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ForegroundWeb Newsletter
YOUR WEEKLY DOSE OF PHOTO WEBSITE ADVICE & INSPIRATION.
IN TODAY’S EMAIL:
⚡️ 3 Quick tips: structuring value, conversion problems, true mobile-friendliness
🧠 Deep dive: What "defining your target audience" looks like
🔍 SEO: Why ChatGPT is ignoring your blog posts
QUICK TIPS
1. 🧠 Structure your value before you design your website
If your website feels hard to explain, it’s probably not a design problem.
It’s a thinking problem.
Before touching layouts, copy, or SEO, answer this on one page:
Who do you serve best?
What do you do better or differently than others?
What transformation do clients thank you for afterward?
What do your best testimonials actually praise?
If you can’t answer those clearly, your website won’t either.
Design doesn’t create clarity.
It reveals it.
So do this first: structure your value.
Then let the visuals tell the story.
2. 🧭 Photographers don’t have traffic problems — they have conversion problems
You don’t need more visitors. You need more action from the ones you already have.
Here’s the 3-step fix I’ve seen work on 300+ photo sites:
1️⃣ Make your galleries sell (not just show).
2️⃣ Add clear calls-to-action — every page should have a next step.
3️⃣ Build trust with real proof: testimonials, awards, media, behind-the-scenes.
Stop chasing algorithms. Start optimizing for humans.
3. 📱 Is your site really mobile-friendly?
And is it pleasant to use on a phone?
Mobile-friendliness is more than just your layout “shrinking down.” It means:
Menus are easy to tap
Text is readable without zooming
Pages load fast (especially images)
No frustrating pop-ups or clunky navigation
Most modern templates are responsive, but don’t stop there — visit your own site on your phone often and look at it with fresh eyes.
DEEP DIVE
What "defining your target audience" looks like
If you market to everyone, your message gets too generic. Tailoring your message to your specific target market is what can help you differentiate yourself from the millions of other photographers out there.
Your story as a photographer will sound awkward until you understand your audience and how to help them.
And once you do define your audience, you have to identify their problems, needs or desires, and articulate them using their words, ideally. If clients and photo buyers feel that you truly understand their problems, then they just assume that you have the right solution for them.
There are no step-by-step instructions I can give you for defining your target audience, it’s all unique to your own photography work.
But you can start with asking yourself these questions:
How would you describe your ideal clients? (Write down everything that comes to mind: age, location, social status etc.)
Why do you like about these people? Why do you want to work with them?
Why do your ideal clients usually hire photographers like you?
What problems do they try to solve by working with someone like you (or buying your products)?
Where do your ideal clients usually spend their time? (specific websites, conferences/events etc.)
Do they have the budget and respect for your type of photography work?
And I can also show you examples from photographers I’ve worked with in the past (I’ll keep them anonymous).
You might be surprised how incredibly specific most of them are:
“My ideal client is a mother of one or two young children (aged 0-6), American, European or Middle Eastern; educated in US or UK. She is a professional woman with a high managerial position in marketing, IT, creative field, or has her own business. She is a from a double income household of around £100k, loves travel, wants the best for her kids but suffers from typical mother’s guilt most of the time (is she working too much?)”
“Age ranges= 29-55. Income levels= $45k-$120k. Professionals= techies, businessmen, entrepreneurs, business owners, media professionals, marketers. Will target people who want class in their lives but haven’t known where to find it since there is a lot misinformation and confusion about art.”
“Art buyers, interior designers, architects, gallerists, designers, visualizers, art collectors, private art buyers. Given the style of work my market is international, usually post graduate, above average income and professional.”
“My audience is a bit older, 30 to 60, mostly female, mid to high income, land owners, from the US and Western Europe, horse owners, love outdoors, small farming, organic gardening, kind to animals.”
“Target are tourists from all over the world coming to my country. Targeting GCC & Arabs in general but not only. Most are upper socio-economic strata with poor preparation of their trip and not willing in reading much.”
“The people that will be visiting my site will be publicists that are handling events that I shoot, and they do go to websites and see what was shot, so I really want this website to impress them.”
“Target audience: advertising agencies, corporate clients, actors, magazines, product photography clients directly (not through agency), event and conference organizers.”
“For my portrait business: Young, 25-45 arty, cool young couples and families. Down to earth people that value high end photography and want to invest in capturing their memories. Couples who like to have fun, enjoy travel and music.”
Now let’s see the opposite. If you don’t have a clear target audience in mind, you end up with generic goals like this:
“I would like to appeal to all age groups and locations. I would like to appeal to as wide an audience as possible and I would like to, at the same time sell some photos.”
Being able to pinpoint who the website is for (as you can see in all the good examples above) allows you to “speak their language” (through the texts you write, your site’s colors, the elements you feature on your homepage etc.)
When you’re just starting out though, you might have no audience or be completely unaware of it, and you tell yourself:
“I have no idea of what kind of visitors come to my site. Not enough, perhaps. I rarely sell a print, nor do people comment on my blog posts.”
It can be hard, I know that. But you don’t necessarily need website traffic in order to find out more about your audience (through tools like Google Analytics).
You can just start by defining your ideal audience. And later on, when you do get traffic to your site, you learn more about your visitors and refine your site accordingly. There’s nothing wrong with changing course if necessary.
TESTIMONIAL
"It was a true pleasure working with Alex! It’s a rare thing to find someone with such exceptional technical and design skills—with the added bonus of being extremely kind, patient, and customer focused! Working with Alex is a true partnership & he made—what could’ve been overwhelming—into a fun project."
SEO TIP
🤖 Why ChatGPT is ignoring your blog posts
Most photography websites are losing traffic from Google.
But it’s not because SEO is dead. It’s because most content isn’t made for conversions anymore.
If you’re writing “5 tips for better lighting” or “how to photograph pets”… ChatGPT will just summarize that. No clicks. No mentions. No bookings.
Want to show up in ChatGPT answers instead?
✅ Focus on bottom-of-funnel content:
service keywords (e.g. “elopement photographer in Iceland”)
comparisons & alternatives (e.g. “Pixieset vs PhotoShelter” or “best online galleries for photographers”)
jobs-to-be-done (e.g. “how to book a family photo session” or “how to sell photo prints online”)
The goal is to match buying intent, not just chase traffic.
I’ve seen it work again and again in SEO audits for photographers. No tricks. Just relevant content that earns real inquiries — and even gets you cited in AI tools.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"I'm not concerned about all hell breaking loose, but that a PART of hell will break loose... it'll be much harder to detect."
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