Progress Report
Every problem we have found, how we know it is real, why it matters for how AI systems and Google talk about you, and exactly what we would do about it.
How to read this. Each item has four parts. The problem in plain terms. How we know, with the real numbers and where they came from, so you can judge for yourself whether it is worth fixing. Why it matters, meaning what it actually changes about how AI systems and Google treat you. What we will do, as concrete steps. Every item is also labelled as either part of your original agreement or something we found afterwards. Where something is still unconfirmed we say so rather than dressing it up.
Following the new writing. Every piece of copy we draft goes into your existing shared document, Susan Shek Photography, as its own tab named for the page it belongs to. You can comment inline, rewrite anything in your own words, and nothing goes live until you have signed it off. That document stays the single place to look for anything we have written.
Your plan was written from one source. It has since been checked against four more.
| When | What we looked at | What it told us |
|---|---|---|
| Jul 20 | Full technical review of your website Your original plan came entirely from this. | Thirteen items, eight named pages. |
| Aug 17 | Google Search Console Sixteen months, the full history Google keeps. | 12,889 clicks from 2.7 million impressions. Showed which pages people actually want. |
| Aug 18 | Live ChatGPT testing Twenty five real questions. | You were named in two, and it showed the rule behind every answer. |
| Aug 19 | Inside your WordPress site | Nineteen deleted posts still earning traffic, and 141 redirects behind them. |
| Aug 22 | Google Analytics | ChatGPT already sends you more visitors than Bing. Nothing measures enquiries. |
| Aug 22 | Search Console, 2026 to date Jan 1 to Aug 20, the latest Google has. | 5.08K clicks from 1.08M appearances, average position 15. You rank better than a year ago and receive fewer visits. |
Five items. These are the difference between being recommended and being overlooked.
Nineteen articles sit in your website's trash. Their addresses do not return an error, they actively 301 redirect the visitor to your homepage.
How we know. These nineteen addresses earned 1,125 clicks and 260,846 impressions across the sixteen months to August 2026, roughly one click in every eleven. The three largest are Burden Kahn Mansion at 279 clicks, Marriage Proposals at 620 and 610 Loft and Garden at 278, and 12 Christian Wedding Traditions at 224. Your Yoast Redirects tool holds 141 redirects, and one chains twice: convent of the sacred heart wedding, then burden kahn mansion weddings, then your homepage.
We have now measured this, rather than assumed it. Inside Search Console we filtered each search by the page Google attributes it to, then requested each address directly to see what the server does. Every one returns a redirect to your homepage. Burden Kahn Mansion: 17 clicks and 1,537 appearances so far in 2026. Seventeen people searched for that venue, clicked your result, and arrived on your homepage. Old Westbury Hebrew Congregation: 1,246 appearances and not one click. New York Athletic Club: 7 clicks from 1,503 appearances. Christian wedding traditions: 2,522 appearances, 2 clicks, and Google ranks you fourth for it. Ranking fourth and getting no clicks is not normal. It happens because the click does not reach the article.
One thing still open, and it does not change the decision. We cannot see from WordPress the exact date each article was removed. What we can see is that the loss is happening now, in 2026, not only historically.
* Scoped in your original statement of work (item 4)
Every ChatGPT answer to a cost question named photographers who publish a number. Those who do not publish were left out entirely.
How we know. All four cost questions in our live test returned only photographers with a published figure. Two competitors publish theirs at $20,000 and $14,000. Your cost guide has 66,100 impressions and 145 clicks, and is already the fourth most common landing page for AI referrals. It was last updated September 2024, and the figure sits below several paragraphs of scene setting. You told us in your brand questions: $15,000 for photography, up to $20,000 with video, for full day wedding collections.
* Scoped in your original statement of work (item 3)
You asked why ChatGPT does not pick up your reviews. It does. It just cannot find them on susanshek.com.
How we know. One of the only two questions where ChatGPT named you was answered because of what your couples wrote about you being calm and taking charge. It found that language on a third party review site. Meanwhile your reviews page and testimonials page both 404. Across eleven competitors, not one publishes a review count. You have 103 reviews at 5.0 and none of it is on your own pages.
* Scoped in your original statement of work (item 7)
Anthropic's ClaudeBot is refused by the bot protection at your host before it ever reaches your website.
How we know. The request returns a 403 from a stock server error page sitting underneath Cloudflare, which is characteristic of the Cloudways bot protection layer rather than anything on your site. Your agreement also states Microsoft's Bingbot already has access, while our review found it blocked too. Both cannot be true. We now have Cloudways access and can settle it.
* Scoped in your original statement of work (item 1)
Your site publishes two different addresses and four different lengths of experience.
How we know. Your footer and Google Business Profile say 401 Park Avenue South. Your schema, the structured data underneath the site that AI systems read directly, says 287 Park Avenue South. Separately the site claims 30+ years, 19 years, two decades and a decade in different places, while your schema says 2005. You told us your first wedding was in 2005, which settles the experience question. The address was never asked.
Pages that already attract people. To be clear, we are not rewriting your venue pages. They are good pages and they are in your voice. We are adding the few things that are missing.
* Scoped in your original statement of work (item 10)
Your venues guide drives more of your appearances in Google's AI Overviews than any other page, and it has no main heading at all.
How we know. This page accounts for 11,816 of the 48,600 times you have appeared in Google's AI answers. That is 24.3% from a single page. Google only began reporting this in May 2026, so that is roughly three months of data, and it reports appearances rather than clicks. Across all of search it earns 553 clicks from 347,958 appearances. It is also the page AI assistants send the most visitors to after your homepage, where they stay over a minute. It runs 2,057 words with no H1 and roughly 110 words of atmosphere before the first fact.
More people click your result for "620 loft and garden proposal" than any other search you appear in. The page they arrive at never mentions proposals.
How we know. Across the last sixteen months that search earned 56 clicks from 598 appearances, a 9.4% click through rate at position 5.8, roughly twenty times your site average. It is now slipping. So far in 2026 it is 13 clicks from 253 appearances, a 5.1% rate, and it has fallen to position 9.3. The related search "620 loft and garden" now sits at position 25.6 with 511 appearances and no clicks at all. They land on your 620 Loft page, which is genuinely well written and sounds like you, but is entirely about weddings. The proposals article that used to answer it is one of the nineteen in the trash. This page also carries no reviews, while your Plaza page has one and it helps.
You told us dark venues are a speciality and you want more of that work. It appears nowhere on your website.
How we know. When we asked ChatGPT how a couple should vet a photographer, it told them to ask how the photographer handles dark churches and candlelit receptions. A competitor won a cathedral question partly because they had written about working in low light. It is an active filter and you are silent on it.
It reads as though somebody else wrote it about you. Your 620 Loft page does the opposite and is genuinely lovely.
How we know. The Plaza page says "Susan Shek has chosen this hotel as one of our top recommended venues". Your 620 Loft page says "I've photographed couples as they walk hand in hand past the reflecting pool". The Plaza page has 105,404 impressions, so it is worth getting right.
* Scoped in your original statement of work (item 2)
You have sixteen real questions with real answers, written as plain paragraphs.
How we know. Your FAQ page carries sixteen genuine question and answer pairs, and none of the ninety two pages on your site carry any FAQ schema. The content is already there and already good.
* Scoped in your original statement of work (item 12)
Some pages have no main heading, and one has fifteen competing with each other.
How we know. No H1 at all: Top Wedding Venues, Event Photography, Headshots, Wedding Albums. Too many: Services has fifteen, FAQ has four, About has three.
* Scoped in your original statement of work (item 8)
Yoast generates an llms.txt file on your site, the emerging standard for telling AI systems what your site contains. It is almost empty.
How we know. The file lists five pages and five posts out of ninety one addresses, and omits the FAQ entirely.
Real, worth doing, but they will not move your visibility on their own.
* Scoped in your original statement of work (item 11)
Two pages are shown constantly and convert badly because they are too thin. Two others in your plan have almost no demand at all.
How we know. Corporate event photography has 24,691 impressions and 14 clicks. Cinematography has 23,133 and 7, and its heading introduces a different business name. Against that, Headshots has 177 impressions and Wedding Albums 198.
* Scoped in your original statement of work (item 9)
Your service pages carry none of the structured data that tells a machine what you sell.
* Scoped in your original statement of work (item 6)
The site presents itself as Susan Shek Photography, Susan Shek Photography Inc., Shek Studios on the cinematography page, and Susan Shek Photo + Video.
How we know. Four variants found across the site. Your own Google data shows which is strongest: "susan shek photography" earns 451 clicks against 321 for "susan shek". You told us "Susan Shek is perfect", which we read as how you want to be known day to day.
* Scoped in your original statement of work (item 5)
Your published privacy policy still contains unfilled template text that any visitor can read.
How we know. The live policy contains "[Insert Time Period, e.g., 7 years]" and "[Insert Email Address]". Four addresses 404: terms, reviews, testimonials and journal. Seven internal links point at redirecting addresses, including the Journal link in your main navigation.
We can see people arrive at your enquiry page. We cannot see what happens next.
How we know. Your Inquire page had 1,915 views from 1,456 people in sixteen months. Google Analytics records zero key events across that entire period, and your confirmation page shows three views. That almost certainly means the form never triggered any tracking, rather than that only three people wrote to you.
Seven unchanged, six moved. Nothing dropped without being replaced.
| # | Original item | Where it stands |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fix conflicting business details | Unchanged, still the most important. Now item 5 above. |
| 2 | FAQ schema | Unchanged. Now item 10. |
| 3 | Review, rating and Person schema | More important than we thought. One of your two ChatGPT wins came from reviews. Now item 3. |
| 4 | Restructure the pricing guide | Sharpened. Now item 2. |
| 5 | Broken and placeholder content | Unchanged. Now item 16. |
| 6 | Standardise the business name | Unchanged, now backed by your data. Now item 15. |
| 7 | Unblock ClaudeBot, confirm Bingbot | Now actionable. Cloudways access is in place. Now item 4. |
| 8 | Complete the llms.txt file | Unchanged. Now item 12. |
| 9 | Service and Offer schema | Unchanged. Now item 14. |
| 10 | Restructure the venues guide | Moved up. A quarter of all your Google AI impressions. Now item 6. |
| 11 | Expand eight thin pages | Changed, needs a conversation. Two have no demand, two are in the trash. See section 06. |
| 12 | Fix page headings | Unchanged. Now item 11. |
| 13 | Monthly visibility reporting | Expanded at no extra cost. Twenty five questions became forty, first measurement done. |
Your plan committed us to eight specific pages. Your own data says that list needs a second look.
| Page | Impressions | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Corporate event photography | 24,691 | Strong demand. Keep. |
| About | 25,194 | Keep. |
| Cinematography | 23,133 | Strong demand. Keep. |
| Lotos Club | Photographs only | Keep. 119 photographs, no text. |
| New York Athletic Club | 8,045 | In the trash. Cannot be expanded. |
| Old Westbury | 4,806 | In the trash. Cannot be expanded. |
| Headshots | 177 | Almost no demand. |
| Wedding albums | 198 | Almost no demand. |
Our recommendation, and it is your call. A straight swap at no extra cost. Keep the four that are working. Restore and expand the two in the trash if the deletion was accidental. Put the effort that would have gone into headshots and albums into your venue pages and your reviews instead. To be clear, you never asked us to drop headshots or albums. This is our reading of your data, not your instruction.
Two things we found that fall outside the agreement you signed, because nobody could see them from the outside of your website.
Bringing the articles back, checking each still reads well, and making sure every old address leads to the right article instead of your homepage.
For scale, the content involved brought around 1,125 clicks from Google in the last year. Our next step is to audit all 141 redirects and report exactly what is broken. We would rather understand the full picture before putting a number on it, and we will come back to you with one.
Originally not in scope.
Building the reviews page your site links to but does not have, and placing your review wording on the venue and service pages where it will do the most work.
Originally not in scope.
Five things. Now that we have full access to your website, these answers are the only thing holding the work up.
Were the nineteen articles deleted and redirected on purpose?
Nothing gets restored until you tell us. This is the largest single item in the report.
Which address is correct?
We believe 401 Park Avenue South, matching your footer and Google listing. We would like that confirmed rather than assumed.
Your current review counts.
We will not publish a rating we have not verified with you.
Approve the forty searches we will track, and your privacy policy details.
The searches are in your shared document. We also need a contact email and how long you keep client records.
Your decision on the eight pages.
Whether we can swap headshots and albums for work with more demand behind it, at no change to your fee.