This is a common question that I get asked: should I have both my photography businesses on one website? If you haven’t asked yourself this question, you definitely should. Having two businesses on one website can lower your leads and sales. But this completely depends on who buys your photography and/or videography services for each business.
The big questions is: who are your buyer personas? What specific group of people buy your services for Business A, and what specific group of people buy your services for Business B? If these groups are the same people, you can have one website. A good example is engagements and weddings; or maternity and baby portraits. (People who are engaged will most likely get married.) If these groups are different, you need two different websites. An example would be high school portraits and commercial work. Why do I advise against having one site for these?
The Purpose of Photography + Videography Websites
The purpose of your website is to guide a specific group of people to request a meeting or buy your services. Your website shouldn’t exist to showcase ALL of your work: weddings, portraits, commercial, landscape, etc. If you’re making a website to get sales, your website needs to be specific. This way, you can guide the specific group of people to see your value and buy your services.
What do unspecific websites do? They lose your viewers because they can’t find what THEY want right away. When people don’t know where to go and don’t understand in the first 3 seconds what you’re selling, they say no because they can’t say yes. And who has time to dig around? Make it easy on your buyers.
Example
I was talking with a very talented and personable wedding videographer about his website. He wanted to get a new domain without wedding in it, so he could have his weddings and commercials on the same website. It didn’t feel right to have his commercial work on his wedding domain, so he needed a domain with just his name or something. But, really, it shouldn’t feel right to have his wedding work on his commercial domain either.
His commercial website needs to be set up to target producers, clients, and art directors because these are the people who will buy his services. By having a specific website, he can then market his website to his target list through Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Then when they get to his hub (his website), they will be taken to his work and guided to work with him.
His wedding website needs to be setup to target engaged couples or overbearing mothers–whoever his big buyers are. The more specific he is about his target audience, the better his website will guide potential customers to buy his services. He can then market his website and services on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Potential customers can find him there, get taken to his webpage, and then easily buy his services.
Next, he wanted to know if he needed to make a new webpage because he wants to start offering wedding photography in addition to his videography business. Because the same people who buy his videography services could also buy his photography services, he only needs one wedding website for photography and videography. Having one website will let potential customers know about both relevant services.
I need 2 or 3 or 4 websites??!!
I’m sure none of you are freaking out that you need to build a second website to help your businesses thrive. If you have two businesses, you love working twice as hard! 😉 No problem there.
The more you understand your target audience the better you can build your website to get sales. In our free guide – 7 Steps to a Homepage that Sells – we go over how to create specific buyer personas. Hector also wrote an article about researching your buyer personas using Facebook. It’s pretty awesome, and you’ll be good at it if you’re a Facebook stalker. If not, we’ll get you up to speed.
Please, take 10 minutes to write out your buyer personas, so you can target your potential customers better. It’ll help you so much. And if you have any questions about your business’ website(s), let us know below!