Project Overview
Maria Bercher Photography is an award-winning newborn and family photography studio serving the San Antonio area. With over 15 years of experience and recognition from Parents.com as San Antonio’s Best Photographer, Maria has built a thriving business photographing thousands of local families during their most precious moments.
This project marked our second collaboration since 2018. Maria needed a complete website rebuild that would honor her established brand identity while dramatically improving SEO performance and conversion rates. The existing site had strong visual appeal but struggled with generic copy that failed to differentiate her from competitors or compel visitors to book sessions.
The Challenge
The photography market in San Antonio is highly competitive, with dozens of newborn photographers vying for the same clientele. Maria’s original website content read like most photography sites: professional but impersonal, feature-focused rather than benefit-driven, and lacking any real emotional connection with overwhelmed new parents.
The Solution
I rebuilt the site from the ground up, preserving Maria’s established brand colors and aesthetic guidelines while completely reimagining the content strategy. The new approach centered on a warm, conversational tone that speaks directly to exhausted new mothers who are juggling endless decisions and responsibilities.
The homepage now opens with “The San Antonio Newborn Photographer Who Understands What You Can’t Get Back,” immediately followed by “Hey mama – I know you’re juggling a million things right now. But here’s what I’ve learned after 15 years and 2,000+ San Antonio babies: the families who wait to book their newborn session always wish they hadn’t.”
This shift from corporate photography speak to genuine, empathetic conversation fundamentally changed how visitors engage with the site.
Every page was rewritten to balance SEO optimization with authentic storytelling. Rather than simply listing services, the content acknowledges the real concerns of new parents: the fleeting nature of newborn features, the overwhelm of planning, the desire for a stress-free experience.
To future-proof Maria’s digital presence, I created a comprehensive llms.txt file for her root directory. As AI-powered search continues to grow, this ensures her business information is accurately represented when potential clients ask AI assistants for photographer recommendations.
I also connected Maria with a trusted Google Ads specialist and served as project manager to ensure the website supported the advertising strategy. This included adding targeted testimonials, strengthening calls-to-action on service pages, and implementing specific elements the ads manager requested to improve conversion tracking and landing page quality scores.
The Results
The combination of emotionally resonant copy, strategic SEO optimization, and coordinated Google Ads campaigns has produced a dramatic increase in phone calls and booked sessions. More importantly, the site now authentically represents Maria’s personality and approach, creating a seamless experience from first website visit through final gallery delivery.
Client Testimonial
"Hiring Hirst Digital was the best decision that I could have made for my business. Mike listened to all of my thoughts and ideas and put together a site better than what I could have imagined. I get compliments all of the time on how my site stand out above everyone else's! He is quick, responsive, professional, excellent at what he does!"
