QUICK TIPS

AI summaries are eating your traffic. Even if your blog post or portfolio gets cited in AI Mode, the user might never reach your site. Google shows the summary, the attribution icons, but not the full context, and often no click-through.

If you’ve invested time and energy into creating rich content (as you should!), this is a bitter pill.

The key is differentiation: focus on what the AI summary can’t replicate. Your personality, your process, your behind-the-scenes stories, your client testimonials. These emotional and trust-building elements are your edge in a zero-click world.

This one trips people up.

The websites that convert usually:

And yes — that can feel uncomfortable.

Because a strategic site:

Likes and comments feel good. But sustainable inquiries pay the bills.

Busy work is comforting. Leverage is meaningful. If your website tries to please everyone, it’s probably helping no one.

I’d rather see a “boring” site that brings the right inquiries…

Than a pretty one that keeps you stuck.

Does your site optimize for comfort, or for meaning?

Both top and left-side menus are common, but here are a few subtle differences to keep in mind:

Neither is "better". Just choose the one that fits your design best. But whichever you go with, stick to conventions. Don’t reinvent the wheel.

DEEP DIVE

You know every page, every gallery, every menu item on your site. You built it. You've stared at it for years. Of course it makes sense to you.

But most people visiting your site right now have never seen it before. They landed from a Google search or a referral, they're scanning fast, and they'll leave the second something feels confusing.

Think about the last time you opened a website you'd never seen before. You gave it maybe five seconds. If the page looked cluttered or the messaging was vague, you hit the back button without a second thought.

Your visitors do the same thing. They don't know your name, they haven't seen your portfolio, and they're probably comparing you to three other photographers they found on the same Google search. Their patience is thin and their expectations are high.

After 300+ website audits, I can tell you: most photography sites lose visitors not because the work is bad, but because the site doesn't communicate clearly enough in those first few seconds.

This is the hardest part. You've been adding galleries, blog posts, and menu items for years. Each one made sense when you added it. But stacked together, they create noise that makes first-time visitors work harder than they should.

I've worked with photographers who had 12 items in their navigation menu, three different slideshow sections on the homepage, and no clear indication of where they're based or what kind of photography they actually do. To them, everything was "obvious." To a stranger, it was a maze.

Try this: Google a few photographers in your niche, click their sites, and notice your own gut reaction within the first five seconds. What confused you? What felt clear? Now apply that same lens to your own site.

When someone lands on your homepage, they should be able to answer a few questions without scrolling or clicking:

That last one is where most sites fall apart. Visitors scan the homepage, feel mildly interested, then stall because there's no clear next step. A well-placed call to action ("View my wedding portfolio" or "Get in touch") does more than any fancy animation.

If your homepage tries to do everything (show galleries, promote your blog, display testimonials, link to your Instagram, explain your packages), it ends up doing nothing well.

Pick the one or two things that matter most to your business right now and make those the focus. Everything else can live deeper in the site.

I've seen photographers double their inquiry rate just by trimming their homepage down to a clear headline, their best 6-8 images, and a single call to action. Not because the old version was ugly, but because the new version made it easy for a stranger to understand what was being offered.

Your repeat visitors already know you. Build the site for the people who don't.

HOW I CAN HELP

I recently walked through a real wedding photography website on video and found the usual suspects: no wedding service page (on a wedding photographer's site), a confusing navigation menu, a homepage that asks people to get in touch before they've seen any work or pricing, invisible footer, broken user journey from start to finish.

The photographer had pages for family and maternity photography too, but they were hidden. The only specialty visible in the menu was "Seniors." If you're a bride landing on that site, you'd wonder if they even do weddings anymore.

These aren't rare issues. I find variations of them on almost every photography website I audit. Sometimes it's structure. Sometimes it's SEO mistakes like duplicate pages fighting each other on Google. Sometimes it's the small UX details that add up: no call-to-action buttons, no testimonials where they matter, no FAQ to pre-answer the questions your visitors are already thinking about.

My website audits cover all of this and more, from your business goals down to the technical details. I manually check hundreds of elements, then we go through everything together on a 90-minute Zoom call so you know exactly what to fix and why.

Still on the fence about whether to get an audit of your photography website? Watch this:

SEO TIP

On-site SEO can feel like a techy rabbit hole, but you don’t need to master every detail to see meaningful results. Focus on the core essentials first — the three pillars of every well-optimized photography site:

1. Custom SEO titles and meta-descriptions

These control how your pages appear in search engine results, and they’re often the first impression people get of your site. Yet a surprising number of photography websites — about one-third — skip this entirely, letting Google display random snippets of on-page text.

Each page on your site should have:

This simple tweak helps improve click-through rates and ensures Google better understands what your site is about.

2. Pretty permalinks

This one is easy to fix but still ignored by some: make sure your URLs are clean and readable.

✅ janedoe DOT com/galleries/new-york-wedding

❌ janedoe DOT com/index.php?cat=183&mode=ugly&var=264a2qw7zaa

Pretty permalinks look more professional, improve user trust, and give a small SEO bump.

3. Proper use of heading tags (H1, H2, H3)

Don’t just make text bigger for emphasis — use real HTML headings to structure your content. This helps both users and search engines scan and understand your content.

When used correctly, heading tags give your content hierarchy and boost readability and SEO at the same time.

It doesn’t take much to set your site apart — just a few foundational SEO practices that too many photographers still overlook.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK