December 1, 2025 • 18 mins
This Q&A episode covers three big concerns for photographers and small-business owners: whether to batch website changes or make them gradually, how to interpret drops in Google traffic in the age of AI and zero-click search, and how different website platforms (Pixieset, PhotoBiz, Webflow, WordPress, Wix) really stack up for SEO. You’ll learn what to worry about, what to ignore, and when it’s time to plan a platform migration.
Timestamps
[0:00] Holiday weekend intro and format change
[0:45] Google’s new AI shopping and gift-idea features
[3:40] Should you batch website changes or make them slowly?
[5:55] Why steady traffic declines are normal in the AI era
[7:30] How zero-click search and AI change buyer behavior
[8:25] Diagnosing sharp, sudden drops in traffic (forensic SEO)
[9:35] Is Pixieset actually good for SEO?
[11:30] Why PhotoBiz’s SEO advice raises red flags
[13:30] When to move off Squarespace or PhotoBiz
[14:30] Webflow, Wix, WordPress, and hosting recommendations
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Meredith's Husband (00:48):
It is a holiday weekend.
It is a long holiday weekend.
Yes.
Coming back from holidayweekend here in the USA, anyway.
Last week we talked about AI.
Meredith (00:56):
Yes.
Meredith's Husband (00:56):
And I mentioned that this week I was
going to dive into the detailsof that, a little bit technical
details.
Yes.
Last week was a little moreconceptual.
Yes.
I was going to offer a littlemore technical advice this week.
But being the holiday week andmy birthday.
Meredith (01:09):
Yay.
Happy birthday to you.
Meredith's Husband (01:10):
We're going to change plans a little bit.
Excellent.
Going to do that next week.
Meredith (01:15):
Okay.
Meredith's Husband (01:16):
And this week I'm just going to answer a
few questions that have come in.
Meredith (01:19):
How about that?
Meredith's Husband (01:20):
So recently I've gotten questions about uh
website platforms.
Yes.
Questions specifically aboutPixieSet.
Yes.
Webflow and PhotoBiz, which Ihad never even heard about
before somebody I didn't knowabout it.
Somebody asked me about it.
A couple people asked me aboutit, actually.
That's one, one of the questionareas.
Another is a drop in traffic.
Plenty of people have beenasking.
(01:41):
I'm seeing a drop in traffic.
And they give a you know a fewdetails and say, what should I
look at?
I'm going to cover that alittle bit because it depends on
what kind of drop in trafficyou're talking about.
Meredith (01:51):
Great.
Meredith's Husband (01:51):
And then they get a question about making
changes to website, whetherit's good to do it in batches or
uh you know batch it togetheror do it little by little, et
cetera.
Meredith (01:59):
That's a great question.
Meredith's Husband (02:01):
It is, yeah.
Because everybody has to dealwith that at some point.
Yes.
First, however, though, just intime for the holidays, Google
came out with some announcementsin the last week or so.
Oh, really?
With new they have new uh AIAgentic shopping features.
So Agentic, it's that uh it'slike kind of personalized
shopping experiences.
(02:21):
It's gonna help you shop.
It's gonna look for prices.
It's gonna one of the thingswhat it suggests is if like this
and the sort of case study thatit said you could use this for
is it's holidays, you gotta doChristmas shopping, you want to
know if stores have things instock.
Yeah.
Google AI mode will call thestores and find where it's in
(02:43):
stock for you and tell you.
So you don't have to, I guess,make the calls or make the trip
yourself, which at first kind ofblew me away.
It's like, oh, that's awesome.
And then it's like, no, I'mnot, I'm really not gonna use
that.
Oh, because you just report itonline.
Yeah, I mean, I don't know.
I I imagine for some peoplethat might be super useful.
Another feature which theyannounced, this is not so new,
(03:04):
but it's like price tracking.
Use you, but all of this stuffyou can just go to the Google AI
mode and find it there.
There's some shopping links tohelp you do all this stuff.
There's price tracking, so youcan know where, you know, where
is the cheapest online, when isit how the price changes, etc.?
I think they announced that onea while ago.
That's not all that new.
Uh, but the one that I actuallyam planning to use myself, and
(03:26):
I don't know why I didn't thinkof this, is in buying gifts.
You can describe your family,what they do, where they live,
what they like to do, what theirprofession is, and it will come
back and give you gift ideas.
That's I'm going to try thatfor my family.
Meredith (03:40):
That's cool.
Meredith's Husband (03:41):
In fact, what I'm probably gonna do is
I'm gonna try it with Google AImode, and I'll also do it with
ChatGPT, and I'll compare it.
Meredith (03:47):
That's a good interesting.
Meredith's Husband (03:48):
That's just what I do.
That's like that's how geeky Iam.
Meredith (03:51):
I do that too.
Meredith's Husband (03:52):
Anyway, just in time for the holidays, I
thought I would share that newswith you.
That's a lovely thing.
If anybody finds itinteresting.
So to the questions.
Yes.
First, the question aboutmaking changes in batches versus
the case.
Oh, we're going to the secondone?
Yeah, I'm just going to go.
Meredith (04:06):
That's a new order.
Okay.
Meredith's Husband (04:07):
Yeah.
I'm going to because that one'sa quick, easy answer.
Perfect.
So I'm going to take in termsof like, you know, how easy
that's I'm going to do first.
Then I'm going to talk aboutthe drop in traffic, then I'm
going to talk about theplatforms.
Exciting.
Okay.
So the making changes, and theperson who asked this was
curious.
Would making little bits ofchanges instead of batching them
all together, would that beharmful to SEO?
(04:28):
And no, the exact opposite.
It would be good for SEO tomake little changes all at once.
Meredith (04:34):
All at once?
Meredith's Husband (04:35):
No, to make, I'm sorry, little changes over
time.
To make little, yeah.
Make do not make all yourlittle changes all at once.
You do not need to do that.
Because Google likes to see,just like you've heard the
argument that you need to blogfor SEO, Google does like to see
an active website.
Meredith (04:51):
Right.
Meredith's Husband (04:51):
Okay.
So I have seen, I have hadsituations in the past.
In fact, one comes to mind aclient was redoing, we were
redoing their SEO.
And we, that's how typicallyhow we would do it, is we would
work on the title tags, thenwe'd do the et cetera, et
cetera, et cetera.
And they they said, no, just doeverything offline.
Ooh.
And then when it's completelyready, take it up, then replace
(05:13):
the live site.
And I didn't recommend that.
And I said there's no, there'sabsolutely no reason to do that.
And when they were insistent, Iwas very, I was younger, and I
didn't know how to handle asituation like that.
So I just said, okay.
And we did it.
And the rankings actually wentdown, which was the only time
that has ever happened.
So yeah, make changes as youcan.
(05:36):
You do not need to make themall at once.
That's good.
In fact, especially and foryour workflow, that makes it
easier too.
I can't the only time that Iwould say it's good to make a
batch of changes if is is if ithelps your workflow somehow.
And I can't even really thinkof you know when you would do
want to do that.
But like let's say you were ifyou were going to change all
your title tags on all yourpages, you might do that all at
(05:59):
once.
Sure.
Okay, but that's not no no bigdrastic changes.
Okay.
So that was number one.
That's good too.
Number two, I've had some peopleask about drops in traffic.
Yes.
So people have seen decliningtraffic this year, which is
normal.
Traffic coming through Googlehas probably declined over the
last, I would say, just thecourse of this year.
Meredith (06:19):
Why is that?
Meredith's Husband (06:20):
AI.
More people are searching inAI, they're getting more
information from AI before theyever visit a website.
So there is also a phenomenoncalled zero-click search where
you search for stuff and you getit all right there.
You either get it on Google AImode or you get it in ChatGPT.
You get everything you need.
You never visit a website.
(06:41):
Okay.
Now that's not probably goingto be a big issue for
photographers.
That would be more of like aninformational-based uh website
or something like that.
Meredith (06:50):
Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Well, if you're asking a
question and then they give youall the necessary answers about
how to dive further.
Meredith's Husband (06:57):
But what might be happening with local
businesses, includingphotographers, is instead of
going out and visiting 10 localphotographer websites, you go to
AI mode or you go to ChatGPTand you ask it to list the top
10 and you know sort of whatwhich one is going to match your
style the most.
And then instead of visiting 10websites, you only visit two or
(07:20):
maybe three.
Just as an example, I'mthrowing these numbers out
there.
But you can see how, onaverage, traffic to websites is
going to decline.
Meredith (07:29):
Right.
Meredith's Husband (07:29):
However, I would say look at your
conversion rates.
That's going to be thepercentage of people contacting,
how many people are actingactually contacting you.
That is hopefully at least thesame or has gone up.
Okay.
Because fewer people visitingyou.
But by the time they visit yoursite, they have already asked
AI Mode or ChatGPT what isMeredith Sanders' style?
(07:52):
What are her prices?
Where is she located, etcetera?
Things like that.
So they're more informed by thetime they get to your website.
So they have they're furtheralong in the uh purchasing
decision, the buyer's journey.
Meredith (08:04):
The buyer's journey.
Meredith's Husband (08:05):
Okay.
So that's if you've seen thislike a more of a say a steady
decline over the last three,six, nine months, roughly.
If you see a sharp decline,like over the course of like a
weekend where your traffic dropslike 30% or something like
that, that's not the AI.
That's something different.
If you see something like that,you need to look what changes
(08:26):
did you make to the website?
I would say two to probablyfour weeks before that change.
That's what you're going tostart to think about because
something changed.
And this would be what we callforensic SEO.
Meredith (08:39):
Ooh.
Meredith's Husband (08:39):
Yeah, exciting.
Meredith (08:40):
Yes.
CSI.
Meredith's Husband (08:42):
I think that's the new um NYPD blue
franchise.
It's going to be forensic SEO.
Oh my God, that's going to besuch a great show.
One hour of a dude staring at alaptop.
He gets excited though.
Anyway, so that is so so thoseare the two most common types of
declines in traffic.
(09:02):
So look for one of those.
Thank you.
Okay, now website platformsnumber three.
So people have asked me in thelast couple of weeks about
PixieSet.
How is it for SEO?
Same thing about PhotoBiz.
How is it for SEO?
And then Webflow.
I get this question more frompeople in the business world,
not so much photography, becausethose others obviously they
(09:23):
focus on photographers.
Webflow is a very similarplatform, but not focused on
photographers.
It's just business.
So first, let's talk aboutPixieset.
Yes.
So I've Pixieset, you can hostyour website.
Pixieset, I think,traditionally was known for
galleries, hosting galleries.
Meredith (09:40):
Yeah, you used to upload galleries that you could
share with clients.
Meredith's Husband (09:43):
Right.
And so you can do your entirewebsite on Pixieset.
I had never looked at the SEObehind a PixieSet website.
I did recently, I ran a SEMrushscan looking to see what kind
of errors it would come up with.
And I gotta say, it was prettygood.
Oh, yeah.
It was pretty solid.
Yeah.
Because the person, one of thepeople who asked me this was
like, I know it's not great forSEO, but it's so easy to use,
(10:07):
and I've been using it that it'sjust so easy for me.
So how bad is it for SEO?
And the answer was like, it'sactually not bad at all.
It's like That's good to know.
It's pretty good.
That's good to know.
Yeah.
It had a good, it had a verygood SEMrush score.
So yeah.
I I have I don't have firsthand experience with it.
I don't have first handexperience with any of these.
Meredith (10:26):
Yeah.
I used to have Pixie.
Meredith's Husband (10:29):
Yeah, but didn't you?
You just used it for galleries,though, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
Meredith (10:32):
Back in the day.
Meredith's Husband (10:33):
So the other one I've been asked about a
couple times recently isPhotobiz.
I had never even heard ofPhotobiz, not on my radar.
Yeah.
Uh but evidently there arephotographers using it.
Um so I looked into Photobiz.
I did something similar.
I ran, I found somebody whosewebsite was on Photobiz.
I did a Sumrush audit.
Uh I also went to the because Ididn't know anything about it,
(10:54):
I went to the Photobiz websiteand looked through their what
they offer.
Okay.
So the Sumrush scan, not sogreat.
It was, it was, I would say,similar to what I would expect
from a Squarespace website.
Similar issues.
And going to their website, Iwas very much not impressed.
Got it.
(11:14):
Okay.
So there's, and I'll tell youwhy.
And this is just it reallymatches up with things I've seen
in the past that I know afteryou know after the fact were not
good solutions.
So they offer off they offerSEO advice, all this SEO stuff,
very similar to likeSquarespace.
You can call one of theirexperts and it's like a hundred.
(11:35):
Is it a real person?
Oh, probably, yeah.
But you call and it's like 150an hour to talk with their
expert.
And then they have a monthlysubscription service, which I
looked through to see what wasbeing offered.
And it was like it was nearvalueless, I would say.
And I don't know how much permonth that was, but it's
probably another 100, 200, 300,400, 500 a month, depending.
(11:55):
Yeah, everything I saw on thePhotoBiz website talking about
SEO, to me, again, based on myexperience, was like red flag.
That is not a good service.
And I did just go to thehomepage and I went to look at
the for one of the first thing Icould find what they said about
(12:15):
SEO.
And they have 10 quick ways toimprove your SEO.
It's a blog.
And I'm pretty certain thatwhoever wrote this article
doesn't know much about SEO.
And there are, I mean, there'seven this doesn't have to do
with SEO, but it's like theheadline, they have typos in the
headlines.
This one headline says, orsub-headline says, includes
(12:37):
words in your blog posts, notjust photos.
Includes.
Includes words.
Meredith (12:41):
Aaron Powell This includes words?
Meredith's Husband (12:44):
No, no, no.
It's instructional.
Like it's what it's saying hereis make sure to include words
in your blog posts and not justphotos.
Okay.
And it says includes words inyour blog post, not just photos.
It's very Which is is okay.
Yeah, that's true.
Is that one of the top 10things?
Like No, that is like one ofthe best things you could do for
(13:04):
SEO is to have a website.
And again, this is very similarto what I have seen on
Squarespace.
So I would put PhotoBiz in avery similar bucket with
Squarespace in terms of what'sbeing offered for SEO.
Gotcha.
Now if you're already there, Iwould say, you know, it's it's
okay.
Meredith (13:22):
Right.
Like would you advise switchingit to say Pixie said?
Meredith's Husband (13:27):
I would say if you're on PhotoBiz or
Squarespace, that whenever youknow you're going to relaunch
your website at some point,you're going to redesign it.
Meredith (13:34):
Yeah.
Meredith's Husband (13:34):
Whenever that is, I would say that's when
you want to think aboutmigrating to something else.
Meredith (13:40):
Got it.
You know, do you have like alist of top websites to uh like
platforms, rather?
Do you have a list of platformsthat you would recommend when
people relaunch their website?
They do it on certain ones?
Meredith's Husband (13:59):
Some are better than others.
Like I'm gonna actually Webflowis one that I think is pretty
good.
WordPress is probably the bestin terms of SEO.
I understand it's a little moreinvolved, a little more
technical.
Uh Wix, I think is a good one.
However, the downside to Wix,which I have learned since
moving my own site to Wix, greatfor SEO, super duper awesome
tools for SEO.
Really, really not intuitive touse.
(14:22):
Interesting.
How so like just everything,like literally everything.
Like even the most basic stuffthat like I have to do often,
like say adjust title tags.
I every time I have to do that,it takes me 15 minutes to find
where it is.
It's really not so I'm gonna bemoving off for that reason
alone.
Meredith (14:39):
Fair enough.
Meredith's Husband (14:39):
It's good for SEO, but I just I can't use
it.
It's very frustrating.
Meredith (14:42):
That's good to know.
Meredith's Husband (14:42):
WordPress, great one, like I said,
technical.
Webflow is another good one.
Yeah.
Webflow is something I get askedabout more, like I said, in the
business world.
And I don't, I have never usedit.
I have never created a site,but I have I have spoken with
people who use it, likecompanies who use it, and I very
much respect their decision.
Like I know that I know thatthey know what they're doing,
(15:04):
and if they're using it, I wouldtrust them.
Meredith (15:06):
Right.
Meredith's Husband (15:07):
I know that they make good decisions.
I also have seen their websitesthat are on Webflow, and they
are very snappy.
They are very fast.
Yeah.
They are they are just a reallygood user experience.
Meredith (15:17):
Now, how would that compare with PixieSet?
Meredith's Husband (15:19):
Oh, I would say much better.
Oh, so the feet like so thefeatures on I am familiar with
the features that they offer onWebflow.
They are good.
They are solid.
I also know that they have ahave you heard of Figma?
Meredith (15:33):
No.
Meredith's Husband (15:33):
Figma is a web design tool.
Meredith (15:35):
Figma, like a Fig and Ma.
Meredith's Husband (15:37):
Figma.
Yeah.
Figma is a website designplatform.
It's used by like it's it'slegit.
It's pretty strong.
I know like, you know, kind offancy designers who use it.
Like it's uh it's a it's a goodtool.
So if if there is a tool onWebflow that migrates your Figma
design to Webflow, that is a pralso a pretty solid sign.
Meredith (15:58):
Aaron Powell Got it.
Meredith's Husband (15:59):
And but you know, bottom of the line is the
I know that the features thatthey say they offer on the
website are good, and they don'thave all this BS stuff that is
common to like other Squarespaceand PhotoBiz.
And they they are legit.
I can tell by the way it'swritten.
I'm like, oh, whoever wrotethat, this they know what
they're doing.
Meredith (16:18):
Aaron Powell And how do they compare to WordPress?
Meredith's Husband (16:21):
Probably pretty similar.
Now, Webflow is like I said,it's more of a business world
solution.
Right.
And to get those like fullycustom features, I know my
companies I've spoken with whoare using Webflow, I know that
they end up spending like three,four hundred dollars a month.
I also know that you can startat like 15 bucks a month.
(16:41):
So it's 15 or 20.
It's like I think it's lessthan Squarespace.
So you don't need to be able todo it.
Meredith (16:47):
Squarespace or or Yeah, Squarespace.
Meredith's Husband (16:49):
I don't know what PhotoBiz is, but I know
Squarespace is like 20 a month,22, 20.
Meredith (16:53):
Oh, but what about WordPress?
Meredith's Husband (16:54):
WordPress, there is no month, there is no
cost for WordPress.
WordPress is free.
Meredith (16:59):
Oh.
Meredith's Husband (16:59):
It's wherever you are getting your
hosting.
Yeah.
Which is going to be if you'reon again, or not again.
I've said it other places.
If you are running WordPress, Irecommend SiteGround as a
website host.
Bar none.
It's the best.
Okay.
Like, yeah.
And they, SiteGround, willoffer a free migration from
wherever you are to SiteGround,which is difficult.
(17:20):
And they do it manually.
They their team does it.
Meredith (17:23):
Oh wow.
Meredith's Husband (17:24):
Yeah.
Whoa.
It's and it's yeah, it's free.
Used to cost money.
I don't know how they do it,but they I don't, I mean, I
don't know how they do it andstill make money as a company.
Meredith (17:32):
Right.
Meredith's Husband (17:32):
But their support is fantastic.
For a number of reasons,SiteGround is like the best
solution.
Meredith (17:37):
S I T E Ground?
Meredith's Husband (17:39):
Yes.
Meredith (17:39):
Got it.
Meredith's Husband (17:40):
Anyway, back to my story.
What was I talking about?
I have no idea.
Meredith (17:43):
You're talking about web web w whatever it was.
The third one.
Meredith's Husband (17:48):
Oh, right.
Okay.
Yeah.
So Webflow probably can be, I'msure, just as good or perhaps
even better than WordPress.
Those sorts of features mightbe in the pricier plans.
I'm not sure.
But I do know just right out ofthe box, like what they say
about SEO.
I'm like, that's good stuff.
That's good to know.
Yeah.
So I hope that's helpful stuff.
(18:09):
If you have questions, followthe link below.
There's I have a form for likefeedback and submitting
questions.
And if you want me to talk withyour group online about SEO
stuff, anything you want to askme about, you can do down there,
including submitting questions.
Excellent.
Thank you.
Bye bye.
It is a holiday weekend.
It is a long holiday weekend.
Yes.
Coming back from holidayweekend here in the USA, anyway.
Last week we talked about AI.
Meredith (00:56):
Yes.
Meredith's Husband (00:56):
And I mentioned that this week I was
going to dive into the detailsof that, a little bit technical
details.
Yes.
Last week was a little moreconceptual.
Yes.
I was going to offer a littlemore technical advice this week.
But being the holiday week andmy birthday.
Meredith (01:09):
Yay.
Happy birthday to you.
Meredith's Husband (01:10):
We're going to change plans a little bit.
Excellent.
Going to do that next week.
Meredith (01:15):
Okay.
Meredith's Husband (01:16):
And this week I'm just going to answer a
few questions that have come in.
Meredith (01:19):
How about that?
Meredith's Husband (01:20):
So recently I've gotten questions about uh
website platforms.
Yes.
Questions specifically aboutPixieSet.
Yes.
Webflow and PhotoBiz, which Ihad never even heard about
before somebody I didn't knowabout it.
Somebody asked me about it.
A couple people asked me aboutit, actually.
That's one, one of the questionareas.
Another is a drop in traffic.
Plenty of people have beenasking.
(01:41):
I'm seeing a drop in traffic.
And they give a you know a fewdetails and say, what should I
look at?
I'm going to cover that alittle bit because it depends on
what kind of drop in trafficyou're talking about.
Meredith (01:51):
Great.
Meredith's Husband (01:51):
And then they get a question about making
changes to website, whetherit's good to do it in batches or
uh you know batch it togetheror do it little by little, et
cetera.
Meredith (01:59):
That's a great question.
Meredith's Husband (02:01):
It is, yeah.
Because everybody has to dealwith that at some point.
Yes.
First, however, though, just intime for the holidays, Google
came out with some announcementsin the last week or so.
Oh, really?
With new they have new uh AIAgentic shopping features.
So Agentic, it's that uh it'slike kind of personalized
shopping experiences.
(02:21):
It's gonna help you shop.
It's gonna look for prices.
It's gonna one of the thingswhat it suggests is if like this
and the sort of case study thatit said you could use this for
is it's holidays, you gotta doChristmas shopping, you want to
know if stores have things instock.
Yeah.
Google AI mode will call thestores and find where it's in
(02:43):
stock for you and tell you.
So you don't have to, I guess,make the calls or make the trip
yourself, which at first kind ofblew me away.
It's like, oh, that's awesome.
And then it's like, no, I'mnot, I'm really not gonna use
that.
Oh, because you just report itonline.
Yeah, I mean, I don't know.
I I imagine for some peoplethat might be super useful.
Another feature which theyannounced, this is not so new,
(03:04):
but it's like price tracking.
Use you, but all of this stuffyou can just go to the Google AI
mode and find it there.
There's some shopping links tohelp you do all this stuff.
There's price tracking, so youcan know where, you know, where
is the cheapest online, when isit how the price changes, etc.?
I think they announced that onea while ago.
That's not all that new.
Uh, but the one that I actuallyam planning to use myself, and
(03:26):
I don't know why I didn't thinkof this, is in buying gifts.
You can describe your family,what they do, where they live,
what they like to do, what theirprofession is, and it will come
back and give you gift ideas.
That's I'm going to try thatfor my family.
Meredith (03:40):
That's cool.
Meredith's Husband (03:41):
In fact, what I'm probably gonna do is
I'm gonna try it with Google AImode, and I'll also do it with
ChatGPT, and I'll compare it.
Meredith (03:47):
That's a good interesting.
Meredith's Husband (03:48):
That's just what I do.
That's like that's how geeky Iam.
Meredith (03:51):
I do that too.
Meredith's Husband (03:52):
Anyway, just in time for the holidays, I
thought I would share that newswith you.
That's a lovely thing.
If anybody finds itinteresting.
So to the questions.
Yes.
First, the question aboutmaking changes in batches versus
the case.
Oh, we're going to the secondone?
Yeah, I'm just going to go.
Meredith (04:06):
That's a new order.
Okay.
Meredith's Husband (04:07):
Yeah.
I'm going to because that one'sa quick, easy answer.
Perfect.
So I'm going to take in termsof like, you know, how easy
that's I'm going to do first.
Then I'm going to talk aboutthe drop in traffic, then I'm
going to talk about theplatforms.
Exciting.
Okay.
So the making changes, and theperson who asked this was
curious.
Would making little bits ofchanges instead of batching them
all together, would that beharmful to SEO?
(04:28):
And no, the exact opposite.
It would be good for SEO tomake little changes all at once.
Meredith (04:34):
All at once?
Meredith's Husband (04:35):
No, to make, I'm sorry, little changes over
time.
To make little, yeah.
Make do not make all yourlittle changes all at once.
You do not need to do that.
Because Google likes to see,just like you've heard the
argument that you need to blogfor SEO, Google does like to see
an active website.
Meredith (04:51):
Right.
Meredith's Husband (04:51):
Okay.
So I have seen, I have hadsituations in the past.
In fact, one comes to mind aclient was redoing, we were
redoing their SEO.
And we, that's how typicallyhow we would do it, is we would
work on the title tags, thenwe'd do the et cetera, et
cetera, et cetera.
And they they said, no, just doeverything offline.
Ooh.
And then when it's completelyready, take it up, then replace
(05:13):
the live site.
And I didn't recommend that.
And I said there's no, there'sabsolutely no reason to do that.
And when they were insistent, Iwas very, I was younger, and I
didn't know how to handle asituation like that.
So I just said, okay.
And we did it.
And the rankings actually wentdown, which was the only time
that has ever happened.
So yeah, make changes as youcan.
(05:36):
You do not need to make themall at once.
That's good.
In fact, especially and foryour workflow, that makes it
easier too.
I can't the only time that Iwould say it's good to make a
batch of changes if is is if ithelps your workflow somehow.
And I can't even really thinkof you know when you would do
want to do that.
But like let's say you were ifyou were going to change all
your title tags on all yourpages, you might do that all at
(05:59):
once.
Sure.
Okay, but that's not no no bigdrastic changes.
Okay.
So that was number one.
That's good too.
Number two, I've had some peopleask about drops in traffic.
Yes.
So people have seen decliningtraffic this year, which is
normal.
Traffic coming through Googlehas probably declined over the
last, I would say, just thecourse of this year.
Meredith (06:19):
Why is that?
Meredith's Husband (06:20):
AI.
More people are searching inAI, they're getting more
information from AI before theyever visit a website.
So there is also a phenomenoncalled zero-click search where
you search for stuff and you getit all right there.
You either get it on Google AImode or you get it in ChatGPT.
You get everything you need.
You never visit a website.
(06:41):
Okay.
Now that's not probably goingto be a big issue for
photographers.
That would be more of like aninformational-based uh website
or something like that.
Meredith (06:50):
Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Well, if you're asking a
question and then they give youall the necessary answers about
how to dive further.
Meredith's Husband (06:57):
But what might be happening with local
businesses, includingphotographers, is instead of
going out and visiting 10 localphotographer websites, you go to
AI mode or you go to ChatGPTand you ask it to list the top
10 and you know sort of whatwhich one is going to match your
style the most.
And then instead of visiting 10websites, you only visit two or
(07:20):
maybe three.
Just as an example, I'mthrowing these numbers out
there.
But you can see how, onaverage, traffic to websites is
going to decline.
Meredith (07:29):
Right.
Meredith's Husband (07:29):
However, I would say look at your
conversion rates.
That's going to be thepercentage of people contacting,
how many people are actingactually contacting you.
That is hopefully at least thesame or has gone up.
Okay.
Because fewer people visitingyou.
But by the time they visit yoursite, they have already asked
AI Mode or ChatGPT what isMeredith Sanders' style?
(07:52):
What are her prices?
Where is she located, etcetera?
Things like that.
So they're more informed by thetime they get to your website.
So they have they're furtheralong in the uh purchasing
decision, the buyer's journey.
Meredith (08:04):
The buyer's journey.
Meredith's Husband (08:05):
Okay.
So that's if you've seen thislike a more of a say a steady
decline over the last three,six, nine months, roughly.
If you see a sharp decline,like over the course of like a
weekend where your traffic dropslike 30% or something like
that, that's not the AI.
That's something different.
If you see something like that,you need to look what changes
(08:26):
did you make to the website?
I would say two to probablyfour weeks before that change.
That's what you're going tostart to think about because
something changed.
And this would be what we callforensic SEO.
Meredith (08:39):
Ooh.
Meredith's Husband (08:39):
Yeah, exciting.
Meredith (08:40):
Yes.
CSI.
Meredith's Husband (08:42):
I think that's the new um NYPD blue
franchise.
It's going to be forensic SEO.
Oh my God, that's going to besuch a great show.
One hour of a dude staring at alaptop.
He gets excited though.
Anyway, so that is so so thoseare the two most common types of
declines in traffic.
(09:02):
So look for one of those.
Thank you.
Okay, now website platformsnumber three.
So people have asked me in thelast couple of weeks about
PixieSet.
How is it for SEO?
Same thing about PhotoBiz.
How is it for SEO?
And then Webflow.
I get this question more frompeople in the business world,
not so much photography, becausethose others obviously they
(09:23):
focus on photographers.
Webflow is a very similarplatform, but not focused on
photographers.
It's just business.
So first, let's talk aboutPixieset.
Yes.
So I've Pixieset, you can hostyour website.
Pixieset, I think,traditionally was known for
galleries, hosting galleries.
Meredith (09:40):
Yeah, you used to upload galleries that you could
share with clients.
Meredith's Husband (09:43):
Right.
And so you can do your entirewebsite on Pixieset.
I had never looked at the SEObehind a PixieSet website.
I did recently, I ran a SEMrushscan looking to see what kind
of errors it would come up with.
And I gotta say, it was prettygood.
Oh, yeah.
It was pretty solid.
Yeah.
Because the person, one of thepeople who asked me this was
like, I know it's not great forSEO, but it's so easy to use,
(10:07):
and I've been using it that it'sjust so easy for me.
So how bad is it for SEO?
And the answer was like, it'sactually not bad at all.
It's like That's good to know.
It's pretty good.
That's good to know.
Yeah.
It had a good, it had a verygood SEMrush score.
So yeah.
I I have I don't have firsthand experience with it.
I don't have first handexperience with any of these.
Meredith (10:26):
Yeah.
I used to have Pixie.
Meredith's Husband (10:29):
Yeah, but didn't you?
You just used it for galleries,though, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
Meredith (10:32):
Back in the day.
Meredith's Husband (10:33):
So the other one I've been asked about a
couple times recently isPhotobiz.
I had never even heard ofPhotobiz, not on my radar.
Yeah.
Uh but evidently there arephotographers using it.
Um so I looked into Photobiz.
I did something similar.
I ran, I found somebody whosewebsite was on Photobiz.
I did a Sumrush audit.
Uh I also went to the because Ididn't know anything about it,
(10:54):
I went to the Photobiz websiteand looked through their what
they offer.
Okay.
So the Sumrush scan, not sogreat.
It was, it was, I would say,similar to what I would expect
from a Squarespace website.
Similar issues.
And going to their website, Iwas very much not impressed.
Got it.
(11:14):
Okay.
So there's, and I'll tell youwhy.
And this is just it reallymatches up with things I've seen
in the past that I know afteryou know after the fact were not
good solutions.
So they offer off they offerSEO advice, all this SEO stuff,
very similar to likeSquarespace.
You can call one of theirexperts and it's like a hundred.
(11:35):
Is it a real person?
Oh, probably, yeah.
But you call and it's like 150an hour to talk with their
expert.
And then they have a monthlysubscription service, which I
looked through to see what wasbeing offered.
And it was like it was nearvalueless, I would say.
And I don't know how much permonth that was, but it's
probably another 100, 200, 300,400, 500 a month, depending.
(11:55):
Yeah, everything I saw on thePhotoBiz website talking about
SEO, to me, again, based on myexperience, was like red flag.
That is not a good service.
And I did just go to thehomepage and I went to look at
the for one of the first thing Icould find what they said about
(12:15):
SEO.
And they have 10 quick ways toimprove your SEO.
It's a blog.
And I'm pretty certain thatwhoever wrote this article
doesn't know much about SEO.
And there are, I mean, there'seven this doesn't have to do
with SEO, but it's like theheadline, they have typos in the
headlines.
This one headline says, orsub-headline says, includes
(12:37):
words in your blog posts, notjust photos.
Includes.
Includes words.
Meredith (12:41):
Aaron Powell This includes words?
Meredith's Husband (12:44):
No, no, no.
It's instructional.
Like it's what it's saying hereis make sure to include words
in your blog posts and not justphotos.
Okay.
And it says includes words inyour blog post, not just photos.
It's very Which is is okay.
Yeah, that's true.
Is that one of the top 10things?
Like No, that is like one ofthe best things you could do for
(13:04):
SEO is to have a website.
And again, this is very similarto what I have seen on
Squarespace.
So I would put PhotoBiz in avery similar bucket with
Squarespace in terms of what'sbeing offered for SEO.
Gotcha.
Now if you're already there, Iwould say, you know, it's it's
okay.
Meredith (13:22):
Right.
Like would you advise switchingit to say Pixie said?
Meredith's Husband (13:27):
I would say if you're on PhotoBiz or
Squarespace, that whenever youknow you're going to relaunch
your website at some point,you're going to redesign it.
Meredith (13:34):
Yeah.
Meredith's Husband (13:34):
Whenever that is, I would say that's when
you want to think aboutmigrating to something else.
Meredith (13:40):
Got it.
You know, do you have like alist of top websites to uh like
platforms, rather?
Do you have a list of platformsthat you would recommend when
people relaunch their website?
They do it on certain ones?
Meredith's Husband (13:59):
Some are better than others.
Like I'm gonna actually Webflowis one that I think is pretty
good.
WordPress is probably the bestin terms of SEO.
I understand it's a little moreinvolved, a little more
technical.
Uh Wix, I think is a good one.
However, the downside to Wix,which I have learned since
moving my own site to Wix, greatfor SEO, super duper awesome
tools for SEO.
Really, really not intuitive touse.
(14:22):
Interesting.
How so like just everything,like literally everything.
Like even the most basic stuffthat like I have to do often,
like say adjust title tags.
I every time I have to do that,it takes me 15 minutes to find
where it is.
It's really not so I'm gonna bemoving off for that reason
alone.
Meredith (14:39):
Fair enough.
Meredith's Husband (14:39):
It's good for SEO, but I just I can't use
it.
It's very frustrating.
Meredith (14:42):
That's good to know.
Meredith's Husband (14:42):
WordPress, great one, like I said,
technical.
Webflow is another good one.
Yeah.
Webflow is something I get askedabout more, like I said, in the
business world.
And I don't, I have never usedit.
I have never created a site,but I have I have spoken with
people who use it, likecompanies who use it, and I very
much respect their decision.
Like I know that I know thatthey know what they're doing,
(15:04):
and if they're using it, I wouldtrust them.
Meredith (15:06):
Right.
Meredith's Husband (15:07):
I know that they make good decisions.
I also have seen their websitesthat are on Webflow, and they
are very snappy.
They are very fast.
Yeah.
They are they are just a reallygood user experience.
Meredith (15:17):
Now, how would that compare with PixieSet?
Meredith's Husband (15:19):
Oh, I would say much better.
Oh, so the feet like so thefeatures on I am familiar with
the features that they offer onWebflow.
They are good.
They are solid.
I also know that they have ahave you heard of Figma?
Meredith (15:33):
No.
Meredith's Husband (15:33):
Figma is a web design tool.
Meredith (15:35):
Figma, like a Fig and Ma.
Meredith's Husband (15:37):
Figma.
Yeah.
Figma is a website designplatform.
It's used by like it's it'slegit.
It's pretty strong.
I know like, you know, kind offancy designers who use it.
Like it's uh it's a it's a goodtool.
So if if there is a tool onWebflow that migrates your Figma
design to Webflow, that is a pralso a pretty solid sign.
Meredith (15:58):
Aaron Powell Got it.
Meredith's Husband (15:59):
And but you know, bottom of the line is the
I know that the features thatthey say they offer on the
website are good, and they don'thave all this BS stuff that is
common to like other Squarespaceand PhotoBiz.
And they they are legit.
I can tell by the way it'swritten.
I'm like, oh, whoever wrotethat, this they know what
they're doing.
Meredith (16:18):
Aaron Powell And how do they compare to WordPress?
Meredith's Husband (16:21):
Probably pretty similar.
Now, Webflow is like I said,it's more of a business world
solution.
Right.
And to get those like fullycustom features, I know my
companies I've spoken with whoare using Webflow, I know that
they end up spending like three,four hundred dollars a month.
I also know that you can startat like 15 bucks a month.
(16:41):
So it's 15 or 20.
It's like I think it's lessthan Squarespace.
So you don't need to be able todo it.
Meredith (16:47):
Squarespace or or Yeah, Squarespace.
Meredith's Husband (16:49):
I don't know what PhotoBiz is, but I know
Squarespace is like 20 a month,22, 20.
Meredith (16:53):
Oh, but what about WordPress?
Meredith's Husband (16:54):
WordPress, there is no month, there is no
cost for WordPress.
WordPress is free.
Meredith (16:59):
Oh.
Meredith's Husband (16:59):
It's wherever you are getting your
hosting.
Yeah.
Which is going to be if you'reon again, or not again.
I've said it other places.
If you are running WordPress, Irecommend SiteGround as a
website host.
Bar none.
It's the best.
Okay.
Like, yeah.
And they, SiteGround, willoffer a free migration from
wherever you are to SiteGround,which is difficult.
(17:20):
And they do it manually.
They their team does it.
Meredith (17:23):
Oh wow.
Meredith's Husband (17:24):
Yeah.
Whoa.
It's and it's yeah, it's free.
Used to cost money.
I don't know how they do it,but they I don't, I mean, I
don't know how they do it andstill make money as a company.
Meredith (17:32):
Right.
Meredith's Husband (17:32):
But their support is fantastic.
For a number of reasons,SiteGround is like the best
solution.
Meredith (17:37):
S I T E Ground?
Meredith's Husband (17:39):
Yes.
Meredith (17:39):
Got it.
Meredith's Husband (17:40):
Anyway, back to my story.
What was I talking about?
I have no idea.
Meredith (17:43):
You're talking about web web w whatever it was.
The third one.
Meredith's Husband (17:48):
Oh, right.
Okay.
Yeah.
So Webflow probably can be, I'msure, just as good or perhaps
even better than WordPress.
Those sorts of features mightbe in the pricier plans.
I'm not sure.
But I do know just right out ofthe box, like what they say
about SEO.
I'm like, that's good stuff.
That's good to know.
Yeah.
So I hope that's helpful stuff.
(18:09):
If you have questions, followthe link below.
There's I have a form for likefeedback and submitting
questions.
And if you want me to talk withyour group online about SEO
stuff, anything you want to askme about, you can do down there,
including submitting questions.
Excellent.
Thank you.
Bye bye.
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