QUICK TIPS

Most photographers put a booking CTA right at the top of their homepage. Educators and web designers push this advice constantly. But think about it from your visitor's side.

They just landed. They haven't seen your work. They don't know your prices or your process. Asking them to book is like proposing on a first date.

Your contact page is already in the nav menu and the footer. They can find it when they're ready.

The hero button is prime real estate. Use it to move people to the next logical step: your services page.

Homepage -> services -> contact. I've recommended this flow in dozens of audits, and it consistently outperforms the "skip straight to contact" approach.

What does your hero button link to right now?

Your website looks expensive. Nobody's booking through it.

I see this constantly: photographers ask for a lighter, more airy design because it feels classier. Softer buttons, thinner fonts, low-contrast text. And honestly, it does look better in a screenshot.

But screenshots don't book clients.

When everything on a page is the same visual weight, nothing stands out. Your "Contact Me" button blends into the background. Your headline disappears into the hero image. The whole site becomes a mood board instead of a business tool.

I walk clients through this tension all the time: you can have an elegant site that also converts. It just means your CTAs need slightly more contrast than feels comfortable to you. A two-shade difference in button color can be the gap between "pretty" and "profitable."

The sites that get the most bookings aren't the flashiest. They're the ones where the next step is obvious.

Have you ever toned down your website design and then noticed fewer inquiries?

89 tag pages. On one photographer's site.

Every blog tag in Squarespace auto-generates its own page. Tag a post with "golden hour," and Squarespace creates a /blog/tag/golden-hour page. Do that 89 times across your blog, and you've got 89 near-empty pages that Google is trying to crawl and index.

Most of those pages have 1-2 posts on them. Google sees that as thin content, and it's not impressed.

And you're burning crawl budget on all of them. Google only spends so much time on your site per visit. You want it crawling your portfolio and service pages, not a tag page for "cute puppies" with one blog post on it.

Go into your blog settings, delete most of your tags, and keep 5 or so broad topics. If a tag only applies to a handful of posts, it doesn't need to exist.

How many blog tags does your site have right now?

WEBSITE AUDIT & STRATEGY CALL

Quick announcement: I changed how my website audits work, and I think you'll like it.

100% of the audit fee is now credited toward any project.

That means if you get an audit (the $295-$495 tiers) and then decide to move forward with a makeover, a custom site, or SEO work, the full audit fee comes off your project price. You're essentially getting the audit for free.

Why the change? Because the audit is the best way for both of us to figure out what your website actually needs. It's a no-risk starting point.

What the website audit covers:

I'm also opening a few spots for website makeovers this spring. If your site has been collecting dust or you've been meaning to refresh it, now's a good time.

Interested? Just reply to this email or book an audit here:
https://www.foregroundweb.com/web-design/website-audit/

MAIN TOPIC

You finished a project, the client was thrilled, and you asked for a testimonial. They wrote "She was amazing! So talented! Would highly recommend!" You pasted it on your website and moved on.

That testimonial is doing nothing for you.

When you send a message that says "Hey, would you mind leaving me a review?" your client writes something nice, vague, and completely forgettable. You gave them nothing to work with, so they defaulted to compliments.

I've worked with 300+ photographers. The ones with generic testimonials might as well have none. A visitor scanning your pricing page doesn't care that someone once thought you were "wonderful." They want to know if you can solve their problem and whether the money is worth it.

You don't need a 20-question survey. Two questions, asked after delivery, do the heavy lifting.

"What doubts or reservations did you have before booking?"

This surfaces the objections sitting in your next client's head right now. When someone writes "I was nervous about spending $3,000 on family photos" and then explains why it was completely worth it, that meets the visitor inside their fear and walks them out through someone else's real experience.

After hundreds of website audits, I can tell you that the testimonials converting the best almost always start with a doubt. "I wasn't sure if professional headshots were worth it for my small business, but within two months my LinkedIn profile views tripled." That kind of sentence makes people reach for their wallet. A "so talented!" quote makes them keep scrolling.

"What was the actual benefit of the photos for your business (or life)?"

Photography is one of those services where the value is hard to pin down. But your past clients can put it into words that sound believable, because they actually lived it.

"Our online orders doubled after we updated the food photos." "Three new clients mentioned finding us through our website." "I finally stopped cringing when someone asked for my headshot."

You could never write those claims in your own copy without sounding like empty promises. When a real client says them, it's evidence.

Two to four weeks after delivery tends to hit the sweet spot. They've used the photos. They've gotten compliments, maybe seen some business impact. The experience is fresh enough to be specific.

Send a personal email, not a form. Not an automated CRM sequence. "I'd love to feature your experience on my site. Would you mind answering two quick questions?" Then paste both questions right there. Most clients respond in a few sentences, which is exactly what you need.

And don't polish their words beyond fixing typos. The imperfect phrasing is what makes it sound real.

Your pricing page is the highest-value spot. Someone already liked your portfolio, read your about page, and now they're staring at numbers wondering if it's worth it. A testimonial from someone who had the same price hesitation, placed between your intro text and your packages, does more than any bullet list of inclusions.

Your service pages each need their own testimonials. A wedding testimonial on your wedding page. A headshot testimonial on your headshot page. Most photographers dump everything on one dedicated reviews page that gets maybe 2% of their traffic. Spread them where the context matches.

Near any CTA. Every "book now" or "get in touch" button benefits from a testimonial nearby.

Two that address common objections (price, time commitment, feeling awkward in front of a camera). Two that describe concrete outcomes. And one or two that speak to what you're like to work with as a person.

Send those two questions to your last five clients this week. You'll have better social proof than most photographer websites I've ever reviewed.

WEBSITE SPOTLIGHT

Jennifer McCallum runs Firefly Pet Photography out of southeast Michigan.

Her site does something a lot of photographer websites struggle with: it communicates personality before you even scroll. The hero section pairs a warm, natural photo of Jennifer with a dog alongside a clear tagline that positions the service immediately. "Nature-inspired Pet Photography for Dog-devoted Families" tells you exactly who this is for.

The "Book a Free Consultation" button sits right where it should. Although maybe first time visitors are not ready to book a call yet, see first quick tip above 😉

The navigation is as clean and direct as it gets: About, Portfolio, Details, Blog, Contact. No dropdowns, no clutter. And the "2024 & 2025 Photographer of the Year finalist" banner adds instant credibility without feeling like bragging. It's a trust signal that works because it's stated simply.

What stands out most is the tone. The colors, the typography, the copy all feel like the same person made every decision. This is a site that filters for the right clients. If you're a dog person who values quality, you know immediately that you're in the right place.

SEO TIP

Your "best wedding venues" post gets hundreds of visits a month. Time to put it to work.

Add a natural mention of your services in the first paragraph. Something like "As a wedding photographer who's shot at most of these venues, here's what I've learned about each one." That tells the reader who wrote this and why they should care.

Then add a second mention near the end. A soft call to action: "Planning your wedding at one of these venues? I'd love to talk about how I can help capture it."

One link near the top, one at the bottom.

I gave this advice during a review last month. The photographer's venue post was pulling 400 clicks a month from Google with zero links to his wedding page. Two sentences fixed that.

How many of your blog posts mention your own services inside the actual content?

FROM THE TRENCHES

Book: "Hourly Billing is Nuts" by Jonathan Stark: Stop competing on price. Start competing on value. If you're a photographer stuck in a saturated market where clients pick the cheapest option, this short read will change how you think about pricing. Value-based pricing forces you to think about what your work is actually worth to the client, not just how long the shoot took. It takes real work, but the alternative is racing to the bottom.

Podcast: Collecting Client Feedback (Business of Photography, Ep. 481): Your best clients already know what you could do better. You just have to ask. Bryan breaks down the practical side of collecting and using client feedback: why it matters, the best ways to ask, and 6 example questions for getting specific answers. If you're going to ask those two testimonial questions from today's main topic, this episode will help you build the full feedback loop around them.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

After 18+ years of building photographer websites, I feel this one deeply.

Every redesign I've done taught me something. Usually by going wrong first.

The client who insisted on autoplay music (yes, in 2019). The portfolio page I overloaded with 200 images because "more is better." The homepage slider that took 10+ seconds to load on mobile.

Each one was a mistake at the time. Now it's experience I bring to every new project.

Your photography website is the same. That blog you abandoned, the confusing navigation, the pricing page that scared people off. Those aren't failures. They're data.

What's one website mistake that taught you the most?