From Pageviews to Purpose: Why I Changed my Website’s Direction
Note: I know many of you are photographers with your own websites or blogs. I like sharing what I’ve learned over 15 years of doing this, in the hope it helps you figure things out too. And no, I haven’t completely “figured it out” myself 🤣 —but I’ve learned a lot along the way.
I’ve had this site for about 15 years now. When I first started, it wasn’t even under my name—it was called Nomadic Pursuits. The idea was to combine travel, photography, and whatever else caught my attention. It was sort of like what is now called a lifestyle blog, but I didn’t know that term at the time, and that certainly wasn’t my plan. In truth, I had no plan. I was just winging it.
I posted photos, created and shared lists of photo spots in popular cities around the globe, wrote about places I visited, shared tutorials, and even reviewed gear. It was exciting and new, but also scattered and tough to maintain while working full-time and traveling for work pretty often. The site drew traffic—at one point nearly 500,000 views in 2017, mostly from my lists of photo spots—but it wasn’t meaningful traffic. People stopped by, saw what they needed, and left. No connection, no growth, and likely no return visit. It was the website equivalent of empty calories - it felt good but didn’t really provide any benefit.
Looking back, I can see some clear lessons from that season:
Traffic without strategy is just noise. High numbers don’t matter if no one sticks around.
Chasing pageviews is exhausting. It feels good at first, but it’s not sustainable.
Without a clear direction, growth stalls and engagement never materializes. I didn’t know what I wanted visitors to do, so they didn’t do anything, and instead just left my site.
That experience pushed me to think differently. What I really wanted was to build a community and focus on the part I loved most—photography education.
So I pivoted. I scaled back the types of content I created, stopped chasing views, and centered this site around what I can actually offer the most value in: helping photographers learn, improve, and enjoy the craft.
That shift came with a cost. Traffic dropped sharply for several years, hitting a low point in 2022 at just 60,000 views. But here’s the good news: since then, I’ve been rebuilding in a more intentional way. I’ve been:
Writing fresh blog posts focused on photography education, inspiration, or insights
Creating courses and digital products
Growing the newsletter and community
Aligning the site more closely with my YouTube tutorials
Traffic has been climbing consistently since then —on track to top 180,000 views this year. That’s far below the old highs, but the difference is huge: today’s traffic is targeted and useful. People land here because they want to learn, not just skim a list of photo spots. Many join the newsletter, and many are purchasing my products as well (thank you!).
I still keep those old photo location lists around (you can find them through Google searches), but they’re not my focus, and are hidden from the navigation on my site. My focus is on building something sustainable and valuable around photography education—and having fun doing it.
Looking ahead, here’s what’s next for the site and for me:
Expanding digital products in the store (presets, courses, and more)
Running live and in-person workshops
Writing more “opinion pieces” for the blog about topics related to photography
Continuing to grow the newsletter as a hub for the community
Above all, I’m grateful for this community of photographers and the chance to share the joy of photography with you. Thanks for following along—I hope to see you out there sometime!
