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.
- 4 to 15form inquiries a month
- 6s to 2shomepage load on a phone
- 11 to 5form fields
Nine seconds.
That’s how long the stranger stayed on Bianca’s headshot photographer website before tapping the back button.
She watched it happen in a screen recording a friend made for her.
The homepage was still loading its slideshow when the stranger gave up.
They never saw a price, a session or a single word about what Bianca does.
Bianca runs a small headshot studio in San Antonio, Texas. Her photos are lovely.
Her website, it turned out, was a beautiful building with no signs and a locked front door.
Six weeks after she rebuilt it, form inquiries had risen from 4 a month to 15, and the homepage loaded in under two seconds.
The problem
Bianca built her site herself three years earlier, using a template made for wedding photographers.
It looked dramatic and moody, and it suited none of her clients.
The friend’s recording showed three problems clearly, one after another.
No sign in the lobby
The homepage opened with a full-screen slideshow of eight large photos. There was no text at all, just her logo in a corner.
On a phone, the slideshow took about six seconds to show its first photo.
Visitors couldn’t tell if this was a headshot studio, a wedding photographer or an art portfolio.
A hallway of 140 photos
The gallery held every headshot Bianca liked from three years of work. All 140 of them, in one long scroll, with no groups or captions.
The friend scrolled for a while, then said what many visitors probably thought. “These are great, but which ones are like me?”
A front desk with 11 questions
The contact form asked for name, email, phone, home address, company and job title.
Then it wanted a budget, a preferred style, how they heard about her, a message and a date.
Eleven fields for a first hello. Most people who started it never finished.
The solution
Bianca stopped thinking of her site as a portfolio.
She started thinking of it as a small office building that strangers need to find their way around.
Each room got one clear job.
A lobby with three lines
The slideshow went. In its place came one strong headshot and three short lines.
“Headshots for professionals, teams and actors. In a calm studio near the Pearl. Even if you hate having your photo taken.”
Below that sat one button. “See sessions and prices.”
A services floor with real prices
She created a sessions page with four plans side by side. Time, looks, edited photos, delivery and price, the same rows for each.
Prices had been hidden behind the contact form before. Now they were the first thing on the page.
A front desk with five fields
The new form asked for name, email, which session, preferred dates and one optional question. “Anything you’re nervous about?”
That last question surprised her. More than half of people filled it in, and their answers told her exactly what to reassure them about.
The process that worked
Bianca rebuilt one room each weekend, starting where visitors arrived first.
First, the lobby and its speed
She resized every photo before uploading it, and removed the slideshow entirely.
The main image on her homepage now appeared in under two seconds on a phone.
That matters, because 2.5 seconds or less counts as a good load time for a page’s main content.
Then, the headshot photographer website menu
Her old menu said “Experience, Portfolio, My Story, Say Hello.” Visitors had to guess what each one meant.
The new menu said “Sessions and prices, Headshots, Team headshots, About, FAQ, Book.” The Book item looked like a button.
Next, the hallway
She cut the gallery from 140 photos to 22. Then she grouped them under professionals, teams, actors and before and after.
The before and after group quickly became the most viewed part of the site.
People liked seeing a phone selfie next to the finished headshot.
Last, the small rooms nobody thinks about
She added an FAQ page with eight short answers, a team headshots page for office managers and a page about parking.
The parking page became one of her most visited pages, usually the evening before a session.
She rewrote her About page too. Out went the list of cameras.
In went a friendly photo of herself and three short lines about how she helps nervous people relax on the stool.
| Measure | Before | After 6 weeks |
|---|---|---|
| Homepage main image on a phone | About 6 seconds | Under 2 seconds |
| Form inquiries a month | 4 | 15 |
| Form fields | 11 | 5 |
| Gallery photos | 140 | 22 |
What we learned from here
A headshot photographer website works when a stranger can find their way around it without help.
Bianca’s photos never changed. The signs did.
| Building choice | Got a form filled | Got a back button |
|---|---|---|
| Homepage | One photo, three lines and a button | A slow, silent slideshow |
| Menu | Plain labels people recognize | Clever words to decode |
| Gallery | 22 photos in four groups | 140 photos in one scroll |
| Prices | On the sessions page | Behind a contact form |
| Form | Five fields, one optional | Eleven fields for a hello |
The nervous question on the form changed her sessions too.
When someone wrote “double chin” or “I wear glasses,” Bianca sent a short, kind reply before the shoot.
Those clients arrived calmer, and several mentioned that reply in their reviews.
A two-line email before the session did more for her reputation than any new lens.
The team page brought something new as well.
Two office managers booked team days in the first month, both saying the page made it easy to explain to their bosses.
She asked the same friend to record one more visit after the rebuild.
This time, the stranger found a session, checked the price and reached the booking form in about a minute and a half.
The eight simple rooms she ended up with are now the first thing she checks each month.
Lobby, sessions, gallery, about, FAQ, teams, parking and the front desk. It takes her about fifteen minutes.
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