The top photographers in my rural Paris Texas area are getting 16 organic visits a month on their website. The top photographer websites in Dallas and the DFW area get 500 organic visits a month.
When these same photographers are getting 7,000 views on single Instagram reel, are the hundreds of dollars for a website worth it? Probably not. Let's talk about it.
Why you don't need a website
I had another photographer ask me about setting up a website because vendors were asking to link their website. I responded back with a link, to their social media page. Your social media page is free, and more likely to be up to date.
I know a host of successful photographers who get all their business for social media, they don't even have a website. Adrienne is one of my local Paris Texas favorites.
The majority of my work has come from social media leads. The website leads have been miniscule.
Every business decision needs to take into account the ROI. Even if you build your own website like me, you will still be paying the website domain and subscription fees, which for me is $200/year. If you need to pay someone to design the site, the cost only increases. Social media is free, if you set up all your socials and they fail, the only thing lost is your time.
Why you do need a website
One of the most compelling reasons to have a website would be search engine advertising, mainly google ads. Google ads do let you pay for very specific searches, which is more direct then paying to show your social media ads to people in specific demographics and interests.
If you are paying for a photo gallery delivery service, like Pixieset or Pic Time, it may benefit you to instead get a website and gallery delivery service all in one. My Wix site comes with a photo gallery deliver service. I have been thoroughly impressed with it. I pay $16/month, which is the Plus package for Pixieset. You could have a website AND a photo gallery deliver service for $16/month with Wix.
Conclusion
If you don’t plan on investing time into google ads or blogging, I’d recommend spending your money else where and focusing on keeping your social up to date and clean.