You want new clients. You want to be seen, to be found, to be searched for, and to connect with potential customers. You may be posting on social media and sending email campaigns, but the big player in driving traffic to you is your website and SEO.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Optimizing your searchability is like giving your website a superpower boost to make it more findable and popular on the internet. The goal is to show up higher in search engine results when people look for things related to what you offer. Mastering SEO can help you reach more people, grow your audience, get more inquiries, and ultimately more business. In this blog, we give 4 tips for professional photographers to improve your SEO and reach more customers!
Who’s the Boss?
Let’s be honest, Bing and Yahoo are cute and all, but if you want to play with the champ, you’re going to want to work on optimizing your presence on Google.
So now that we know where to start, let’s talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to SEO.
The Good
Google’s algorithm is the ever-surprising source of joy and excitement, for website owners and digital marketers everywhere! Okay, that may be a little sarcastic, but Google is a beast and when it works for you, it’s truly amazing. The more you work to improve your SEO, the more Google can work for you and your business.
The Bad
Algorithms are a rollercoaster ride of unpredictability and frustration. Just when you think you’ve cracked the code and optimized your site to perfection, Google decides to shake things up with a new update that throws all your hard work out the window.
The Ugly
All the work to improve your SEO can seem like you are chasing your tail. Activities to boost SEO that once worked can be meaningless overnight. The frustrating part is that no one bothers to tell you. Your rankings can plummet for no reason while larger competitors seem to effortlessly float to the top.
What Can You Do to Improve Your SEO?
Paying to play, meaning paid advertising is real. However, there are actions that you can take to organically boost your SEO.
Here are four easy things you can do to boost your SEO:
Bots are Blind
To simplify things, web crawlers, or web bots, read content and supply the algorithms with links to search results. They can’t see images. You can have all the beautiful images you’d like on your website, but without content, you may be overlooked by the crawlers.
Your site needs to have readable, searchable content. If your website is a portfolio with lots of wedding images and little copy, search engines will be wearing blinders when it comes to optimizing your webpage.
To get seen, update the pages of your website with written copy that contains relevant keywords related to the photography services you offer, locations that you serve, and any searchable phrases, “like professional photo studio”.
If you are curious about what type of content to add? Find out what people are searching for. Go to Google, and type in a search for “wedding photography packages.” Scroll all the way down the page for related searches. Now you have other key phrases to add to the written content on your pages.
If this seems beyond your pay grade – or you simply don’t want to invest the time, you can look for service providers and hosting platforms like PhotoBiz who do the work for you.
Claim Your Spot
Localized SEO is essential for letting might-be customers know that you are there for them. People look for service providers in their area. Listing your location will be hugely beneficial to those searching “photographers near me.”
Claim and optimize your Google My Business Listing, and ensure that the contact information, business hours, and location details are all accurate. This is a great place to add images and to remove any old, outdated, or inaccurate ones.
Speaking of contact, once you get people to your listing, let them know how to best get in touch. In fact, list several ways. Email is cool, but people might actually want to call you, so list a phone number or a way to chat directly with you.
BLOG
Really? Yes.
You don’t have to write the next War and Peace, just an article that shares what’s going on in your business. According to The Ecomm Manager, “Blogs should be 1600 words or about a seven-minute read.” Think of them like an extended social media post.
Your blog posts should contain fresh, engaging content, such as recent jobs, session preparation tips, or behind-the-scenes stories. They should include keywords and key phrases that the bots can read and detect as searchable content.
If you are stuck on blog topics or keywords, let ChatCPT give you some inspiration. Ask for, “Blog topics for wedding photographers or keywords for professional photographers.” Just be sure that you are creating content in your own voice on your actual page. Clients may spot unauthentic writing styles and more importantly, your SEO might suffer due to low-quality articles and duplicate content.
There are plenty of tools to help with blogging. If you are just getting started or if you need some enhancement to the quality of your content, check out THIS ARTICLE.
Load Up on the Love
This is probably the easiest and the fastest way to assert yourself in the SEO game. Get reviewed on multiple platforms. Google is the most significant, but gaining positive reviews on Facebook, Linked In, Yahoo, Bing, and even Yelp can all point searches in your direction.
If you Google, “Beekeepers near me,” you’ll likely see a list of sponsored pages and then an organic business listing. But…there is something special about the order in which the businesses are listed. You’ll notice the quality and quantity of the reviews are associated with the rankings of the business on the page.
Including the passive ask to leave a review in an email signature is great, but asking can make all the difference. Prioritize reaching out to happy customers while they are still reveling in the joys of your services, and their professional wedding album to get reviews. Make it easy for clients to share their love by providing links directing them where to write their reviews.
While all 5-star reviews are nice, when accompanied by written context, they are even better. Reviews should appear to come in organically. Avoid huge increases over a short period of time. Reviews are dated and in big influx might seem fake.
Lastly, DO respond to your reviews good or bad. The interaction will increase your visibility.
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