Wedding Business Solutions

It's that time of the year to see the things you're doing wrong!

• Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

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It's that time of the year to see the things you're doing wrong!

Are you making it easy enough for people to reach you? What does your website say about your business—does a forgotten copyright date hint that you might be neglecting other details? In this episode, I talk about simple things you might be overlooking that could create friction and cost you real clients, plus how freshening up your content and contact options can make a big difference.

Listen to this new 9-minute episode for actionable tips on updating your site so you don’t miss out on inquiries and keep your business looking current.

If you have any questions about anything in this, or any of my podcasts, or have a suggestion for a topic or guest, please reach out directly to me at Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or visit my website Podcast.AlanBerg.com 

Please be sure to subscribe to this podcast and leave a review (thanks, it really does make a difference). If you want to get notifications of new episodes and upcoming workshops and webinars, you can sign up at www.ConnectWithAlanBerg.com  

View the full transcript on Alan’s site: https://alanberg.com/blog/


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I'm Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you'd like to suggest other topics for "The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast" please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.

Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site:

©2025 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com

You know it’s that time of year to check a few things that you might not be getting right. Hey, it’s Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast. It is the beginning of the year, and this is the time of year to check for some things that I’ve seen a lot of people still don’t have right.

The first one, an easy one: check the copyright date on your website. It is the beginning of 2026, and I just saw somebody’s website that said 2021 as the copyright. I’ve seen many 2024s still, and it’s going to be 2026. It’s a pretty easy thing to do on most websites.

What I would do is put the code in that makes it change automatically every year. I don’t have to change it on my website; it changes automatically. If you have somebody that does the changes for you, have them put in the HTML code that makes it change automatically. If you do it yourself and you don’t know what that is, this is a great use for AI or a Google search to find that HTML code. It’ll say something like year or current year, and it will just automatically change. I think that’s a great thing to do.

A couple of other things. I was trying to find somebody’s website because I wanted to send them an email. I went to the website and there was absolutely no way to email them. You could only use a contact form. This is a form of friction, and that friction is going to stop some people from reaching out to you. I was very close to just going with somebody else, but I really needed to get to this person. I just wanted to send them a message, an email message, and I couldn’t do it because there was no way to physically email them.

This is the same with phone numbers. I had somebody else I was just talking to, and I thought the phone number wasn’t on the website at all. It was there, but it was behind a button that said “Book” and then had their name, like “Book Chris.” People aren’t going to click on Book just to try to call you, ask a question, or check availability. That’s a very high-commitment action. I’ve spoken about that before on the podcast. Putting the phone number behind that kind of button means people aren’t going to find it.

Now, is everybody going to try to call you? No. In this case, I was actually trying to text them, and when I finally found it, it said call or text this number. Why wouldn’t you have that elsewhere?

When I spoke to them, they said they were having this discussion, I’ll say discussion in air quotes, between them and their web developer. The reason for not having it visible was to avoid spam. I get that—you’re going to get spam—but you also might get a real customer. If you’re doing weddings, you might get a mother of the bride or groom who wants to call you, because that’s their generation. If you do other types of events, you might be dealing with baby boomers or Gen Xers who are more likely to want to use the phone. Gen Y less so, and Gen Z even less. That’s not their first choice.

A lot of them are actually phone-averse. I show a video in my presentations about how Gen Z is taking classes on how to make phone calls. So not having a phone number is basically saying, “Fine, Gen Z probably doesn’t want to use it anyway.” But there are people that might.

My older son is Gen Y and he’s on the phone all the time with work. It’s nothing for him to pick up the phone and call someone. I talked about this last year when they got married. My daughter-in-law reached out to a rental company and wanted to have a phone call about what she needed because she didn’t know. The rental company said, “Oh, there’s just a catalog on our website. You tell us what you want and we’ll make your proposal.” They wouldn’t get on the phone with her.

She’s also a millennial, and they actually lost the customer. They went to a different company because they weren’t willing to have that conversation or get on the phone.

So, copyright date for sure. Email address—if you don’t want to display your email address, you can do what I do. I do have my email on my contact page, but I also have buttons or words that say “email.” If you click the word email, it opens up an email on your phone, laptop, desktop, or tablet. It doesn’t have to be displayed; it can be in the code behind it.

You can text me the same way. I have a text widget on my site. And of course, you can call me. Do I get a lot of phone calls? No. But I got a call the other day and they were very surprised that I answered my phone. This was someone right around that Gen Y, Gen Z age. The oldest Gen Zs are about 28 now, and the youngest Gen Ys are about 29. He was right around there, maybe into his 30s.

He picked up the phone and called me. I answered, and he was shocked that I answered. The truth is, I can’t always answer my phone. I’m on planes, I’m on stages. But I was available and I answered. Yes, we get spam, but I’d rather take the chance that it’s a real customer—which it was. Then he came to a mastermind. I’d rather deal with some spam and get real customers. We have spam everywhere anyway.

It’s hard for you to look at your website the way somebody else would. So these are some obvious things around contacting you.

This is a great time of year to do this. You could have a professional website review by me or by Brian Lawrence, the co-author of my latest book. Or you could just get a buddy—someone who knows you a little bit but hasn’t been to your site. Have them go through it, because you want that first impression. You don’t want someone who already knows how to navigate it.

Then you do the same for them. Ask: if you were a customer, is everything here that you’d be looking for? Is it easy to contact you? Do you understand why you should contact them? A lot of sites say “Book Now,” which is a very specific action. “Check availability” is also very specific. Not everyone is ready for that. Some people just want to ask a question or have a conversation.

Not having to use a contact form matters. Is your contact form easy to fill out on a phone? How long does it take? How many fields are there? What’s required? These are all good things to look at, but you have to look at it from an outside perspective.

When I told this friend of mine the other day that I couldn’t find his phone number, he was surprised. He knew it was there. But he wasn’t trying to use the site the way I was. That’s the point. You need that non-biased opinion.

We all have this curse-of-knowledge bias about our own sites. It’s very hard for me to proofread my own site or emails because I wrote them. It’s easy for me to proofread yours because I didn’t. Things jump out. So it’s a good idea to get outside perspectives.

Now is a great time of year to do a little review. You don’t necessarily need a full overhaul. If you do, contact Brian Lawrence. If you want a professional review, contact me. But now is a great time to do tweaks.

Search engines like fresh content. Change photos. Make sure the tags behind the photos are there. Check keywords. Use AI to check whether the language is right for your current audience. If you wrote your web text five years ago, your audience is different now. You may want to update it for a Gen Z or Gen Y/Gen Z audience.

There’s a bunch of things you can do, but now is the time. That copyright date alone can make your site seem outdated. If I see “Copyright 2021,” it feels like nothing has changed in five years. That’s not good. Making it hard to contact you goes against what you want, which is more inquiries.

Pricing and packages are discussions for another time, another podcast, another book, another presentation.

Go check your copyright date. Do that now. Check your site on mobile and desktop. Is it easy to contact you? Do the links to call, email, text, and your contact form work? Check every link. Literally click on every link, because sometimes stuff just breaks.

It’s the beginning of the year. That’s not a resolution. It’s a call to action.

Go do that, and see you on the next podcast.


I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or you can  text, use the short form on this page, or call +1.732.422.6362, international 001 732 422 6362. I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.

Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site:

©2026 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com



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Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

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