Looking for a side hustle? Becoming a PhotoBiz Partner may be a great opportunity for you. As a creative and photographer, you are already in the business of using your talents to serve others — why not apply those skills to web design? You can evolve your business to not only take pictures for your client’s marketing but to also build their websites (without needing to know any coding). The PhotoBiz / Zibster Partner Program gives you access to a platform you’re familiar with plus a few extra perks to help you get started building websites for your clients.

But isn’t PhotoBiz for photographers? Yes, but it can be used for any business. You may have heard of our sister brand, Zibster. It's our small business platform. It was built one-to-one to the PhotoBiz platform but without the photography-specific tools and branded for small businesses.

So when you are a PhotoBiz partner, you’re a Zibster partner too! 

As a partner, you get a Partner Dashboard where you can select which platform (PhotoBiz or Zibster) you want to build your client’s site on. You could build a website for a lawyer, baker, professional painter, or even for other photographers, it’s up to you. 

What does being a partner involve? In this blog post, I’ll talk about how you can become a partner, what tools you get access to, plus how PhotoBiz and Zibster help you and your clients after you've built their website. 

After you become a Partner, your PhotoBiz account will take on a new look so that when you log in, you have the ability to view your customers’ websites or your own, all from one place (the control panel for your own website will be accessible from the top menu). 

From the Partner Dashboard, you can view your clients' accounts in a board or list layout, as well as create new accounts for your clients, and invite existing PhotoBiz or Zibster clients to give you access to their account (or link their account to yours).

When you create a new account you can choose which platform you want to build each website on (PhotoBiz or Zibster).

There are no sign-up fees as you create new accounts. In fact, each time you create a new account for a client, you’ll have a 180 day trial period to design their website. Monthly fees begin when you are ready to launch or after 180 days, whichever comes first. 

Here’s a rundown of all the details you’ll see on the Partner Dashboard: 

• Account Number: your client's account ID.
  Tip: 100-###### represents Photobiz customers
  200-###### represents Zibster customers
• New Site: Create a new account for a client, select which platform to build on, and enter your customer’s details.
• Invite: As a partner, you can also work on existing PhotoBiz/Zibster accounts. Use the invite button to gain access to existing PhotoBiz/Zibster customer accounts and prompt them to allow you to access and link their account(s) to yours.
• Active: Indicates a client’s site is live and they are paying for their monthly or annual subscription for their site.
• Trial+ (days left): To help you monitor the 180-day trial time period, you’ll see a countdown of the time remaining.

• Inactive: This means your customer’s account is not active, and subscription payments are not processing. This could mean their credit card on file needs to be updated.
• Last Access: The date when the control panel was last accessed.
• C-Panel: Click this icon to access one of your clients’  control panels.
• Contact: Click this icon to view the contact details for your client.
• Release: Selecting this option removes the account from your dashboard, aka unlinks their account from yours.

Thanks to the Partner Dashboard, you can access multiple websites to work on, all from one place, there is no need for multiple passwords.

As a partner, you’ll have full access to your customers’ accounts and you can design on their behalf. But what if you’ve never designed a website. We have a great collection of articles and videos to help you learn how or you can hire us to do it on your client’s behalf. Wait, what? Yes! You have the option to purchase our Pro Services and oversee the creation of your client’s websites. Let’s review the differences between designing websites for your clients versus hiring our team to do it for you/your clients.

DIY partner

If you are a designer and have skills when it comes to building websites or understand WYSIWYG drag and drop website builders, you know how versatile and easy our platform is. No fuss, to the point design, that you can take to the next level with custom CSS and Javascript codes if you want. Straight out the box, there are over a million combinations of templates, colors, fonts, and layouts that you can use to customize the pages of a PhotoBiz (or Zibster) website. After you have a consultation with your client to understand their goals, then you can select a template and start customizing right away.

When you’re pitching your design services you might want to do several things:

• Explain the importance of the platform you chose to build their site on: Speed, security, and ease of use are the most common responses we get when people talk about our platform.

• Discuss the importance of SEO: Optimizing pages is easy with our built-in SEO tools.

• Highlight the extra support our team can provide: Beyond the support, you can provide as a designer, after you launch your clients’ website you can release their site to us for ongoing support, and know they are in great hands with our award-winning support team.

• Showcase your work: If you’ve built websites before, be ready to show potential clients your past work.

• Build them a sample: Trying to woo a client? You may have to put something together for them before they sign up. That's where the trial accounts come in handy.

Hire us option

Not so design savvy but want to offer web design services for your customers? Or perhaps you are in a tight crunch and just need an extra pair of hands? You can rely on our Pro Services team to assist you. You can earn what you’re worth and pay us what it costs for our services knowing the limitations of the Pro Services hours. 

It’s like having an agency to support your customers when you need it while maintaining control on behalf of your clients. You’ll be the voice for your client's needs so they only deal with you.

This option is great for some because you can bundle your services with ours so you can focus on the big picture for your clients while we work on the nuts and bolts of their website.

Once you become a partner, you’ll want to make updates to your current website to showcase your website services. Creating a landing page with details on the services you offer, and even details about what’s included in your packages is a good starting point.

Next, we recommend having samples of your work, testimonials, and links to live sites, if possible.

Having content like this will show you’re serious about web design and also give your customers the opportunity to build trust with you. Once they have seen your work, you’ll want to have options to book a consultation, so you can go over options with them and make sure they are a good fit.

When you have a consultation about designing a website, be prepared to answer questions and overcome objections like: 

"I don't want it to look like a template"

Don't worry, it won't. Let your client know that a template is just a starting point. You'll be able to build faster and change practically everything to make it 100% unique and customized just for them.

"Website design is expensive"

Remind them that they are hiring an expert and investing in themselves when they choose to work with you. A professional design is going to be worthwhile and add tremendous value to their brand.

"But I don't know how to write" or "I don't have good pictures"

Content is easily the most important part of any website design. Having great images and compelling copy can make all the difference – from helping visitors decide to buy to securing the best search rank possible.

If photos are an issue and you are a photographer, you can bundle that into your website packages. As for words, writing even a little content can help create a better website not only for SEO purposes but to give customers context on what their business is. Focus on 350 words per page and if more happens that's great! Two paragraphs are better than none.

If you’re interested in becoming a partner, contact us. Our Partner team advocates will reach out to you and help you set up a Partner Dashboard, it’s free!  Learn more about our Partner Program here or give us a call at 866.463.7620.