Performance optimization for photography websites (WordPress only)
I can make your photo website lightning fast to improve user experience and make Google happy.
Your website's speed has become an important ranking and UX factor these days, especially when considering the wide-spread use of mobile devices.
People no longer have the patience to sit and wait for pages to load for too long. They expect quick access; otherwise, they leave and move on to another photographer's site.
This done-for-you service will make your site as fast as possible and then confirm it all through extensive testing and by submitting your site for review in Google Search Console.
Get a nice SEO boost and make visitors enjoy using your site!
A website speed optimization is for you if...
- you have a WordPress site (ideally self-hosted, but wordpress.com sites can be optimized as well). For other platforms, read this.
- you don't know how to speed up your website or what all the testing tools are actually saying about your site
- you understand that having a speedy website makes for a better browsing experience for your visitors, especially on mobile
- you need an expert to make your website load as quickly as possible, without having to rebuild it from scratch
- you're overwhelmed with all the performance plugin settings (and are open to switching to new/better plugins)
Why improve your photo website speed?
If you're reading this, you're probably struggling with making your site fast. Or you've simply heard that site speed is important, and you need a trained eye to look into it.
Website performance is part of a bigger group of website user‑experience (UX) changes aimed at creating a good browsing experience for your visitors. In turn, these UX & browsing signals get noticed by Google as well, leading to a better chance of outranking your competition.
For SEO in particular, Google's release of the Core Web Vitals metrics is a clear sign of how important website loading speeds have become.
Photography websites, in particular, are naturally more image-heavy, so suffering from more image-related performance issues than in other industries. Without a clear understanding of the problems, you risk having an incredibly slow site and alienating your visitors. And then any extra traffic you strive to get (through other SEO and marketing efforts) won't convert or get you meaningful results.
After thoroughly testing your site, I manually fine-tune every single detail I can to get it to load as quickly as possible. I'll work within the confines of your existing WordPress theme (unless a theme change is desperately needed), but also install and configure any needed performance plugins, optimize your images, and give you other performance suggestions along the way.
Unless specific new content is needed from you, I'll take care of the entire optimization process, and you won't have to lift a finger.
I've been working on photography websites exclusively since 2007, so I know the ins-and-outs of image optimization and all website performance tools on the market.
At the end, when testing your new lightning-fast website, try not to blink :-)
What's included in the photo website optimization service:
There are more than 100 big or small performance tasks that I take care of, usually falling in one of these buckets:
- complete site backup beforehand
- migrating your entire site to a faster hosting provider if needed
- on-site caching features (browser, page & object caching, optimizing CSS and JS file delivery, cache preloading, etc.)
- server-side performance features (dynamic cache, Cloudflare, memcached, etc.) depending on your hosting provider
- database optimization, PHP and SQL version tune-ups
- admin area clean-up, theme and plugin optimizations, plugin updates, and patching where needed
- special attention to image-related performance problems, including fixing theme image dimensions, bulk image optimization, WebP image generation, and lazy-loading configuration
- website security hardening (so the website is both fast and reliable)
- testing and optimization for Google's Core Web Vitals metrics
- a 20% discount for my ongoing WordPress maintenance service
Also included for free as part of this service:
- Unlimited use and updates of the premium WP-Rocket plugin (usually $49/year)
- One-time bulk optimization of all your existing media library photos using the ShortPixel plugin (usually $10 or more depending on the site of your WordPress image archive)
What about image-related website speed issues?
Absolutely! I take care of all performance issues caused by the improved use of photos on your website:
I have a lot of experience with photo websites, and I've dedicated an entire article on my website to this specific sub-topic: How to optimize images for website performance: image sizes, compression, tools & testing
What about other photography website platforms?
Sorry, but this service is only available for WordPress photography websites. WordPress provides many ways in which performance can be optimized (featured baked into the WordPress core, WP theme options, plugins, custom coding, etc.), whereas other platforms sometimes lock you in and don't allow much control over the website code and functionality.
There are a few exceptions, so feel free to get in touch with me to ask about what can be done for your specific website platform. I can create a personalized mini-project for you or at least give you a few performance suggestions suitable for your site's platform.
Ready to make your photo website fast?
The website performance optimization typically ranges between $450 and $1,200 depending on the specifics of your site. Flat fee, no hidden costs.
My work is usually completed within 1 week, and we then schedule a free consulting call at your convenience.
Payment is done via PayPal or using any major credit card.
I provide an unconditional money-back guarantee (yes, this is the good kind of guarantee) if you're not satisfied with my work for any reason.
"The good news is that getting fast webpage load speed with a full featured page builder on WordPress is possible. But if you are starting from scratch it means doing research on every line item warning that a speed report has. This has taken me weeks of research to understand what they mean, then many weeks to work out how it relates to my website. And testing each action has its risks and takes even more time. I've achieved fast load times but it's been very time costly.
Save yourselves months of research, weeks or fiddling to get a fast website by booking Alex instead."
— Photographer Orlando Sydney shoots events in Sydney Australia.
Take action now
Make your visitors and Google happy by improving your website speed.
You first need to answer a few questions about your website and business to see if we're a good fit:
Website performance kickstarter
After reviewing your answers, I'll get in touch with you shortly afterward to give you a firm time estimate and schedule the performance work on your site.
Not sure if you need this service?
Run your photography website through a free tool like GTmetrix or Google PageSpeed Insights and get in touch with me to analyze the results a bit.
Anything else you want to ask? Don't hesitate to contact me, I reply to every single email.
Interested in other ways (besides performance) to improve your site? Check out my other services, or start reading some of my articles.
