Photographer website with booking: your Site, built and published in Studio

Your Site is a website in your name that you build and publish yourself from Studio. It uses the same packages, bookings, contracts, payments and galleries as your account: a client who books on your Site lands in your Studio bookings, marked "Via your site". The Site is included in the Studio subscription. Graindevue works in euros, for photographers working in France.

This page describes what you do in "My site", with the labels you will see on screen. Elements of the public Site are quoted in French, as your visitors see them.

Open "My site" as soon as your profile is live. Choose a starting point:

• "Full website": five starter pages (home, services, portfolio, about, contact) and a navigation.
• "Booking space": a single page added to your existing website with one link. Your clients book, sign, pay and receive their galleries there, and a "Retour au site" link takes them back to your existing website.

Then click "Create my draft". Your Site gets a graindevue.site address, derived from your username, which you can change in "Domain". The starting point only prepares your draft: you can change everything afterwards.

In "Pages", "New page" adds a page. Each page can be "Available on the site" or not: an unavailable page stays editable and previewable. You can also duplicate it, move it up, move it down or delete it.

A page is made of blocks:

The "Header" and "Footer" are set once for the whole Site. The "Legal notice" is a page prefilled with your account details, linked from the footer.

In "Theme", you set the look of the whole Site:

• "Palette and colors": 23 palettes, or a "Custom" palette. Studio warns you when a text's contrast is too low to stay readable.
• "Heading font" and "Body font", chosen from the Google Fonts catalog.
• "Spacing" ("Density", "Text width"), "Borders" and "Animations and transitions".

Your edits are saved automatically in a draft ("Saved") and do not touch the live Site. "Preview" shows the draft as it will be published.

"Publish the site" lists everything the next publish will change, then "Publish now" publishes the whole Site at once. Each publish creates a complete version of the Site.

In "Site history", you preview an earlier version, then "Restore and publish" publishes it again as a new version: nothing is rewritten in the past. The "Site visible online" switch hides the Site or makes it visible again.

Your Site always answers on its permanent graindevue.site address. In "Domain", you can:

• change this address with "Change address";
• connect a domain you already own. You keep the domain: nothing is transferred, you only add the DNS records shown at your registrar. The domain goes from "Waiting for verification" to "Verified".

If you enter my-studio.com or www.my-studio.com, the other address is connected too and redirects to the one you chose. Once the domain is verified, visitors of the permanent address are redirected to it. "Remove domain" hands back to the permanent address.

In "Domain", the "Addresses of your former site" section keeps you from losing visitors and search ranking. One line per address: the old address, then the destination page on your Site, or gone when the page no longer exists. "Save redirects" saves them.

Each old address then redirects to its new page, or answers "page removed".

For each page, you fill in a "Search engine title", a "Search engine description" and a "Share image". Each image has its "Alt text".

In the "SEO" tab:

• "Pages in search results" flags titles and descriptions that are "Missing", "Too long" or "Same as another page". The "In Google results" and "When shared" previews show how they look.
• "Site identity": site name, page title template, default description and share image, favicon, social profiles and "Google Business Profile".
• "Google Search Console": you paste the verification code Google gives you, with a step-by-step guide. The code applies right away, without publishing.

Your Site generates a sitemap.xml, a robots.txt and structured data automatically. Search engines that support IndexNow are notified at each publish. Your Graindevue profile is linked to your Site's address in its structured data.

For the method (Business Profile, useful pages, images, links), follow our photographer SEO guide.

The button of the "Packages" block can lead straight to booking. Your client picks a package, signs in with a code received by email, then sends the request. It lands in your Studio bookings and follows the same path as the others: contract, deposit, balance, gallery.

• Payment: online by card through Stripe, or as a direct payment (bank transfer, check, cash) that your client declares and you confirm.
• Client area ("Espace client" on the Site): your clients find their bookings, sign their contract, pay, exchange messages and open their gallery.
• Contact: the "Contact" block shows a "Me contacter" button. The visitor writes to you, and the message lands in your "Messages".

Each step is detailed on the contract management, payment processing and gallery delivery pages.

"Turn on the blog" adds a blog to your Site, at the /blog address, and a "Blog" link is added to your menu if it has room. The blog goes live at the next publish of the Site. Each article is published on its own, without publishing the rest of the Site again. The blog has its RSS feed.

The "Statistics" tab counts your Site's visits without cookies. The figures are "Updated every night", over 7 or 30 days, compared with the previous period:

• "Audience": visits and page views;
• "Bookings": "Book button clicks" and "Bookings started";
• "Top pages", "Sources" and "Cities";
• "Performance": how fast and stable the Site is for your visitors.

"Don't count my visits" leaves your own visits out of the figures. These statistics cover your Site: the dashboard's "External Reach" counts clicks from your Graindevue profile.

The Site is part of the Studio subscription: €29 per month, after a 30-day free trial with no card, and 0% commission on your bookings. Online payments go through Stripe, whose processing fees apply according to its price list. Details are on the zero commission page.

If your subscription ends, your Site's public pages are no longer served and the client area stays open to your clients. If you subscribe again, what was live comes back. The ethical platform page details what happens after you cancel.

How do I create my Site?

Put your profile live, then open "My site". Choose "Full website" or "Booking space", then click "Create my draft". You edit, preview and publish your Site yourself.

Can I use my own domain name?

Yes. In "Domain", you connect a domain you already own by adding the DNS records shown at your registrar. You keep the domain, and the permanent graindevue.site address redirects to it once it is verified.

Can I change my graindevue.site address?

Yes. In "Domain", "Change address" lets you pick another one.

How much does the Site cost?

It is included in the Studio subscription: €29 per month after the 30-day free trial, with no commission on your bookings.

My former site has pages that rank well. What happens to them?

In "Addresses of your former site", you enter each old address and its new page. The old address redirects to the new one, or answers "page removed" when the page no longer exists.

Can my clients book and pay on my Site?

Yes. The button of the "Packages" block leads to booking a package, and your clients pay by card through Stripe or as a direct payment. They sign their contract, exchange messages and open their gallery in the client area.

Do the statistics use cookies?

No. Your Site's statistics are measured without cookies, and you can leave your own visits out with "Don't count my visits".

Do I keep my Graindevue profile?

Yes. Your marketplace profile and your Site use the same packages, and each booking shows where it came from: "Via your site" or "Via Graindevue".

To build your Site on your own account, start the 30-day free trial, no card required. For a question about your business, talk to the founder.