SEO For Photographers: Quick Start Guide
Most people hear the term SEO and think, huh!? It’s loosely thrown about by the people who understand it, and many people who don’t. It’s something that most photographers have heard of, and who think “oh, I still need to do that”. But they don’t really know what “that” even is!
That’s where this guide comes in. I wanted to make it as simple as possible to get started because there’s no reason to complicate things. I would love to see more photographers make a great living off their work.
But before we dive into some of the actionable items, let’s talk a bit about the basics.
Basics of SEO
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. What that means is that we make our site speak to search engines. Search engines like Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, etc…
We do this so that the search engines will “rank” our sites. Meaning they put us in the top positions so that if you are a wedding photographer in Cleveland, OH, people who are searching for a wedding photographer in that area will find your site and hopefully hire you.
That’s the end goal. The goal with SEO is to get top positions for the most relevant searches, or “keywords,” that people are typing into search engines.
The way we work on our SEO is by formatting our site correctly and using the right content that conveys to sites like Google what we do and that we should rank well.
Hopefully that all makes sense. Here’s a video covering these basics.
https://youtu.be/imcSji1wU4k?si=itK8pioVu9ehO68G
At the end of the day, we all want more clients. Think of SEO as your second tier marketing strategy. That means that you are implementing it whenever you can and always working on it (whether that’s 1 hour a month, or 1 hour a week) and as you do this you should continue using word of mouth, ads, or however else you market to bring in the “now” clients. SEO will be your “future” clients and will lead to a strong and stable business with consistent leads.
SEO takes time, for some people it can start to work in just a few months, for others it might be a year or more depending on how much time they put in and how new they are to this business. With all that being said, let’s cover the main components.
The 3ish main components of SEO for Photographers
Traditional SEO has 3 main components, but before we get into those, here’s the 4th that photographers need to use - I know, it’s not actually 3, but local businesses have less (and more) work to do… more on that in the first one:
Google My Business
This first component is in addition to the core 3, but it’s possibly one of the most important for a photographer. Because photography is a local business, that means we compete with other businesses locally. Google places local searches in its map results. This is great news because it means that instead of competing on a national level, you’re only competing in your city/town with other photographers who work in the same niche. So the competition pool is much smaller.
Think of Google My Business as your store front. It’s the first result most searchers will see when they are looking for a photographer like you online.
Content
Our second component is content. Content is everything that we put on our website. Without content, no one (and no search engine) knows what we do or why we do it. When search engines like Bing or Google are looking at which websites to feature (crawling the sites!) they look at the content to get a clear picture of what it’s all about. This one is pretty easy to understand.
Links
The third focus in SEO is links. Specifically, links coming from other websites to ours. SEO is a bit of a popularity contest, and if other “popular” or highly ranked sites link to you, it tells Google you should be popular too.
This is where a lot of photographers get hung up, and with good reason. The first thought you might have is, “why would anyone want to link to me?” and that’s a great question! We have to give people a reason to link to us. This could be writing articles for their sites, some type of brand or vendor partnerships, podcasting for other sites, or any other number of reasons. The real question to ask is, “what can I do for other sites that are related to my niche and photography?”
The best links are ones that people will actually want to click. This is why you don’t want to pay for links through irrelevant SEO companies and sites.
Technical
This is where a lot of people get caught up and what SEO professionals are always pushing on photographers and businesses in their sales pitches. It’s easy to see why too… technical talk makes you look more advanced and knowledgeable. But this is probably the last area you should focus on.
That being said, some hosts and design platforms can be downright terrible for SEO. If you do all the steps above and nothing is working, consider this factor. AND… if your site feels slow when you go to it, that could be an issue.
Optimizing your homepage for search engines
Now that you have the basics and you know the top 3ish components, let’s dive into something tangible and actionable so that your site can start to rank higher in the algorithms!
Keywords are the searches people perform in search engines and the core of content SEO. The good news for photographers is that it can be simple. Just follow this formula: “Location + Niche + Photographer.” So your homepage keyword might be “Denver Newborn Photographer.”
If you have multiple niches, you can feature one on your homepage and make additional pages, or your homepage could be more broad and not feature this keyword. In that case you’d put this keyword on your other pages and have one for each niche. Making your homepage the star for one niche will be the faster ranking and more powerful option for most photographers, however.
Here are all the places you’ll want to optimize with your keyword on your homepage or niche pages:
H1 heading: This is a tag in your text editor that tells Google what the page is really about. It should basically just be your keyword, and should sit near the top of your page as some of your first text. Finally, it should be the largest text on the page. There should only be ONE H1 tag on any page.
H2 heading: These are less important than the H1, but if you have a natural way of working in part of your keyword into your H2, this could help. Something like “Portraits that make your Seattle senior shine!” Natural is the key to this…
Title: The name of your page. This is what shows up in Google search results. If I were looking to hire a senior portrait photographer in Denver, I would want to see this in the title of the page that came up in my search so I knew it was the right fit.
Meta Description: This is the text that you see below the title in search results. Having the tag here means that Google will bold the keyword when people search, and people are more likely to click!
Content: In the text on your homepage you want to reiterate location. You can use variations of the term. So if your keyword is “Seattle Senior Portrait Photographer.” It would make sense to reference Seattle in the text, and discuss senior portraits. We are trying to give Google a clear picture as to what this page should rank for, just make sure it reads naturally.
Alt Text: This is the text that shows when you hover over an image. It’s for accessibility purposes. A lot of people stuff keywords here and honestly it’s not going to help. But if you do have an image that shows something recognizable in your location, you can add the keyword naturally into this section. And having keywords on your site that cover the locations you serve will help your local rankings.
Dialing in your Google My Business Profile
Next up is your Google My Business page. This is what shows up in the map pack of searches. You can improve your GMB page in a lot of simple ways. Here are a few to help you get started!
1.Fill in your description completely
This is where you can tell Google and your potential clients what you do and why they should work with you. Fill the full space and tell them as much as possible. Cover your niche, your locations served, and what makes your business special (unique selling proposition).
2. Update your photos
You don’t have to do this often, but if you do it a few times a year it keeps you current for Google to feature your site, and for potential clients to see that you are actively in business.
3. Ask for reviews and respond
So many photographers leave this one out, or only do it once per year. Set up an email template in your docs or notes that you can simply copy and send out to each client you work with, and stay active here. This creates trust for Google and potential clients. Responding to reviews adds that personal touch for clients, and it shows Google that you care.
Getting backlinks to your photo website
It’s not the most fun activity and takes a bit of work, but backlinks are a very important component of ranking.
First things first, don’t stress about quantity or worry about rushing this process. Instead, focus on working with the right sites and connecting with the best fits for your business. Before you go deep in research mode, start with the low-lying fruit:
- Connections you already have - you probably know people who run businesses related to your niche (vendors, suppliers, photo blogs, etc…) that you could reach out to and offer content on their site. Simply put a link to your site in the article you write or in your author bio.
- Directory links (citations) - These are places like Google My Business but include Bing Places, Yahoo, Yellowpages, etc… They seem unimportant but this helps Google to trust your site even more. For $129/month MOZ Local offers a service that will do this for you and keep all the info updated between all the major directories. If the info is different on some directories… Google loses trust.
- Chamber of Commerce - If you join your chamber of commerce you’ll have a link featured on their site and will have the opportunity to network throughout the year!
Google Search Console
Our final task is to set up Google Search Console. This tool shows us where we are currently ranking, if we get any traffic from search engines, and will be our main source to watch our SEO efforts pay off.
Setting this up requires adding a tag with your host, but once that’s done you’ll have access to all the data Google has on your site and will automatically update this data daily. In addition, you can “submit your sitemap” through this free tool to tell Google about your site if you don’t really have many links. This will help them to learn about your site and make indexing decisions (where you should be ranked, etc…)
Final thoughts
SEO is a powerful marketing method with strong staying power. Once it’s dialed in and you’ve taken high ranking positions for your main keywords, you’ll receive regular leads who are looking to hire you. It takes time and requires no other costs to get started. SEO is something you can work on in your free time for just a few hours a month.
It’s always hard to start something that doesn’t pay off right away, but just like the old chinese proverb, “the best time to plant a tree was 25 years ago, the next best time is today” you’ll be glad that you did the work now!
About the Author
Connor has walked a different path since his photography career began in 2003. Starting with his pro photo career shooting extreme action sports (skiing off 40+ foot cliffs with a 25lb pack) - designing custom tees, pocket tees, and longboards - and finally to running a one man SEO business. Now he spends his time combining his photo industry knowledge with SEO skills teaching photographers how to rank online in the Simple SEO Membership. Connor is a proud Dad of 3 boys and an avid outdoor enthusiast. When he's not behind his computer or spending time with his family, you'll find him on his bike, shooting photos, flying drones, skiing, hiking, or bouldering.
