Level up your photography website
with the free guides & resources!
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Join thousands of photographers and subscribe to my email newsletter to get instant access to all of my exclusive resources for photographers.
You'll get a free eBook (on photo website mistakes), many checklists and guides about improving your site's design and SEO, video recordings of website review, podcast interviews, and more.
Plus... fresh free articles and actionable tips sent directly to your inbox (twice a week). Subscribers also receive my quarterly lists of curated articles from around the web!
Each resource is handcrafted by me, Alex Vita, and can be downloaded (and printed) for offline use. All created specifically for photographers that subscribe to the newsletter. And you should join them, this is months of valuable free education. Plain and simple.
Here's what you get when subscribing...
60+ Photography website mistakes (PDF)
With straight-forward ideas and tens of examples & resources, this 80‑page PDF eBook will get your photography website on the right track. Fix as many of them as possible to build an amazing site!
All ideas expressed in the eBook are short and to-the-point and come with resources and solutions to help you eliminate any site problems.
Some of the tips have quick solutions, while others require you to rethink everything, but together they should give you a complete picture of what it takes to build a great photography website.
The eBook includes examples & screenshots from almost fifty photo websites out there, along with links to other relevant resources & tools!
Subscribe now
"One of the best looking, easy to read and well laid out practical ebooks I've seen."
"Thank you for the 60 Website Mistakes PDF! Most useful free content I've used in a long time!"
SEO for photographers
Complete SEO training for photographers (PDF)
All my SEO-related content in one single PDF: everything you need to know about making Google happy
On-site SEO checklist for every page or blog post (PDF)
The essential SEO tasks that you need to cover when creating a new piece of content on your photography website
Best SEO tools and resources (PDF)
Before and after you work on your site's SEO, it's a great idea to run the site through a series of tools to know where you stand.
Web-design tips and best practices for photographers
Understand what makes a good photo website and learn what you can do to starting improving it today!
This 130+ page PDF includes all of my web-design tips, specifically tailored for photography websites.
With plenty of examples and links, this guide will give you all the inspiration you need to turn your website into a professional business-growing engine.
About page checklist for photographers
Simple at first sight, there are a lot of details that go into building the perfect "bio" page. The process is quite challenging unless you have some guidelines in place.
You might have a hard time writing your bio because you're unfamiliar with your target audience, or because you're just starting out in the industry or in a particular niche and feel you have nothing interesting to write about.
Try this simple process to get ideas and eventually build your About page.
Images matter most (a manifesto)
If you find yourself always seeking to make small tweaks to your photography website, please sit down, this is an intervention.
Through working on so many photography websites over the years, I started to see a pattern emerging: despite having mediocre images, many photographers expect big results and are avid for easy tricks for online success.
It's understandable, the Internet is full of "How to..." and "Top 10..." listicles promising quick results. And I will try to turn the ForegroundWeb site into a great learning resource for photographers, but I'll never lose sight of what's truly important in this industry.
But learning some SEO tactics or changing your site's background color are not the keys to building a better photography business. Posting your images on Instagram will also not magically get you to photography stardom.
Focus on the quality of your images. Learn to create epic content.
You need a business plan, not just a website
A common pattern I see in emails from beginner photographers: you want to build a new photography website, as cheaply as possible, so you can get more people to hire you or buy your images. And fast.
So many ways in which that’s naive.
You’re basically expecting to launch a website that works on its own, and that will magically bring you more money. The old “build it and they will come” mentality.
I’m here to tell you that, unless you stop thinking like a hobbyist, you won’t be able to build a healthy photography business and get the results you want.
Guidelines for working with a web-designer
Working with a great web-designer can totally super-charge your photography business. Learn how to build a good work relationship and provide effective feedback along the way.
I want to help you run your project smoothly, regardless of what designer you’ll be working with. Too many photographers have told me about awful experiences they’ve had in the past, the web-design service industry is clearly flawed.
This is my humble attempt to improve things a little, to help you better manage your work relationship with your designer or developer.
Podcast interviews with Alex Vita
Interview on the B&H Photography Podcast: "Building and Maintaining Your Web Presence, with Alex Vita and Ben Von Wong"
- What role do stand-alone photography websites play in a world of viral social media sites?
- My pet peeves in photography websites. Two general categories: poor content and poor user experience.
- Bounce rates, Google Analytics reports, and how to determine the success of your website.
- What are the most important considerations for good SEO and how have best practices for SEO changed over time?
- My recommendations for image size and compression for fast performance and readability on a wide range of devices—from mobile to retina screens.
Interview on the Landscape Photography Show: "What You Need For a Great Photography Website With Alex Vita"
David & I had a wide-ranging discussion on why you should focus on user-experience instead of blindly focusing on SEO only, and what makes a great photography website.
Interview on the Great Big Photography World Podcast
Another awesome interview about photography websites, where Taya and I discuss:
- Common mistakes to avoid when creating a photography website
- How my personal photography experience encouraged me to help other photographers
- SEO, UX performance, and other technicalities that contribute to a website’s success
- and much more
Interview on the F‑Stop Collaborate and Listen Podcast: "Designing a Photography Website"
Topics Matt and I covered in this episode:
- How I got into building websites for photographers
- Why photographers should want their own website
- What makes for a great photography website
- The biggest changes that have impacted photography websites
- File sizes and resolutions for photography websites
- Tools for image compression
- Common mistakes that photographers make on their websites
- How to differentiate yourself as a photographer through your website
- Tips on Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Interview on the Beginner Photography Podcast:
"Website Mistakes For Photographers"
Ray and I talked about:
- my origins as a photographer
- how I transitioned into building photography websites
- why I think social media profiles are not a good place to host your portfolio
- common website mistakes that beginner photographers make
- splash pages and other bad ideas that are affecting your website results
- a detailed list of what you should put on your website homepage
Interview on the Hair of the Dog Podcast: “The SEO mistakes most photographers make”
- Why I think focusing on SEO too much is a mistake these days
- What content marketing is, and a useful list of blog post ideas for any niche
- Guiding people through your website ("behavior flow") using call to action buttons
- How to fix the biggest performance bottleneck on your site
- Why I often prefer WordPress over Squarespace when it makes sense
- And many more SEO-related tips!
Interview on the Business of Photography Podcast: "How to get a photo website that will differentiate yourself from the competition"
Bryan Caporicci interviews me on topics like:
- what you should be spending your time on, when it comes to building a digital presence
- "SEO procrastination" versul doing more meaningful work
- user-experience tasks that can be outsources to a web-designers, and others that you're responsible for as a photographer
- the process you should go through when building a new photography website
- using the navigation menu as a "buffet" of options vs. using call-to-action buttons (spoiler: both!)
- are photography website still using splash pages?
Interview on the Latitude Photography Podcast:
"Photographer's Websites — Tips and Reviews"
Brent and I spoke about:
- what makes a great photography website (both technical web-design best practices, and business aspects often ignored by photographers)
- website platforms and the main reasons for using WordPress in particular
- tips on preparing images for website performance
- UI/UX for a photographer’s website and how it affects rankings
- and we did a live review of 5 travel photography websites, pointing out a few common website flaws that you can learn from
Interview on the This is Reportage Podcast: "This is Alex Vita"
A great wide-ranging conversation between me and Alan on topics like:
- Mistakes I commonly see on photography websites
- Why user-experience can be much more important than SEO
- Tips on images and optimization
- How to differentiate yourself from the competition
- The importance of personaly on your site
- My favorite Netflix shows :-)
- and much more...
Interview on the This Week in Photo Podcast:
"Portfolio Websites — Build or Buy?"
Frederick and I chatted about:
- best practices for pros hosting galleries on their websites
- using a minimalist theme to let the images shine
- the complexity of WordPress versus the limitations of other photography platforms
- relying on an Instagram account alone versus owning a website
- how should photographers start when they want to build a new website
- price ranges for world-class websites
FREE WEBINAR: "What makes a great photography website?"
Co-hosted by me and Gaston Garcia, this 2h31min webinar covers:
- Website user-experience and what you can do to improve your site
- How to choose the right platform and template
- Mobile-friendliness, desktop-friendliness & performance
- SEO and image metadata, email marketing & social media
- Positioning crash-course for photographers
- and much more...
Interview on the WordPress Photography Podcast:
"Develop and focus your photo business"
Scott Wyden Kivowitz and I covered a few important topics that I care about:
- How photographers sometimes obsess about SEO while ignoring user-experience on their sites
- Optimizing images for performance
- Creating a sustainable blogging practice
- How photographers can differentiate themselves in saturated markets
- and more...
Interview on the PhotoBizX Podcast:
"Everything you need for a successful photography website"
Andrew Hellmich (the host) and I covered a ton of useful topics:
- Why some photographers have the wrong mindset when it comes to SEO
- What user‑experience (UX) is and how it related to SEO
- UX technical details (web-design best practices)
- UX intangible things (which are content- and photographer-specific stuff, this is the hard part)
- The abstract skills you need in business (awareness, empathy, courage)
- and a lot more...
Interview on Togs in Business:
"Photography website user experience - how good is yours?"
Julie Christie (the host) and I shared a lot of ideas:
- Why photographers sometimes have the wrong mindset when it comes to SEO
- What user experience (UX) is and why it matters (“UX doesn’t trump SEO, it is SEO”)
- Differentiating yourself from the sea of amateurs out there
- Simplifying your navigation menu (and other types of navigation on your site)
- Small design details and typography best-practices
- and more...
Interview on the "So you want to be a photographer" podcast:
"A beginners guide to photography websites"
Gina Milicia (the host) and I covered a lot of topics:
- Templates vs custom websites, and whether we should be designing for mobile or desktop
- About Me page, tone of voice
- Fonts/typography, background colors, navigation menu tips
- Improving load times, image pixel dimensions, image curation
- Do you need to rank on page 1 and pay for SEO?
- and more...
Interview on the PhotoBizX Podcast:
"How To Build A Photography Website That Converts Visitors To Clients"
Andrew and I covered a lot of interesting stuff:
- Why and how you website should be a marketing engine for your business
- Tips on improving your site’s Bio & Contact pages
- Working with WordPress and its SEO settings
- Rebuilding a new site from scratch vs. just improving your existing one
- Working with a web-designer or developer on your photo website
- and much more...
Interview on the Sprouting Photographer Podcast:
"Your photography website as a multiplier of your work"
Bryan and I had a good chat about photography sites, and we covered a ton of important topics:
- What makes a good photography website
- Watermarking, and focusing on the user experience instead of image theft
- The importance of your About & Contact pages and why not to hide your contact info
- How to design your website galleries and improve your SEO by keywording your images
- Responsive design and how it improves a mobile user’s experience
- Organizing your homepage for first-time visitors
- Photography web-design trends
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