| Registration |
 | How much does it cost to register? |
| This depends on the style of advert you wish to place in our Photographer Directory. A basic listing which will appear on all searches performed within your operating area is free of charge. A Sponsored Link on the other hand will cost you £10 per month but these appear within the top section of search results and will guarantee more visibility for your company.
What's more, as soon as you are registered with IWP we will deposit £25 into your IWP account as a welcome gift so we effectively pay you to register! This gift can be used to purchase your first wedding website which means that you get to try out our service cost-free. |
| What will I get if I select the free registration? |
| When you register with IWP and select the FREE basic listing you will receive the following:
- Entry into our IWP photographer directory
- A £25 welcome gift deposited in your IWP account
- Access to your own secure IWP control panel which will let you create wedding websites for your clients with ease (costs start from £25 so first one is free due to the welcome gift)
- The ability to add eAlbums on each of the websites you create and upload multiple photographs to them
- Ability to accept online credit or debit card orders for any photograph that you upload
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| What will I get if I select the Sponsored Link registration? |
| When you register with IWP and select the Sponsored Link option you will receive all of the benefits provided by the free registration but with the bonus of having your directory listing appear in the top section of all relevant search results (i.e. all searches performed within your operating area).
Appearing in the top Sponsored Links section of our directory will get your advert seen by more couples. |
| Why do you give each photographer a free wedding website? |
| When you register with IWP we will deposit £25 into your account as a welcome gift. This is enough to create your first wedding website which will include a single Home Page plus a Photo Gallery supporting online card payments.
We do this to allow you to try out our service before parting with any of your hard earned cash. By publishing your work online and allowing friends and relatives of your clients to buy prints using their debit or credit cards, you have the opportunity to increase your sales making IWP a revenue generator rather than a cost. This is an opportunity for you to enhance your existing range of services with a personal wedding website which, our experience tells us, is becoming an increasingly popular choice for modern couples |
| How do I claim my FREE £25 gift for registering? |
| As soon as you have registered with IWP you will be logged in to your secure online control panel. One of the summary tables on this control panel's home page shows your IWP account balance which automatically includes your welcome gift showing a positive value of £25.
When you create your first wedding website our system will charge it to your IWP account automatically so in reality it's all done for you and you need do nothing to claim it. |
| Can I make money using the IWP service? |
| Yes - Each wedding website you create will cost you from £25 depending on the features you wish to include. However, this amount always includes a Photo Gallery module which will automatically come with a built in ecommerce facility. This facility will allow you to sell the photographs that you upload to your couples' websites' gallery in a variety of styles (e.g. different sizes, framed, not framed etc...) and even accept instant credit or debit card payment for them online.
By publishing your photographs on a couple's wedding website you are instantly making them available to all of their friends and family 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, from anywhere in the world. This means that friends or relatives who may not have purchased prints after seeing a traditional hard copy album may now do so because it's much quicker and simpler. They can choose the images that they want at their own pace and from the comfort of their own home. |
| IWP Directory |
| How can couples find me in the IWP directory? |
| Couples search our directory of wedding photographers by entering a postcode. They can perform as many searches as they wish free of charge |
| How do you decide which order to show photographers in? |
| The order of our directory is split into 3 sections. Paid for Sponsored Links appear at the top in order of distance from the wedding location, IWP Preferred Photographers appear next within the list in order of IWP Ranking + Distance from the wedding location, and all other standard entries appear beneath these in order of distance from the wedding location. |
| What are Sponsored Links? |
| Sponsored Links are 'paid-for' entries in our Photographer Directory. These appear within the top section of relevant search results which means they get seen by more couples.
To upgrade a standard entry to a Sponsored Link select the Upgrade option from your control panel's My Directory Listing menu. This will cost £10 per month and will guarantee you a position within the top section of search results where a couple have entered a postcode that is within your operating area (as defined by the MyDetails->Max Distance setting). |
| What are IWP Preferred Photographers? |
| IWP Preferred Photographers are photographers who actively create and supply Personal Wedding Websites to their clients. These photographers are displayed beneath Sponsored Links but above standard listings within our Photographer Directory.
You will automatically become an IWP Preferred Photographer when you create your first wedding website. Your position within this section of the directory will depend on the IWP ranking that you achieve (see IWP Ranking FAQ for more details). |
| How do I include a picture or logo in my IWP listing? |
| Once you have registered you may upload an image which will be displayed alongside your advert within our Photographer Directory. This image can be of anything you like (e.g. a Logo or sample photograph) but it must be in .JPG format. You can upload your image from the My Details page which is available by selecting the My Details option from the My Account menu within your control panel. |
| How can I increase my advert's position to gain more visibility? |
| There are two ways of increasing your advert's position within the IWP directory. The first, and simplest, is to upgrade it to a Sponsored Link. This costs £10 per month and will ensure that it always gets displayed within the top section of relevant search results.
Another way is to increase the number of features that you include on your wedding websites. The more features you include the higher your IWP ranking will be and this is also a factor which affects your position. |
| How does the IWP ranking system work? |
| The IWP Ranking system is designed to highlight the photographers who provide the best value in the Personal Wedding Websites they create for couples.
When you first register with IWP we will have created a Standard Package upon which all of your wedding websites will be based. This package contains just a single Home Page and the Photo Gallery page. If this is left as it is and you create at least one wedding website your IWP ranking will be increased to 2 to show that you offer a basic website as part of your service. However, if you were to change this package so that it included more website features (e.g. Gift List, Events Page, Guest Book etc.) your websites would be worth more to the couples and your IWP ranking will be increased to reflect this.
Please note that your ranking is based on you actively creating wedding websites, it will decrease by 1 for every month (on average) where you do not create a website. |
| How many people visit the Ideal Wedding websites? |
| The idealwedding.co.uk group of websites receives approximately 6,000 to 10,000 unique visits per month depending on the time of year. |
| Personal Wedding Websites |
| What is a Personal Wedding Website? |
| A Personal Wedding Website is a website that is dedicated to one couple's wedding and nothing else. All of our wedding websites can be created and customised by the couple themselves (or in this case by the photographer) to the extent that they can change any of the content or even the overall website template as often as they like at the click of a button. |
| What does each wedding website include? |
| Each Personal Wedding Websites can support the following features: Choice of website template, unique website address/domain name, unlimited home pages, wedding party pages, unlimited photo gallery, official wedding album page, guest list, table plan, events page with interactive maps, RSVP page, Invitation Designer, Quiz/Poll, Gift List and Menu Plan |
| How much does each wedding website cost? |
| A complete (i.e. all features included) Personal Wedding Website purchased by a couple from idealweddingWebsites.co.uk would cost £95. However, a couple are free to choose only those features they feel they will use with features starting from £5 .
When purchased through IWP, however, we provide a discount for Photographers which means they can purchase a full wedding website for less than this. For full details on the latest prices please see the individual features that are available and their prices by selecting the My Website Packages from the My Account menu. |
| How do I create a wedding website for my clients? |
| Your IWP control panel provides you with the tools you need to create as many Personal Wedding Websites as you like. Each one can be created in two simple steps taking just a few moments to complete and requiring absolutely no technical skills.
To create a new wedding website now (assuming you have sufficient funds in your IWP account) select the Create New Wedding from the My Account menu and follow the on screen prompts. |
| How will my clients access their wedding website? |
| Websites can be accessed from any PC connected to the internet anywhere in the world the instant they are created via your control panel. Each one can be accessed using the following web address: www.idealweddingPhotography.co.uk? plus the couple's email address which you entered during the website creation process.
Another method of accessing a wedding website is to register a unique domain name for it (e.g. www.SueandJohn.co.uk). |
| Photo Gallery |
| How many photographs can I upload? |
| We do not place a limit on the number of Photographs that you can upload - we place a size restriction for the amount of space assigned to the wedding website. When you create each wedding website you will be asked how many photos you think you will be uploading and their maximum size. The amount of appropriate disk space will be calculated and the price changed to reflect this.
So, for example, a standard wedding website will default to 250 photographs, each one not exceeding 100KB in size. This would require approximately 25MB and would cost £25. Each additional MB that you require would then be charged at a further £1 (unless otherwise agreed with IWP).
This approach means that you are in complete control of how many photographs a wedding website can hold at the point you create it. In addition to this, and in an attempt to re-use space, you are able to transfer unused space from one wedding website to another which means that you should never have paid for space which is unused. You can also buy additional space if required even after a website has been created. |
| How will my clients and their family view the images? |
| Each wedding website will have its own Photo Gallery page which will provide either a slide show or a list of image thumbnails. The website visitors can simply click on an image to view a larger version in a separate window. |
| How will people order prints online? |
| Each Photo Gallery page provided as part of all wedding websites has its own shopping basket associated with it. This allows website visitors to select the photographs that they wish to buy, select the product associated with each one them (e.g. framed, not framed, different sizes etc...) and then add them to their basket. When ready they can proceed to a checkout area where they can purchase the items online using their Debit or Credit card.
This process requires you to have your own PayPal account (FREE and quick to setup) but when done means that funds get deposited directly into your own PayPal account rather than a third party holding account. |
| How secure will be my images be when uploaded? |
| When you upload your images to our website we store them in a hidden location on our website which is never revealed to the user. Normally, you can see exactly where an image is stored on a web server simply by right clicking on the image within a web page and selecting the Properties option. However, if you do this with any of our Photograph images you will only see an alias location and not its actual location. This means that the user can only see the reduced thumbnail previews that we show them and cannot gain access to the underlying, possibly better quality, image itself.
In addition to this when we show the thumbnail or reduced size images we re-render them on the fly rather then serve up a brand new, smaller, image rather than just making the image apper smaller on the page. Again, this means that if a user were able to save them to their local machine they would only be able to save a very small and low quality version of the original file.
To introduce belt and braces to this mechanism we are currently working on an automated watermarking and quality optimisation process which can be applied by the system at time of upload. This process will enable you to upload images that have not yet been optimised for the web safe in the knowledge that we will handle all of that for you. This feature is due for implementation in June 2006. |
| How do I increase the amount of space available on a particular wedding website? |
| You may increase the space allocated to an individual wedding website at any time by locating it within the My Weddings option from the My Account menu and then by clicking on its Buy More Disk Space link. This will take you to a page where you will be able to increase the allocated disk space using either money that's already in our IWP account or a Debit or Credit card.
To help you out further, we also allow you to transfer unused space from another wedding website to ensure that you get the most for your money. This can be done on the same page under the Transfer Space option. |
| Products |
| I sell prints using a wide variety of products, can IWP cope with this? |
| Yes, when you sell prints via the wedding websites that you create on IWP you can specify the styles in which they can be purchases. By default we will have set up a few standard print sizes for you which you could add to or change by visiting the My Products option from the My Accounts menu.
You may create as many products as you wish and even assign each one with a different price. Example products may be different size prints, framed or not framed, different styles of frame and so on... |
| How do I define prices for each of my products? |
| You can assign a custom price to each of your products by selecting the My Products option from the My Account menu and then clicking on the Edit link beneath the product that you wish to assign the price to. Simply enter your price and when done click ont the Save button at the bottom of the page.
Please note, a change in price will only affect new orders and any existing orders that exist will remain at the old price. |
| How many products can I set up? |
| You may setup as many products as you like but be aware that customers will have to select one from a list so the longer the list the more coplicated the buying process may become. |
| IWP Control Panel |
| What is the IWP control panel? |
| Once you register with IWP you will be able to login to your own private control panel. This is an administration area on our website which contains the tools that you will need to create wedding websites for your clients. It can only be access by logging in with your unique email address and password and cannot be seen by you. |
| What do the Account Balance figures mean on my Summary page? |
| The main objective of IWP is to allow you to create wedding websites for your clients. Each website does cost a nominal amount (from £25 upwards) and you pay for this using your IWP account. Simply deposit money into your account and then use your balance to purchase either new wedding websites or additional space for existing websites.
Please note that once money is deposited into your account it cannot be withdrawn without written consent from The Ideal Wedding Company Ltd. Due to this we recommed that you only deposit money into account that you intend to spend on IWP products or services. |
| What do the Order History figures mean on my Summary page? |
| One of the objectives, from your point of view, of supplying wedding websites to your clients is to be able to sell your photographs online to couples' friends and family. This is done via a Photo Gallery page where customers can browse all of the official photographs and select those they wish to purchase. When ready, the customer can proceed to a checkout area where they can pay for their order using their debit or credit card.
Each time a new order is placed it will show up in the figures in the Order History section on your summary page. Clicking on these figures provides you with access to the individual items that make up each order which allows you to respond quickly and easily. |
| What do the Directory Listing Performance figures mean on my Summary page? |
| When you registered with IWP your company details were added to our wedding directory so that couples who are looking for a wedding photographer can easily find you. Our directory, however, contains the names of 1000s of photographers and the ones that gain the most exposure from IWP will be those whose company details appear nearest the top of our directory.
The performance figures provide an indication as to your listing's visibility within our directory. If your average position is 20 or above then you are likely to find that you do not get a great deal of couples clicking through to your website since couples will view your competitors' details before seeing yours.
Please see the following FAQs for further details on what each of the summary figures means (e.g. Average Position, Impressions, Viewings and Click Thrus). For details on IWP ranking see the 'How does the IWP ranking system work' under the IWP Directory category above. |
| What does Average Position mean? |
| Each time a search for a wedding photographer is performed on our directory a list of search results is displayed. These results show the wedding photographers that fall within the search location in order of Sponsored Links, IWP Recommended Photographers and then all others. Within these three groups photographers are displayed in order of the distance they are from the location of the wedding.
So for example, if you were based in Cambridge and a couple were searching for a photographer in Hertfordshire you may appear a little way down the list as you would be approximately 40 miles away form the location. On the other hand, if a search were done for photographers operating in Cambridgeshire you would appear nearer the top of the list.
Your Average Position therefore provides you with an idea as to where your advert is most commonly being displayed. If this figure is low then that's good, you are near the top (1 being the top position). If this figure is high then your advert is being displayed further down the list and therefore less likely to be being seen.
If the latter is true for you you may want to consider upgrading to a Sponsored Link which will move it up to the top section in ALL relevant searches (to do this select the Upgrade option from the My Directory Listing menu). |
| What is an Impression? |
| Each time your advert is displayed within our directory an "Impression" is registered. The higher the number of impressions the more your advert is being displayed which means the more potential business it is being presented to! |
| What is a Viewing? |
| Each time your advert is displayed it includes basic contact information such as telephone number, website address and email link. However, furher information such as your company's description of keywords can be found by clicking on your advert and "Viewing" it in full.
Each time this happend we record a "Viewing" so the higher the number of viewings the better as this indicates that more couples are requesting your details. |
| What is a Click Thru? |
| Each time your advert is displayed it includes basic contact information such as telephone number, website address and email link. If the couple click on the website link to visit your website we record a "Click Thru". The higher the click thur figure the better as it means that more people are displaying an interest in you and your website. |
| What do the IWP Usage figures mean on my Summary page? |
| The IWP Usage figures give you a high level indication of your activities within the IWP website. These figures include the number of wedding websites that you have created (to-date, this month, this week etc...), the amount of server disk space you have purchased for your photographs (across all wedding websites) and the amount of server disk space that you have used through uploading photographs (also across all wedding websites). |
| What does the Recently Accessed Weddings mean on my Summary page? |
| This provides you with links to the last 5 wedding websites that you have accessed and acts as a quick navigation tool to save time.
If the wedding that you want to access is not in this list select the My Weddings option from the My Account menu and search for it in your full listing. |
| How can I customise the summary tables |
| Each summary table shows figures based on various time periods (e.g. This year, this month, this week etc....). By default we have chosen those we think will be most useful to you but you can change these by clicking on the customise link if you wish. |
| Selling Online |
| What methods can I use for selling online? |
| Each wedding website you create is completely ecommerce enabled which means that you can accept orders from customers online.
These orders can be placed in one of two ways. The first is a simple email order where the customer chooses their photographs and products and then submits the order to you. In this scenario you would arrange payment outside our website either by cheque or payment over the phone.
The second method is to allow your customers to pay for their order at the time they place it using their debit or credit card. This scenario requires that you have an active PayPal account but means that the money for the order will be deposited directly into your account at the time of order.
You can enable or disable each of these payment methods by selecting the My Details option from the My Account menu within your control panel. |
| Can I accept Credit or Debit card orders? |
| Yes, as long as you setup a PayPal account (set up is FREE) you can accept orders online where custome pay immediately using their debit or credit card. Simply set up your PayPal account, enter your PayPal email address into the My Account->My Details page. |
| How do I setup my PayPal account? |
| Click here for full details on how to set up your free PayPal account. |
| What commission will I have to pay? |
| When you sell a photograph via one of our wedding websites we will charge 3% comission. So, for example, if you sell a print for £10 we would charge you 30p. This charge will be taken from the balance in your IWP account the month following the date of the purchase, normally towards the beginning of the month. Please therefore ensure that you have sufficient funds in your IWP account to cover the bill.
We will notify you 2 weeks prior to your billing date as to the charges that are owed and this should provide you enough time to top up your IWP acccount if required.
Please note that failure to have sufficient funds in your IWP account at the time this charge is applied will trigger the suspension of ALL wedding websites that you have created. |
| Can I accept email orders? |
| Yes, your two options for accepting on line orders are immediate payment by credit or debit card or orders by email. Please note that we do not take payment in the case of email orders and this will be left up to you |