How To Create A Website That Makes Brides Fall In Love | Part 5. The Contact Page

This post is part of the series, The Ultimate Guide To Being A Wedding Photographer — advice for running a successful wedding photography biz. Click here to view a list of all the posts in this series.

Welcome back for the fifth post in this series, How To Create A Website That Makes Visitors Fall In Love — which is part of my bigger series, The Ultimate Guide To Being A Wedding Photographer.

Yes! It’s a series within a series.

Today I’m sharing my secrets for the perfect Contact page.

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The Contact Form

If your website doesn’t have a contact form, you need to remedy that asap.

Instead of just providing just your email for visitors to contact you, a contact form directs the conversation so you can get the information you need. Super important!

So what should this almighty contact form include?

Well here’s a list of the basics (and most necessary):

• Name
• Email address
• Phone
• Message

Now that you have those under control, here a few optional form questions to consider:

• How did you hear about me? (super helpful to know how you’re getting referrals!)
• Wedding Date? (are you even available for that date?)
• Wedding Venue?
• Email confirmation (make them type it twice, just to be sure!)
• Wedding style?

Is there something else you’d like to know about a potential client? Add it to your form! But don’t make the overall contact form too long or cumbersome. If it feels like “work” visitors will be less likely to fill it out.

Other Ways To Contact You

So, I said you shouldn’t use just your email for potential clients to get in touch. And you shouldn’t. But now that you have your contact form figured out, you do need to provide ADDITIONAL ways for visitors to contact you.

Why? Well, they might need to get in touch but maybe their questions don’t fit in that pretty little form you made. For example, what if it’s a wedding planner who wants to connect with you about a styled shoot? It would be awkward for her to fill out your form.

So, you’ll want to provide other ways to get in touch, like:

• Email
• Phone
• Skype

I don’t like sharing my phone number or skype username with the internet. I only provide it to potential clients that I’ve already vetted through my contact form. So, I mention that phone is available by appointment. You can take a peek at my own contact page to see how I do this.

Sometimes people want to scope you out a little more before a formal “hello.” So in addition to the items above, you might consider adding your social media accounts on your contact page too.

Share Important Information

So, maybe that ideal bride has been scoping you out for awhile… she’s visited your website several times this week, then she’s checked out your instagram and facebook page, and now she’s finally ready to reach out.

She fills out the contact form, and because (from her perspective) she’s waited all week to get in touch — she’s ready to hear back from you. ASAP.

But you are a busy business owner, you’re running around between shoots, editing images, writing blog posts, updating your social media, catching up on bookkeeping… and on… and on… and on.

Yes, ideally you should respond to her asap.

But, realistically, that’s not always possible.

So, let her know that.

On your contact page, you should include important information regarding how you respond to inquiries:

• How long you’ll take to respond | For a solopreneur 24-48 hours is considered a reasonable amount of time. My own contact form says 48, and I always try to be under 24.
• Your office hours | If you don’t have set office hours, well that’s a whole other discussion, for another time. Needless to say, just because you own your own business, doesn’t mean you need to be available to clients 24/7/365. You have a life, you have friends and family. So, list your office hours so clients know when it’s appropriate to expect to hear from you.

If there are any other notes or vital pieces of information, add them as well. For example you may want to mention that all wedding inquiries should fill out your contact form, but direct them to your email for other questions and inquiries, etc.

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That concludes this “series-with-in-a-series.” I hope you found it helpful — if so, go ahead and pin it!

And if you’re ready for a gorgeous website that goes to work for you, fill out MY contact form now!