friend Deborah Zoe emailed me with a GREAT question the other day! It was so great that I thought that it would make a great blog post! I love sharing about my plus sites because I just started to use them a little over a year ago and they are GENIUS! However, I have found that a lot of photographers that are knowledgable about SHOWIT’s websites aren’t always knowledgable about the purpose of plus sites. So I’m going to break down why they are so beneficial for my business! Let me first explain a little about what plus sites are! I started using Showit four years ago!
I pay $39/mo for Katelynjames.com and within that price, I can also create unlimited custom client sites! For example, I can create “jamesandaimee.katelynjames.com” and that’s what you call a “Plus Site”! This is how I choose to present my images to my clients. I used to use a very basic gallery… nothing fancy, just a link to some folders full of images. The problem with this was that my clients are investing a lot into their images and this experience… and my gallery presentation didn’t have the “wow” factor. Another issue with my old galleries was that they weren’t connecting viewers to me and my brand. It never occurred to me that my client’s full gallery should be a part of the experience and that I should leverage the fact that friends and family will be looking at them!
PASS is a way to share image with your clients. Not only does PASS display the images in an absolutely BEAUTIFUL way, it also allows clients to download their images straight from the gallery. It’s amazing… and I’m loving it! The NEW PASS (that is almost out of Beta) is incredible. So I have been asked:
“Are you just going to send your clients the PASS gallery or are your going to keep using Plus Sites and include the PASS link in the site?”.
The New PASS is so beautiful, a lot of people are questioning the need for Plus Sites. So I wanted to explain why I still think they are beneficial! :
1. A Plus Site is a central HUB for your client’s images. Instead of sending an engagement link AND a wedding link, they can find their whole experience on one site. Not only do they have links to both of their galleries, they also have a direct link to their blog post.
2. Because there is a link to the blog on the plus site, my client’s friends and family have access to my post about the wedding. They get to see that I have a relationship with my clients and they are also exposed to all of my other posts that share about my work and my life.
3. My plus site templates include a picture of ME. They saw me at the wedding but with all of the guests and their cameras, sometimes it’s not always obvious who is the paid photographer taking these images! So by showing who I am one more time, it allows them to really connect to my brand.
4. It’s an added bonus. Instead of just presenting a gallery to your clients, it seems like you went the “extra” mile and created a custom website for your bride and groom! … And you did! Creating a plus site is taking image presentation to the next level!
Here is a peek of what the new PASS galleries look like! So when my clients click “The Wedding” on their plus sites, they will be taken to this:
If you’re already in the Showit world and you’ve been wondering about this, I hope this was helpful! If you have NEVER heard about this stuff before, I hope it was eye opening!! I’m so thankful I decided to step out of the box and try something new last year because it’s changing my business for the better!!
** You do NOT need Showit to use PASS…. but it does make it better! The new PASS will be available soon! **
Thanks for reading!
— Katelyn
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