Most wedding photographer websites are gorgeous. A full-screen slideshow, a short “about me,” a portfolio and a contact form. They are also invisible, because Google cannot read a slideshow. It reads words, page titles and links. A beautiful site with no words gives Google nothing to rank.
You do not need to make it ugly. You need seven pages, built right, with the photos still front and center.
1. Homepage: who, where, what style
Your name, your city, one sentence on your style, and a few of your best photos. Buttons to the pages below. A couple of reviews. The homepage is a front door, not the whole house. The one thing it must have is a real heading with words in it, right under the first photo: “Tampa Wedding Photographer.” Google reads that. It cannot read the photo.
2. Your city wedding page
The page that wins “wedding photographer [city].” Real local weddings, a price range, venues you have shot at, a form that asks for the date. The city search guide covers this one in full.
3. Pricing and packages
Couples search “wedding photographer cost” and “how much does a wedding photographer cost.” Most photographers hide prices and lose those couples to the ones who do not. You do not have to list every number. A starting price, what each package includes, and what adds cost (a second shooter, an album, extra hours) is enough. Add a short plain-words paragraph on why wedding photography costs what it does. Couples appreciate it, and it is the kind of answer ChatGPT likes to quote.
4. Engagement sessions
Its own search, its own page. Where you shoot them, a few favorite spots, what to wear, how long it takes, what it costs. Many couples find you here first and book the wedding after.
5. One gallery page per venue
This is the page almost nobody builds, and it is the best one. A full wedding at a named venue, with the venue name in the title. Couples who booked that venue search for it. The venue gallery pages guide explains why this works so well.
6. One page per city or area you serve
Not a list of towns on the contact page. A real page for each area with weddings you shot there. See the service-area pages guide.
7. About, with a real face and a real place
Couples are hiring a person who will be in the room on their wedding day. A photo of you, where you live, how long you have been shooting, and why you do it. Keep it short and human. Mention your city again.
A word on FAQs
Couples ask the same ten questions: how many photos do we get, how long until the gallery, do you bring a second shooter, what happens if it rains. Put those on your pricing page or a short FAQ page, in plain words. Google shows pages that answer questions, and ChatGPT pulls from them when a couple asks it who to hire. It also saves you writing the same email every week.
What to leave off
- A homepage slideshow with no text under it. Add a heading and a paragraph, even if they are small.
- Photos with no captions or with file names like IMG_4471. Name the venue in both.
- A blog you post to twice a year. One venue gallery page beats ten thin posts.
- A “Portfolio” page that is one giant grid. Split it into the gallery pages above.
- Music that plays on its own. It makes couples close the tab at work.
The one rule for all seven
Every page loads fast on a phone. Big photos are the main reason wedding sites are slow, and slow sites rank lower and lose impatient couples. Resize images before you upload them. A photo on the web does not need to be print size. Most couples will look at your site on a phone, on a couch, with four other photographer tabs open. The one that loads first gets read first.
Want this done for you?
These seven pages are the skeleton of my own wedding photography site in Tampa Bay. If you want to know which ones you are missing, the audit is free.