Photography website design with session booking

A page for every series, your photos large, the words Google reads

An endless-scroll portfolio with no titles or captions looks like every other one: three hundred photos, no text, and Google sees nothing but one image after another. The client, meanwhile, is searching for “portrait photographer” and your town.

Once it has four of your photos, a series has its own page: its title, the client or the place, the year, your description, and the photos as a contact sheet on a black background. The three service pages — business and products, events, portraits — show the series of their genre, and every page carries a Google title written with your town.

• A page for every series once it has four of your photos
• Three service pages from the day the website goes live
• A Google title for every page, with your town in it

The session booked at 10pm, the deposit paid, the date kept

A family session gets decided in the evening, once the children are in bed. If your website sends people to a contact form, the booking waits for your reply the next day — and sometimes never happens.

Your sessions carry a length and a price; the client picks a slot, day or night, pays the deposit or the full session online, and gets a confirmation. You start your week knowing which sessions are paid.

Before you publish a session price, one rule: the CCPC tells businesses that prices shown to consumers must include all applicable taxes, such as VAT. The price a family sees on your booking page is the price they expect to pay.

Business enquiries, filed in your pro area

A company that wants team headshots or product photos doesn't book a slot: it wants a quote, for twelve people, at its own premises, before the end of the month.

On these services, the call-back button takes the client's phone number and, if they like, their email address. The request lands in your pro area, in the list of requests to handle; if they left an email address, the client gets a message confirming that you will call them back. You ring, you listen to the project, you price it.

• The call-back button on the services you sell on quote
• The request in the list of requests to handle in your pro area
• An email confirmation to the client who left their address

Families who come back, and reviews that reassure

A family who loved their session comes back for the next baby, then for school, then for the grandparents. They are the clients worth the most and the easiest to lose, for want of keeping in touch.

Every client has their record — their sessions, their payments, your notes. On the Pro plan, a loyalty points programme rewards coming back, the review request goes out by email two hours after the session, and your Google reviews come back into Traxo.

Know what happens when you stop, wherever you build. With Traxo, the website and the domain name stop with the subscription; your content, your client records and your appointments are returned to you on request within thirty days, then deleted. Ask for them before you leave, and your series and your clients stay yours.