Most of these case studies come from emails my readers send me. With their permission, I share them with the names changed. I do this so that others can learn from what worked and what didn't. Have a story of your own? Share it with me.
- 3 to 11form messages a month
- 5shoots booked
- 14 to 5form fields
Bertrand’s website had a button that said Inquire. People tapped it, saw a long form and left.
A simple tool that shows where visitors click made the problem plain. Still, it took him weeks to see it.
He’s a brand photographer in Shreveport, Louisiana.
This brand photographer website example shows how he fixed a site that looked great and booked almost nobody.
Four months after the changes, form messages rose from 3 a month to 11.
He booked five shoots in that time, compared with one in the four months before.
The problem
Bertrand photographs restaurants, dental offices, boutiques and a few local law firms.
His work is crisp and confident, and his site looked expensive.
That was part of the trouble. It looked expensive and gave owners no way to check.
The heat map showed three trouble spots.
The cold portfolio
His portfolio was sorted by style, with pages called Light, Moody and Editorial. The heat map showed almost no taps there.
Owners didn’t know which style they were. They wanted to see a restaurant like theirs.
The restaurant photos were there, spread across all three pages. An owner would have had to open each one to find them.
The red button
The Inquire button was the hottest spot on every page. People wanted to know the price, and that button was the only way to find out.
It led to the form, not to an answer.
The gray form
The form had fourteen fields, including budget, how they’d heard about him and a long description box that had to be filled.
The heat map turned gray halfway down. Most visitors gave up before the fifth field.
The solution
Bertrand didn’t need a new website. He needed his site to answer three quick questions before asking anything.
He made three changes.
Sort the work by business
He replaced Light, Moody and Editorial with four groups. Restaurants, dental and medical offices, boutiques and professional offices.
Each group held about ten photos from real shoots, with the business name and neighborhood under a few of them.
He asked each client for permission first. Every one said yes, and two asked for the link so they could share it.
Show a price before the form
He added a services page with three plain services and starting prices. The menu link changed from Inquire to Services and Prices.
The button that used to say Inquire now said See Prices on most pages, and Book a Call on the services page.
Cut the form to five fields
The new form asked for a name, a business name, an email, what the photos were for and a preferred month.
An automatic reply sent a gallery link from a business like theirs and promised an answer within one business day.
The process that worked
Bertrand made the changes in short bursts, using the three checks from a guide to winning the three tab comparison.
Two hours on a Sunday
He sorted his portfolio by business type and picked the best ten photos for each group.
Several of his favorite moody shots didn’t make the cut.
He wrote a short line under each group, like “For restaurants that want their food and their people to look as good as they are.”
One lunch break
He wrote the services page over a sandwich.
Three plain names, what was included, how long it took, where the photos could be used and a starting price.
He was nervous about the prices. He published them anyway.
He worried that a competitor would undercut him.
In four months, nobody did, and owners stopped asking for a quote just to learn his range.
Forty minutes with a dentist
A dentist he’d photographed agreed to look at the new site. Bertrand asked her to pretend she was comparing three photographers.
She found the dental office photos in seconds and the price in under a minute.
She only paused at the About page, which still listed his camera gear.
He cut the gear list that evening and added a line about keeping shoots calm for patients and staff.
He also reread the Nielsen Norman Group’s research on how people scan pages, which explained why owners only read his first lines.
The brand photographer website example in numbers
In the four months after the changes, form messages rose from about 3 a month to 11.
Five of those owners booked shoots, two restaurants, two dental offices and a boutique.
The heat map now glowed over the portfolio groups and the services link.
What we learned from here
This brand photographer website example shows that owners decide in seconds.
If the site doesn’t answer their questions quickly, they open another tab.
Bertrand’s old site was beautiful, and it still is. It just made owners work too hard to learn the basics.
When he answered work like mine, price and ease up front, the right owners stayed.
| Page | Kept the tab open | Closed the tab |
|---|---|---|
| Portfolio | Sorted by business type | Light, Moody and Editorial |
| Price | Starting prices on a services page | Only through Inquire |
| Menu | Services and Prices | Inquire |
| Form | Five fields and an instant reply | Fourteen fields |
| About | A calm shoot for patients and staff | A list of cameras |
The price change scared him most and helped most.
Owners who wrote to him already knew his range, so calls were shorter and more likely to end in a booking.
He also noticed fewer price shoppers. The owners who messaged had looked at the prices and decided he was worth it.
The new form turned out to be the quiet hero.
Owners who’d given up halfway through fourteen fields now finished five in under a minute.
The dentist’s test is now a habit. Every few months, he asks one client to compare his site with two others and watches what she does.
If you have heat map data, look for the hottest button.
It usually marks the question your site isn’t answering, and the fix is often one plain line.
More case studies
Marisol Rebuilds Her Site for Late-Night Phones, and This Newborn Photographer Gets 11 Inquiries a Month
- 11inquiries a month, up from 4
- 8sessions booked a month, up from 3
- 2 sechome page load time, down from 6
Gone in 9 Seconds. Headshot Photographer Bianca Rebuilds and Gets 15 Inquiries a Month
- 4 to 15form inquiries a month
- 6s to 2shomepage load on a phone
- 11 to 5form fields
Noor’s Portrait Photographer Website Goes From 1 Message a Month to 11 With Plainer Words
- 1 to 11messages a month
- 6 to 190visits to the sessions page
- 6sessions booked
Parents Kept Asking Family Photographer Kelsey the Same 3 Questions. 4 New Pages Fixed It
- 9more bookings in 8 weeks
- 3price emails a week, down from 14
- 5pages, down from 11
Tamsin Changes 6 Menu Words and Gets 13 Inquiries a Month as a Maternity Photographer
- 5 to 13inquiries a month
- 3 to 8in 10 forms completed
- 9 to 21maternity sessions in a quarter
Personal Branding Photographer Laurel Cut Her Website to 7 Pages
- 2 to 9inquiries a month
- 11 to 7pages on her site
- 9 to 3fields in her form
Bookkeeper Desmond Swapped 11 Software Logos for 3 Plain Lines and Got 9 Client Calls a Month
- 2 to 9new client calls a month
- 11 to 1software logos to one line
- 4boxes on the new form
Esthetician Annelise Renamed 1 Facial and Got 17 Online Bookings a Month
- 6 to 17online bookings a month
- 14 to 8services on the menu
- 3rewritten claims per page