, I can go back into the my site section
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of my Wix website. Then I can click on select an edited site and this will open
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up the back end dashboard of my Wix site. So I can go on ahead and enter multiple different categories
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or booking sessions. However, you run your business. So usually with photography, I like to do basic portraits
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Then I have party events, party coverage, where I do videography as well
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So for that, you can click on booking services and you can
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add your estimated price as well and click on show availability and show people the available slots you have
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So what are your working hours? If you don't work on a specific time, then you have the calendar
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So you can choose how further along in the future you want to
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get booked in and you can click on add sessions and add a specific
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block time or you might not be taking bookings and you can
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choose a staff member, give it a specific time. What is going to be a specific time where it's not going to be
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available for new shoots or new sessions. Now, I like to go on ahead into my booking calendar and in my
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basic booking calendar, you have your basic schedules, you have your services and all the services would be listed here
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You have locations, staff as well. Then you have your addresses, session availability and your other
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events as well. So you can really manage everything within this calendar
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But after that in the booking services, I like to delete all of
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the template services. So you can click on manage category and click on delete and delete
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your services. Now, I'm just going to click on over here in my booking services
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I can click on start from scratch and create my own booking of
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the kind of service that I provide. So this is going to be a appointment only service and I named this
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birthday shoot. So the tagline is event and portraits and I can then enter the
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description of what kind of services I'm offering within this birthday shoot
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I like to be as detailed as possible. So my customers will have as many questions as you might think
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So, you know, sometimes they just want to know like a very basic thing you might have left out
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So I'm just adding, you know, some keywords and then on the top. I like to add a phrase like these are the things included in this
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specific shoot type and this provides a basic easy to skim through
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summary that I'm going to enter the duration. So the duration is custom and it's going to be four hours and I like
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to add a five-minute buffer time and then if you want you can choose
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how people pay for this specific service so it could be per session
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with a plan or per session or with a plan. So this is going to be per session and let's say I have a fixed
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amount that I charge for birthday shoots. It could be anywhere. So I'm just going to write a basic amount and then you can enter
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what kind of payment preferences you have. So I have a online deposit and rest in person kind of policy because
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I don't like to take bookings without a online deposit. People can cancel people are very last-minute
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You don't know anything. So I like to take a $50 deposit and then after that you have your
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business address if you want to add locations or if you have multiple
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different people working in your photography studio, you can enter the staff member names as well and people can choose who they are
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booking and be booking calendar for each staff member will show up
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in the booking section as well. So now I can click on save you can add some sample images
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So for the images section you're going to go on ahead and enter your
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sample videos or bookings of the kind of service you're providing and that is all you have to do to get a professional photography website
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So now if I go into my Wix website editor currently, this is what
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it's looking like. So if I go back into my homepage, this is what it's looking like in
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the basic desktop version. And if I click on the top over here, I can even see how it's looking
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like on the mobile version so you can really customize the appearance
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of your website and make sure it doesn't look too crowded on the mobile version click on publish over here
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And once your website is published you're going to open it up just to you know, do a double check on how it's looking like how you know
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all these services are looking. This is our basic homepage then I can click on my services over here
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and you have our birthday shoot if I click on book now currently, I haven't you know enabled the bookings but I can click on book
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now to get bookings as well. So I hope you guys found this video helpful
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Make sure to click the link in the description box down below to
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get started with setting up your own photography website and I will
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catch you guys in the next video