JoeSale case study
A portfolio you play with: the city is hidden under his name, and you wipe it away.
- 50SEO landing pages, every one scoring 99–100
- 47portfolio frames, uncropped, filterable
- 12fine-art prints for sale, each with its own page
- 4steps to book a shoot, start to finish
Joe shoots portraits, live music and long-exposure art of Tampa. He needed a site that felt like his photographs and turned visitors into bookings and print sales.
A template can't sell a photographer.
Joe's work is about light and motion: stacked long exposures, drone skylines, concert stages. A grid of thumbnails on a stock theme flattened all of it, and there was no way to book a session or buy a print.
A custom theme with a cinematic home.
A hand-coded WordPress theme: a cursor-wipe hero over his own video, a scroll-driven chapter film, a pinned "Selected frames" reel, prints for sale, seven service pages and a four-step booking wizard, all run from a custom Studio admin.
Every inquiry is tracked and followed up.
Bookings, contact and print requests land in the Studio and in Joe's CRM pipeline with an automated follow-up. GA4, Tag Manager and Search Console sit in Joe's own accounts, and 50 local landing pages target the searches Tampa clients make.
Take the tour.
Scroll to walk the live site. Tap the glowing dots for what's happening on each screen.
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01
The wipe hero
The first thing you do on Joe's site is touch it. His name fills the screen; move across it and the city shows through, then slowly heals back. On phones, an idle "ghost brush" paints by itself.
- Canvas mask
- Video loop
- Touch + idle brush
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02
A film you scroll
An iris opens into four chapters: Joe's drone skyline, Gasparilla, the moon over Plant Hall and the Skyway, with cinemagraph motion and a frame counter synced to the scroll.
- Scroll-driven
- Cinemagraphs
- Real photography
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03
Selected frames
A pinned horizontal reel of Joe's favorite work, starred from the Studio's Gallery Manager. Drag the order there and the homepage follows.
- Pinned scroll
- Studio-curated
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04
The portfolio
Every frame at its true shape in a justified grid, filtered by collection, with a keyboard- and swipe-friendly lightbox.
- Justified grid
- Lightbox
- Filters
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05
Art for sale
Limited fine-art prints, each with its own story, sizes and an Inquire or Buy path. Joe adds a print in the Studio and it publishes with its page, schema and sitemap entry.
- Print pages
- Inquiry flow
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06
Services that book
Seven services, each a full page with what's included, packages and sample work. Every Book button hands the session straight to the wizard.
- 7 services
- Pre-filled booking
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07
Book in a minute
Session, date and location, details, then contact. Each request is saved in the Studio, emailed with Reply-To set to the client, logged as a GA4 lead and pushed into Joe's CRM with a follow-up conversation.
- 4 steps
- CRM pipeline
- GA4 lead events
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08
Found in Tampa Bay
50 landing pages for the searches clients actually make, from headshots in Tampa to drone photography and Gasparilla. Each passed a content gate and scored 99–100 before it went live.
- 50 pages
- Local SEO
- Schema
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09
Built for the phone
The same experience at thumb size: touch painting on the hero, a call-and-text header and a booking flow sized for one hand.
- Mobile-first
- Tap to call/text
Watch the wipe.
An aperture loader counts in, then the wordmark becomes a window. It's a recording of the live homepage, with the cursor moving the way a visitor's would.
More frames.
Drag or swipe through more screens from the live build.
The build.
- Custom hand-coded WordPress theme
- Joe Sale Studio admin (gallery, prints, services, inquiries)
- Cursor-wipe canvas hero + cinemagraph chapters
- Four-step booking wizard
- 50 local SEO landing pages
- CRM pipeline + automated follow-up
- GA4, Tag Manager & Search Console in Joe's own accounts
- UnifiedIQ lead capture & call/text tracking
Good questions.
Can a photography website be interactive without being slow?
Yes. Joe's site keeps heavy media lazy-loaded and the motion GPU-friendly, with reduced-motion fallbacks. The interaction is the first impression, so it has to load instantly and feel smooth on a phone.
Can Joe update the site himself?
Yes. The Joe Sale Studio in WordPress lets him reorder and star photos, add prints and services with packages, read every inquiry and change contact details, without touching code.
How does a photographer get found in local search?
With a page for each real search clients make, like headshots in Tampa or family photos in St. Petersburg, each with genuine local detail, schema and a booking path, plus tracking that shows which pages bring inquiries.
Want a site people play with?
Tell us what you're building. We'll show you what it could look like, and how it gets found.
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