A beautiful website doesn’t always mean a website that converts. In this episode of Mind Your Wedding Business, Kevin sits down with Adrienna McDermott, Owner & Lead Strategist of Ava And The Bee, to discuss how your website could be costing you inquiries without you even realizing it.

Adrienna shares what wedding pros should be paying attention to beyond aesthetics, from website analytics and clear messaging to pricing, testimonials, contact forms, and making it easy for potential clients to take the next step.

If you’re getting website traffic but not enough inquiries, this episode is packed with practical ways to figure out where potential clients may be getting lost, and what you can do about it.

Adrienna McDermott is the founder and CEO of Ava And The Bee, a marketing agency exclusively for wedding pros that builds connections with dream couples through inclusive, results-driven marketing, copywriting, branding, and website design. As a former bridal boutique owner, wedding planner, and florist, she intimately understands vendors' challenges when standing out against the competition. With a unique blend of real-world experience and a signature step-by-step process that is always backed with data, Adrienna knows how to simplify marketing so that wedding pros can confidently grow and scale their business.

Highlights:

• Why website analytics should guide your marketing decisions
• Common reasons potential clients leave without inquiring
• What couples are looking for when researching wedding pros online
• How pricing, testimonials, and clear messaging help build trust
• The biggest homepage and contact form mistakes wedding pros make
• Simple website updates that can help turn more visitors into inquiries

Connect with Adrienna:

Website

Instagram

Facebook

LinkedIn

Connect with Kevin:

Wedding IQ

Fantasy Sound

Instagram

YouTube

TikTok

LinkedIn

All right, folks, welcome to another episode of Mind Your Wedding Business. And I'm here with Adrienna McDermott and she's the owner and lead strategist at Ava and the Bee. And today we're gonna be talking about how your website has been costing you inquiries, which I think is gonna be very hot take. What do you think? I

Yes. I'm so excited. I think

I mean, because I think websites are costing vendors inquiries and they just don't even know.

Yeah, stupid wedding professionals, us. We we just think we have it all right and we don't. But anyway, it's the worst, the worst. I I always say

Joy being a business owner in general. Why do we do this?

all of us in the wedding industry would rather just do our art and not the business side of it. And if we could just make sure the

Mm-hmm.

money came in and we were just doing our art, I think everything would be okay. So anyway.

Agree.

But all right, tell us a little bit about yourself and how we got you here today.

Yeah, so I own a wedding marketing agency called Ava and the Bee. So I do all the stuff you don't want to do. It's great. I get it. So I was a former wedding planner, florist, and bridal boutique owner. I've been in the industry since 2009. sold my business in 2018 and started this little Ava and the Bee. And now we're an agency, which I didn't expect, but we're here.

Because vendors don't like to do stuff for their business, which is great for me. but yeah, that's our background is wedding and event pros all day, every day.

Yeah, I love it. and you're right. we don't like to do well that or we'll DIY it and then we tell people not to DIY their wedding, but we're DIYing all our parts of our business. So that could be a whole nother podcast.

Hundred percent. That should be a whole episode. But yes, it's true.

We're like, don't DIY your wedding, but then don't look at my website when it's

Yeah.

like, what? Count in

Yeah, exactly.

So today we're talking about how your wedding business is costing you inquiries. So what is the biggest mistake you see wedding, websites that the pros are making right now with their websites?

So, one of the first ones I actually want to talk about before we talk about like the design aspect is

Okay.

not actually measuring what happens on their website. Because the biggest thing is people come to me and they're like, I want more inquiries. How? You know, it's like such a basic question. Or my website's not working, help. But they can't actually give me any data points to explain why things aren't working. So a lot of times wedding pros can't tell you "me things" like, well, how many people visit.

Your website. What pages are they on? Where is the traffic coming on? These are all things that you as a business owner in any industry should be able to pull up and tell me. And the way we do that is Google Analytics. It is a free account. I would say over 60% of the people who inquire with me are so clueless on this. But the thing is, as a marketer, as a business owner, as anyone who runs anything, you can't figure out what's working unless we see what the problem is.

And just saying,

Okay.

well, my website isn't working doesn't tell me anything, right? I need to see some raw data. Because we'll get a lot of people who will have, maybe, for example, no one visiting their website. Okay, that's a traffic SEO problem. Or the opposite, where they have thousands of people visiting their website, but they're not getting inquiries. Okay, that's a totally different problem, right? That's more of a conversion

Yeah.

problem. So my first mistake is you can't make.

Any of the decisions and any of the things we're about to talk about today completely blind. Before you redesign, before you invest, take time to look at things like analytics so you can understand what is actually the problem with my website. And a lot of things we talk about today will be things you can kind of look up later. But just we have to have that baseline first. Because if you tell me my website's broken, I'm gonna then ask, well, what does Google Analytics say? Because I want to know what is actually the broken part.

Before I tell you to start over.

Mm-hmm. And analytics

will break it down and and you'll get a lot of good information from there. So it's really and how often how

Absolutely.

often should someone be looking at their analytics?

I mean, honestly, every month, but if you look

Real okay.

at least every quarter at your website analytics, especially because we're such a seasonal industry. So you should

Mm-hmm.

know what months you get the most website traffic, what months you get the least website traffic. It ebbs and flows. So you need to know that as a business owner. And I know they're gonna everyone says, I don't want to learn something new. Okay, this

Yeah.

is the most important thing you can learn. Seriously. Like if you don't know your data, you cannot make money. And I know, again, we all wanna be artists.

But you can't be an artist and make money unless you know your data. And I know that's hard, but truly, truly, truly looking even once a quarter is at least gonna give you a baseline of knowing, actually, people are visiting my website. Or, I had three people in the last quarter. That's bad. So you're like without any benchmarks, it's hard to know. No.

Yeah, I know. Yeah, exactly. And first off, I love

your voice that you do for the wedding pros. That's really that was Yeah. All

Thank you. That is my that's what wedding vendors sound like. No, you guys don't sound like that. I love you.

right. What are some of the most common reasons potential clients leave a website without inquiry?

Ooh, there's so many things. A few different things. oh gosh, where do I start?

At the beginning.

Okay.

So there's a few different reasons they might not come in, right? So first of all, it's gonna be they don't know what makes you different.

Okay.

Like, why would someone inquire if they don't understand what you do and why it's different? We're in a market where everyone assumes we're oversaturated, and I think there might be more vendors, but also everyone has a website. So like a decade ago, you didn't necessarily have to have a website to have a successful business. Like it was really great, but it didn't make or break you.

Mm-hmm.

But

now we have a level playing field. So it's a few things. It's they don't know what makes you different. They don't understand what you do. a huge one is if you go to your homepage and no one stays there very long, it's because they literally go to your website and they're like, I don't get what you do. Because all wedding vendors' websites are pretty and they have pretty pictures of pretty people doing pretty things, but they don't say, I'm a wedding florist in San Francisco.

Mm-hmm.

It

has to be literally that clear because as someone who looks at websites every day, every time we get an inquiry, I am flabbergasted by how little I know about you. I am like, well, of course no one's reaching out to you. I don't even know what you do. And this is my job to know what you do. So imagine someone

Yeah.

who's spending 10 seconds saw a head splash of a wedding in a video, but then kept scrolling and never found out what you did. Like they would just be like, this is silly.

another big one is they don't trust you. You have given them zero reason to trust you, which we'll talk about in a little bit, but you just have given them no reason. You're just like, I'm great, and you should think I'm great too. And like, I agree you're great, but no one's gonna believe that. and then I think a lot of it it's just confusion. They don't know what you cost, what happens next. You think of your website as this beautiful portfolio of pictures, which it kind of is, but isn't that kind of what your social media is for, is to be that pretty pictures. Your websites

Mm-hmm.

actually convert them.

So if we focus on a website that's just pretty things and we're not telling them what to do in basic layman terms, then why would they do it? There's no reason.

Yeah. I just had Mark Chapman on recently and he was he

Mm.

talking about Google ads and it was very interesting 'cause it's about making yourself different. And that's a theme that I've been hearing a lot lately on the podcast is it's what makes you different than everyone else. So

Mm-hmm.

it it's kind of interesting that you brought that up as well. So

Yeah, and one thing quick, quick like homework tip I would have for that, because I'm all about homework, is because people are like, okay, well, how do I know if my website- they're leaving because of it? Well, I would look at your last handful of inquiry calls. And I know you're gonna get asked the same questions over and over again, but if you really are getting asked deeper questions again and again, it means you've never answered it for them, whether that's

Mm.

in your social or your website. They're asking because you've never told them.

So instead of getting frustrated and being like, they asked the same questions, why don't you answer them? Why don't you make an FAQ page and answer them? Why don't you send that out in a follow up email and say, Hey, at this stage you haven't booked a call, but I know you have a lot of questions. Here's our top asked questions. Like, educate them. They don't know anything and they shouldn't. So if you get the same questions, it's because you've never explained it. So

Yeah,

well and help them buy. That's it, you know, make it easy and educate and go through and that will make you different from everyone else. Cause I I guarantee you there's very few wedding pros out there that are doing the education side of it. So Yeah. All right. how have couples' expectations changed when they're evaluating a wedding vendor online lately? I think this is like the million dollar question.

Yeah.

And it's changed, it's changed a lot, but okay, so here's the thing: as wedding vendors, we are obsessed with aesthetics. And aesthetics matter, obviously. We're selling pretty, like we're selling aesthetics, we're selling fun. Like I get aesthetics matter. And yes, younger generations believe in pretty things. That's why TikTok's popular.

Yeah.

But we started treating our online presence like this mood board, and we're forgetting how much research they're doing.

So they're reading reviews, they're watching video, they're going to Reddit, they're asking AI tools, like they're doing all of this vetting before they ever reach out. And I mean, I could do a whole topic on just AI search as it is, but they really are doing a lot more research. And so by the time they land on your website, you're usually not as cold as you think they are. They're

Mm.

looking for information, they're looking for that education.

And the other piece that I think we're forgetting are the parents are more involved. I don't

Yeah.

have a single vendor who's like, yeah, the parents are disappeared. No. Everything I have heard, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that the parents of younger couples are more involved than ever before. It's

Well, real- think-

not to interrupt you, but think about it. the generation of people getting married right now, these are the ones, the helicopter parents that from many

Yes.

years ago that all their kids got trophies and everybody won and you know, they were extremely involved in everything, you know, so it just makes sense that that's what we're dealing with now when it comes to weddings.

Exactly. And so you're not just catering to the couple anymore. We're catering to the parents. And parents care about very different things than couples, right? The couple is looking at your photos and videos. The parents are reading. They're looking for professionalism. They're looking for experience and credentials. They're looking for a ton of testimonials from not just couples but other vendors. They're looking for logistics, right? They want to know what exactly you do. Like they

Mm-hmm.

want to know because they are very involved in their child's wedding.

They want to know investment. So if all we do is create these websites that are just for one age group, we're completely ignoring the other 50% that is probably paying. And it's also the irony of everything kind of looks the same now. Like beautiful websites have become that baseline. So everyone has professional photos, everyone has custom fonts, everyone is personalized, but they're not actually stating anything different, right? They're just assuming

Mm-hmm.

that the aesthetics

are what's gonna separate them when that's not always the case. It doesn't automatically create trust to be pretty. Like marketing is all about words and and expressing and in conversion, especially with parents. Like they're gonna read the website. So we have to have stuff for them to read.

Yeah. Well, it is it

is it about the feeling that we're giving our clients when they go to the website, you know, like

or

Mm-hmm.

you know, and then they want to bond, like think of like brands that you you love, you know, and you're you're connected to them. So it's like how do we get our clients to bond and connect with us? I guess is a big question. Yeah.

The question, yeah.

So, I mean, a few different ways. I think one is for sure having video on your website. We're kind of at

Okay.

the point where like I like everyone complained about us talking about video the last five years, and now I'm like, well, I it's here, it's a standard. I don't know what to tell you. video, especially if you are someone who wants to do high end weddings or been around forever. Like what I find so funny is the vendors that have been around the longest have the fewest testimonials on their website.

When they have the most testimonials. You don't ever put them on your website though. You're like, I'll do it later.

And the other one is you never have video. And yet you do

Yeah.

these productions and you expect someone to pay you for a production, but then you're not gonna show them the production. It doesn't make any sense. So

Yeah. No, it doesn't.

one is really easy is video. Like easily, if you work with if you've been in the industry for a minute, you have videographers who you love.

You tell them, hey, I need a few 10, 15 second no sound clips from my website. Like I've never had a client come back to me and say the videographer wouldn't do it. Like, of course they're gonna do it. They want promotion, right?

Yeah.

having video, making sure we're focused on copywriting that's talks about what sets us apart. I think this is a really big one is that a lot of times we think that our copy is good because we say things like luxury or personalized or stress free.

Mm-hmm.

Those aren't differentiators,

guys. Those are baseline expectations. If you're a wedding planner, your job is to make it stress-free. That should not be anywhere on your website. That should be

No.

obvious in 50 other directions. So, how can we scale the story? So, for example, instead of saying like we create personalized weddings, yeah, I I really hope you do. Say things

No.

like that, that you know what I mean? Like that doesn't sell you because that is what everybody does. So here's

No. Yeah.

what sells you.

Your wedding should feel like fireworks on New Year's Eve, color for bold in the beginning of a whole new season. That sells, right? Because that

Yeah. Yeah.

is like I do want my wedding to feel like like that paints a picture. It's

Yeah.

memorable. It's not something every planner can do. Another one that we recently used for a client that does more high end. So instead of saying, I'm a luxury wedding planner, we say you have high expectations of yourself, the work you do, and the experiences you invest in. Luckily, so do we.

I like that. Yeah.

says you're luxury without having

to use the word luxury because someone reading that goes, yeah, that qualifies me. You know, like

Yeah. Yeah.

I have that attention detail, they have that attention detail. So that's kind of a big thing with with that is just think about what is the story you're telling that differentiates you. And while we can ask Chat GPT that I encourage you to use your brain and creativity every once in a while.

You know, I'm not against AI, but I also think as creative, the irony is we love to be artists and yet we don't want to use our brain half the time. And I'm like, but isn't that why we got started? I don't know. So one thing you can do that doesn't and that's another podcast for another day. But

Yeah. That's another podcast episode right there.

what you can do is look at your reviews. Look at your reviews and highlight the words and phrases that come up again and again. And those should be words you use. That one for the high expectations, that was from a review.

They said we have high expectations and they delivered. So we immediately went, high expectations, that's the keyword we're using, right? So your clients are telling you what to say about yourself. So stop trying to reinvent the wheel. Go back to your testimonials, print them out old school, or write them down and just highlight what are the words people use to describe my business. And then use those phrases on your website, not what, you know, chat says you should use.

You can

well yeah, and you can even take all that, throw it into Chat GPT if you're lazy

what are you know, my clients saying to me.

Yeah, have it

Yeah.

absolutely have it like you give it a link to your knot or wedding wire, whatever Google profile and be like, go through all my testimonials and tell me the ten or fifteen things that they say again and again. And then that becomes your marketing pillars without you having to spend more than, you know, what, ten minutes? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Even less, probably. So

no.

All right. What information are couples looking for that wedding pros often fail to provide? my first guess is pricing. That was so that was my first I was that was my first guess. But I mean, what else are they looking for

How did you know? Yeah. Yeah.

that we're failing to provide?

Yeah, well, pricing.

Okay.

That's a big one. just because we know it's just something they're, you know, industries change. It's what they want. It's you know, it's just kind of where we're at. a big one, like I mentioned earlier. go back to pricing. Yeah. Yes.

I'm gonna say, is that like a baseline? Like another like baseline? You gotta have it.

If you don't have pricing, even if you're a higher range, like you will lose out on couples. So again,

Okay.

that is up to you where you're at in your business. If you are like, I have more leads than I know what to do with, you do whatever you want.

This is if you're someone who's like, I need more inquiries. Pricing's a really big baseline. I think it's also a trust. You want them to trust you,

Mm.

but then you're not going to be up front on the most important thing to them. Like, kind of seems a little sketchy, right? Like you're going to like imagine going house shopping, but never knowing the price of the house. And then being

Mm-hmm.

like, you should fall in love with this and then pay me. That narrative doesn't work anymore. This idea of if they love it, they'll buy it isn't really a thing

No. Yeah.

any like it shouldn't be. Like we should have them be like, I love it and I can afford it.

Well it's even like shopping, you know, like you said, house, yeah, car, like most of the time now they'll give you a rough like what your monthly payment's gonna be on a car. Like they've even broken it down further from the actual price to give you you're like, yeah, I can afford five hundred dollars a month. Yeah, you know, you know, like

try to figure it out, yeah.

Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah, I would say another one big is is the process. I think a lot of times we assume they understand how to plan a wedding. So depending on where you're at in the funnel, right? So as a vendor, you are not necessarily the first thing they book, right? So venue planner, photographer tends to be towards the top, DJ stationary, middle to end. Like you should know where you live. And then based off of where you live.

You should be able to explain the process, right? So once you work with me, what happens next? And I'm not saying you have to have this like huge long paragraph on your website with every single step of an onboarding, but even the basics of like what are the steps? Like also explaining that they can break things up into payments. Do you know how many times couples think they have to pay in full? It's such

Yeah.

a big question on Reddit. They're like, I have to pay this planner $14,000. And it's like, well, you can break it up into payments. And they're like, what? So, like again, explain. Like,

25% to book or whatever language you want to use.

Yeah.

You know, and then we have three meetings throughout the process. Like again, that's for the parent, that's for the couple. I will they read it? Maybe not, but it doesn't matter. At least you have it. At least you have it and you know that it's like helping them. I think another big one is also we put a lot of images on our website, but we're not thinking about our ideal client. And so for example,

Mm.

I'll get a lot of this is more with like my photographers who have a specific style. If you're like a vendor who you can do anything at any time, this is a little different. But I'm talking a little bit more to my people who have specific styles, genres that they want to attain. And so they'll come to us and their website will be like documentary photography. But the

Okay.

photos they've chosen are posed editorial. I see it

all the time. And then I'm like,

You just showed the opposite of what you're supposed to be hired for. These are why your inquiries don't make sense. So really consider, are the images making sense? Like all clients would be like, I don't want, you know, couples who want a vanity fair style shoot. And I'm like, then why is your website filled with flatlays and styled photos? Like you are attracting exactly what you're reciprocating. It should instead be photos of grandma crying, someone on the dance floor, a little kid. Like that's what the photo should be. So

I think also considering are the images actually reflecting the work we want to do?

Mm.

and then updating your website again, so many vendors the longer you've been in business, the least likely you've updated your website in the last decade. And it's like, well, they're seeing that. So make sure your website is has images that reflect what you want to do.

I think yeah, 'cause I think they build it, get excited about it, and then forget about it.

Hundred percent. Hundred percent. And the thing is once you have it, it can last like a year or so, but then twice a year you should be updating it. Like you should have portfolios that are only your top eight to ten weddings. Stop having 40 pages of portfolios like shown. Like have it just be the top work and change it out because your style's gonna change. You want fresh new looks, like you don't wanna send something, it's like this wedding's from twenty twenty and it's my top gallery. Probably

not anymore.

Mm-hmm.

Because then they're gonna be like, What? They haven't done weddings since twenty twenty. Like

Yeah.

Look up to date, right?

I know it's funny because one of the things in my real business is that we do lighting and stuff and the custom monogram. And I'm like it always we gotta watch the custom monogram. If the date's more than a couple years, we gotta get rid of that photo because it's gonna show it's dated. Cause it's it's yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Absolutely, the wedding invitation suite gives it away, guys. Like the minute you have that date on that invitation

suite, everyone knows when that wedding was. There's also specific trends you can see. It's like, you know, let's just update them. Cause I know you have new work. It's not like you don't have new work.

No. Yeah. Exactly.

All right. You talk a lot about trust in marketing. How does a website either build it or break it?

So this definitely comes back into that research phase and not providing kind of enough information. And I think the biggest one is testimonials. Y'all have

so many testimonials and they are sitting in your Google, your honeybook, your wedding, wherever you keep them in your DMs. I don't know. But they're always hidden. You either don't have them on the website or you have like four. Like I just did an audit the other day.

For a planner who's been in business for I think 12, 13 years. And she had like six reviews on her whole website. And I was like, you've done more than six weddings, correct? Okay, good. or they put them on this testimonials page that nobody visits because nobody wants to just have a wall of text. So instead,

Mm-hmm.

I want you to have testimonials throughout your website. So a really easy homework step is look at your website this weekend and say, does every page have at least a few testimonials? And they can be

The sliders, you know, where people can click through. Like they don't have to be full paragraphs. You can also pull in snippets. I think we forget that you are allowed to have just one sentence of the testimonial and have that as a leading part of

Yeah.

your website. Like every page should have them. Your about page should talk about you and your team. Have a testimonials on that page that talk about you and your team. Like if you have team members, especially and you're trying to sell team members, but you don't have a single testimonial that calls them out on your website.

That's silly. Why would I trust them? Like, why would I trust

Yeah.

this additional planner you're trying to hire or this associate photographer when there's not a single review? It's only about how great you are. Well, that's

Yeah.

silly. Why would I pay money to someone else? So just think about every page of your website as making a claim and your testimonials are the proof of that claim. So

Mm.

throughout the website, super essential. I think that's one of the easiest ways we can be building trust without having to actually do a ton on our website. We're just adding to things we already have.

Yeah.

And I think that's really good advice. All right.

Testimonials.

Mistakes. What are the biggest mistakes wedding pros are making on their home pages?

Ooh, this is such a good one because I'm actually gonna be talking to Mark, who I know you just interviewed,

Yeah.

and his group about home pages. So I love this question. So a lot of times the home pages is where vendors just throw the kitchen sink and they're like, Okay, bye! here's everything you've ever need to know. Yeah.

Hope it sticks.

And especially I think we also, it's twofold. We throw everything and we're like, Hey bye, I love you. And then we forget that they're

I love you.

I love you, please pay me money.

and then we forget that they're on their phone. And so it the scrolling takes five times as long. Like, think about

Yeah.

when you go to a website on your mobile phone and it takes too long to scroll. Do you have patience for that? I don't. No, absolutely

No. No.

not. So look at your homepage and your website from a mobile point of view before you look at your desktop right now. And if it takes a ton to scroll and things aren't loading, like you lost them. Cause for most of you, you're at 50 to 60% on mobile right now. It's pretty much

Mm-hmm.

industry standard.

So think about what can remove from my home page? So the main things you need is what you do, where you're located, a nice little snippet about your services. Again, so many vendors will put like every package. I'm like, no, leave that for the services page. Just say

Mm.

I do wedding planning and partial planning, or I'm a photographer, I'm a DJ and do lighting. Like keep it pretty simple, click here to learn more, right? Just give them the basics. The about page, I don't need a bio that's like 14 sections long. I just need a quick, this is why you like us.

And I think the other thing is we also go me, me, me, me on the homepage. Like, I'm the best. I'm super cool. You should book me. No, no, no, no. Your website's not for you. It's not for you

Mm-hmm.

at all. Your website is 100% for your couple. And so if

Mm-hmm.

we're using me terminology the whole time, like I am the best ever, that's really off putting and icky, right? So I want you to think about your homepage as not why you're cool, but why they're cool for you, right? Like you want a wedding that's like,

you want to feel like those New York fireworks on New Year's Eve fireworks. Like think about them and what they want out of your website and forget what you want out of your website. We have to let that go. And it's not for you. So I want you to look and if there's a lot of like I and me and us, it's not really great. We really want to use it as this is why you fit here at home.

Your homepage is landing, like your front door to your home. You wouldn't let someone to your house and be like, Hi, oh my God, I am the coolest. Have you seen my awards I lead? I am so cool. No, you would open up Yes,

Here's all my my trophy shelf and yeah.

you would open it up and be like, Would you like a glass of water? Like that's hospitality, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

So that's the first thing. And then the second thing

Is y'all have too many navigation options at the top of your website? Y'all are like, here's 47 pages and 16 drop downs, and here's a page for every single version of every service I have ever offered.

Mm-hmm.

Why would anyone look at that? They're not gonna. They're gonna be like, these are too many options. I'm clicking out, I'm tired. It's it's I'm sad. So keep it to your main core offerings and your navigation bar. We have a footer for a reason. Like, if you have a press page, that doesn't probably need to be in your main nav.

Again, that's you bragging about yourself. Have it in the footer, have some badges on the website. Fine, right? That gives them enough of the press. if you do education for other vendors, that should probably be its own website or in your footer. Again, why are we telling them all of these things that don't matter? Like if our wedding

I know a lot of people think

that that that's gonna get them more of like someone's gonna book more. But I don't think people your client doesn't care if you teach or do other stuff outside.

No, in fact, they're kind of seeing it as not great lately because they're thinking

Really?

oh my gosh, just go to Reddit. They're like, so photographers who teach how to make a $100k, they're not shooting weddings anymore, are they?

They know. They know that their money's coming from that, not weddings. Hmm. They're really smart guys. They know everything about us.

interesting. Yeah.

yeah, there's there's quite a few photographers that get talked about it. They're like, that person hasn't shot a wedding in years. All they do is the education side. So yeah, I would try to keep it

On its own thing, or like in the footer, or like, I don't know. Depends on your ideal client, but there's a really good chance they're like, Why don't you just shoot my wedding? Like, are you gonna be

Or another website. Yeah.

so busy? Like, think about it. They I would be like, you're you're busy, you don't have time for my wedding. Like, that's the goal. So, yeah,

Yeah. Yeah.

just think about like having your navigation be nice and clean, like home, about services, portfolio, blog, contact.

Simple.

Keep it simple, stupid. All right.

So simple.

All right. You talked earlier about like maybe updating the website a couple times a year. Does that

Mm-hmm.

like include the website copy? Or should we

Mm, mm-hmm.

update be updating the photography, the design? Like what like how often should all that stuff be touched?

Yeah. So the good news is if a website's done well, you shouldn't have to touch it that much, right? The good news is

Okay.

like we shouldn't be changing out our branding every year. So your design, your branding, your colors, like keep that for a long time because that's recognizable. If you change out your colors all the time or your fonts all the time, it just looks messy. Just looks like you just don't know what you're, you know, you're what you're doing.

Mm-hmm.

So photography, that's what gets attention. So I tend to recommend maybe just once or twice a year, just cleaning up images. I'm not saying every image, but I'm saying look at your your homepage. Let's say you have a slider on your homepage. Do you have any images that you've had in the last year that deserve a spot there? Probably, right? So I think it's

Hm. Yeah, you probably do.

good to yeah, you probably do exactly. Do you have to? No. But again, this is where we put our best foot forward.

So it's like, let's think about that. So even if it's just once a year on your off season, you're like, I'm gonna go through and I'm gonna pick 10 or 15 images to change on my website. The big ones, the main ones, because those are the most eye-catching. but no, you don't have to do it like literally all the time. I'm just a get, I want you to show your best work. And then again, good copy and good words should last a really long time. Like that is something where when we write copy for our clients, I hope they don't have to change it for years. Like I hope that the words

Stay true. The only thing you might want to update is adding more testimonials. Again, you got

Hm.

a testimonial from a planner in your town that's really respected. Let's get that on the homepage or the weddings page because, you know, let's use them to brag about us. So I think that's kind of the biggest thing is it doesn't have to be all the time. Where those website updates happen for SEO and AI, I have in parentheses, is your blog.

That's where

Mm.

the majority of the website updates should happen. You shouldn't be updating

Okay.

your home wedding service page every six months. Like blogs are where your updates to your website should go. Mm-hmm.

I love it.

I guess I could ask the question, but how often should we be blogging now? Is there is there a new rule of thought? 'Cause I feel like that is ever changing.

Hmm. I mean, it's really about quality over quantity. Blogging

Okay.

every single week, but having really crappy couple hundred word things don't it doesn't move the needle. So I would say if you can blog like six to twelve a year, so like one a month, one every other month, and they're good quality blogs, they have headers, like they're well thought out, they have images. That's way better than blogging every single week. So it's really just about.

Quality, like that's kind of what I recommend. If you want a baseline, I would say six to twelve a year, just again for your sake of consistency and not just posting one blog and being like, I I did it. Like I want you to get into the habit of of making it fun.

Yeah. Of doing it right. All

right. We probably could do a whole episode on contact forms. So

Mm-hmm.

how like what role does the contact form play in the conversions? And like where like are wedding pros getting the form wrong? Because I feel like for a while there it was like, ask all the questions. No, ask no questions. Now ask more questions. Like where the contact form. Walk us through it.

Ooh, yeah, this is a good one. I did an Instagram post about this and people loved it because I was like, it's it's like one of the most important pages of your website. Like home page

Yeah, yeah.

and contact. Like literally nothing else matters in the world. so first thing first is in order for us to test anything, I want you to know your contact page conversion rate. It's super simple math. And this is coming from a girl who refuses to math. So the number of people who visited your website page again, Google Analytics, you should know this.

The number of people who visited that page every month divided by your number of inquiries. So if 100 people visited and 12 people inquired, you have a 12% conversion rate. That's not bad, but you probably always want it to be better. Like our clients average 15 to 25%. Like my goal is that they're solid 20 to 25% consistently because it works that well. Like, so not bad, but if you don't know that number, then nothing I say is about to matter. Okay.

The biggest thing, y'all ask too many questions. And this is 100%, I think, more of a generation generational shift, but also like in a post-COVID world where our attention spans are even less. And they're probably filling it out on their mobile. Guys, if someone is having to scroll to fill out your contact form, you have just lost the plot. They are gone. Also,

Mm.

if you deal with really high-end couples, in what universe would they have time to fill out 16 questions? Please just please tell me where an attorney has time for that.

The answer is they don't. So again, this whole like narrative doesn't really make sense. If you are so booked out, then sure, have 47 questions. I don't care. But these are for the people who are like, I'm not getting any inquiries. This is what you do. Six questions or fewer. Six questions or fewer, y'all. Stop asking questions.

Okay. No.

Stop making it feel like homework. Always have it be simple. So don't have things like, what's your Instagram handle?

I just posted my Instagram story about this. They find it ick, especially high-end couples. They tend to be some of them tend to be more private. Others think you're judging them in their choices. And a lot

Mm.

of people are just like being more private on social media. Like there's the group that's like TikTok everywhere that's a

Overshare, yeah.

certain buyer type. That's one of the four buyer types. There's three that are like, I don't know, I'm thinking a little more private. Don't ask for Instagram handles. Don't ask fluffy questions, like, ...? Or like,

Tell me, blah, blah, blah. Those are questions to ask on the call to open them up. Those are icebreaker

Yeah.

questions. Stop wasting them on a contact form. They don't know what if you asked me for my love story, I'd be like, I don't know. Men at McDonald's. Like their love story doesn't matter yet to you. So make it super simple, six questions or less.

Yeah, that's a good point. Like

why at that point in of the story does it matter? it has no bearing, yeah. Date, name, you know.

Doesn't. And here's the thing, I get it. Again, yep.

You don't I literally did an audit the other day for a planner. She had 16 questions.

wow.

And she's like, I'm not getting inquiries. And I'm like, because you're asking what time the wedding starts, what time the wedding ends, venue, like all the things that as a planner is your job to do, bridal party size.

Mm-hmm.

That is your job, not their job. Like you just need to know their name, their email, their phone number.

Date, if you're a planner, don't have it be where they have to put a specific date because there's a really good chance that they're like, I don't know, that's your job. Like, I don't know what my date is. I have seven

Yeah. No, yeah, yeah, true.

weekends that are open. If you're a DJ or something later in the funnel, yeah, you can put in date because hopefully they have it by then, by the time they find you. And then I mean, you can ask how they heard about you. I used to love that as a marketing perspective, but I think maybe a little bit later. Again, have it just be drop-down super easy.

Asking them things like budget ranges, again, like just have what their

Mm mm.

budget is. Like it's just you're again, you're asking them to jump through hoops that they're not comfortable jumping through. So just make it super simple and have your email address listed, guys. If they like, come on, planners don't

Well

want to go through a contact form to get a hold of you.

Yeah. And sometimes too just in everyday life, it's like I'm on someone's website. I just want your phone number or I want your email address to email, you know, like where am I? And I'm like, about us, contact I like I'm going through and I can't find it. And it's like I'm giving up. So

No, no.

So just make it simple because here's the thing. Someone might not want to fill the contact form. They might just want to shoot you an email. And I get we're

Mm-hmm.

all about our funnels and everything has to be organized. And like, listen, I get it, but you know what? I like money. And if someone wants to just shoot me an email or a DM instead, I'm not gonna say no. So make it easy. Yeah.

Yeah. No. Yeah. Well, and you

back to your point where more parents are involved and parents like probably would rather get on a phone call or be more you know, they're a little bit more thorough in in their investigative

Mm.

work that they're going through with you. So like there's have all

Yeah.

the avenues available for you. So

For sure. And I would say a question that we've considered some of our clients adding, and this is for newer generations, is how do you prefer us to contact you? Text, phone,

I was

or email?

well, and I think that's super important, but I also think it's important that who whoever you are as a wedding pro, you follow that because I think a lot of people automatically fire off a 10 page email after they get an inquiry

Mm-hmm.

and meanwhile they said I would prefer to be contacted by text. And so therefore, if you're gonna get that 10 page email and you wrote I would prefer to text you're you're already lost the job.

Like done. Yeah.

A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. And

if someone wanna prefers text, there's third party software things you can use. So they don't have your number. Like there's ways to make it easier, but for sure in that initial phase, when you know they're talking to a lot of people, like don't make it any harder for them.

Yeah. Yeah. Keep it real simple. All right.

Mm-hmm.

Wedding pros, how can we make it easier for clients visiting our website to take the next step to actually do the inquiry? What

can we do

Mm-hmm.

to make it easy?

So this one's the easiest answer of them all. Have buttons. And that sounds so silly, but people just have a button and have it look like a button and have it tell them what to do. Because the amount of websites I see where the button is just like an underline and it doesn't have a box around it, those are never clicked

Mm-hmm.

on, FYI. Like those don't do well. We have tools and software to see where people click on websites. And I will tell you that if it does not look like a button.

They will never click on it.

Mm.

And then they will be lost to the ether of your website. So have

Ha ha ha.

it be a button and have tell them what to do next. Have a call to action on every single page of your website. Stop just having an end at a footer. That is that what you want them to do? You want them to

Yeah.

go gallivant in the footer? No, you want them to contact you. Like have it be

Yeah.

an engaging contact with a button. Please make it a box or round. I don't care the shape. It just has to have a shape.

It has to stand out. Because on mobile especially.

Looks clickable.

Yes, and and on mobile, make sure it's not too small. We make buttons

Yeah.

tiny on mobile and then literally they don't press on mobile. Like they're not actual pressable buttons because it doesn't register our finger. Yes.

I had that happen to me the other day. And I'm like,

I have fat fingers. Help me. It's like

Yes! Like it's a thing! Like just make sure the buttons are easy to press. Like it sounds so simple, but again, like you might get an inquiry just because you have a button now than before you didn't have a button. Like it's that simple. Yeah. Design one-on-one. You just learned my

Well. All right. Well speaking of Yeah.

biggest design secret of all time. You need to add a button.

Have a button. I love

that. All right. If someone doesn't have the budget for like a full website redesign, what's are like the highest impact changes they can make right now? Like simple,

other than a button. Cause we I I

Yeah. Other than of I was gonna say we got buttons.

I was like, other than the button, because you just said the button.

Well, we

just said the button, button, shorter contact form. Seriously, your conversions will go up immediately with a shorter contact form. Whenever we tell clients to do it, they're always like, wow, the inquiries went up. I'm like, I know it's just because we were asking them hoops. Look at your homepage headline and just see is it obvious what I do and who I do it for? I tell people all the time send it to someone in your life who doesn't really get what you do. They're like, Wedding, huh? Like, you know, that friend of yours, he's like, This is cool.

And just ask them. And if they can't clearly articulate what you do and who it's for and where you're located, well then your ideal client has literally no idea. And then go through and just add in testimonials, guys. Like think about do I need to add in a few testimonials? Should I add in a few images? It's not about redesigning. There's a really good chance you don't have to redesign anything. It's just making sure it's clear, it's simple, the images are up to date and captivating, and people understand what the heck you do.

Love it. All right. If I'm a wedding pro listening today and they want more inquiries from their existing website, what's the first thing they should audit this week?

Hmm.

I would Say just looking through, I think kind of similar to what I said earlier, like really just going through the handful of things and seeing does it convert? And then just looking at it. So, for example, if you removed every word from the page, would they understand in your photos what experience you provide?

that's a good test.

Yeah, not what you do, but what experience you provide, because that shows

Mm-hmm.

a strength in photos. Conversely, if someone were to remove

Every photo, which we rely on, would the copy convince them to inquire? Would the copy be able to sell on its own? If they're able

Mm.

to sell on their own, then working together should sell fine. But if neither one of them are working, then that's where you have that problem. Usually that weakest area is where that opportunity is. And that again doesn't have to do with layouts. Like, yes, there's a whole thing called user experience and layout design, but that is only, you know, that doesn't necessarily

have to be something you have to think about this early in the stage of looking at your website. It should be more about can the images sell themselves on their own and can the copies sell itself on its own? If not, then they're not gonna do it together.

No, makes it makes a lot of sense. All right. Where can everyone learn since you are the smartest person in the wedding universe, where where can they learn more from you and connect with you?

I think I want a trophy that says that that like Meghan Ely sends me that's like you are the smartest person in the wedding universe

well,

I I have lots of trophies from Meghan Ely and they're all not they're they're not good good ones. So I do. No, and she like physically

So you get the bad trophies. Got it. Okay. That's where they go.

she always says it's the best 20 bucks she ever spends and when she sends me a trophy. And it's my favorite because I'll post it online and my mom's like, congratulations

Yeah.

and she loves the comments when I post it online.

When they know what the trophy's actually for. Yeah.

Yeah.

So we honestly, you can come hang out with us over @avaandthebee on Instagram. So if you're listening to this and you're like, Adrienna, look at it. Just DM me, send me your homepage, and I'll literally just voicemail you and tell you what I think immediately off the bat of your website. I love doing it. I need something

to do because I don't watch TV. I read books. So give me something to do, guys. help a sister out. Give me stuff to look at. But

You do not watch

T V, I'm like blown away.

I'm a book girl. I read

Okay.

outside on my books. I'm not a very big TV person. but yeah, over at Ava and the Bee, we can do all this website stuff: branding, copy, blogging, Pinterest, newsletters, SEO, strategy, all of that fun stuff. So if you have any questions, and just aren't sure if your website is working for you, I'm super honest. I will say yes, no. Half the time, I don't think you need a new website. Half the time it's like, no, we're like 50% there. Here's the here's the 50% to finish.

Here's the

little tips and tricks to get you there. All right,

Yeah, yeah.

perfect. All right. We will have all our information in the show notes as well as the email blast that will go out. And can't thank you enough for being here. Of course.

Thanks again for having me, it's always a joy.

Yeah. You're always welcome. And and and and I'll make sure Meghan gets you a a nice trophy somewhere along the way. Cause

Thank you.

cause she always makes fun of me and gives me mean trophies, that wonderful sister of mine. So anyway.

yes. Sisters do.

All right, folks. All

right, folks. Thank you for listening to another episode of Mind Your Wedding Business. We will see you next time. Thank you, folks.