SEO Tips for Photographers
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Search Engine Optimization Tips for Photographers
Chances are you’ve heard the term SEO. It stands for search engine optimization and plays an essential role in where your website appears on Google when people search for terms. For example, I’m an elopement photographer in Colorado. If someone goes to Google and searches the term “elopement photographer Colorado”, I aim to appear high on search rankings. SEO optimization is how I make that magic happen.
There are several ways to optimize your website for SEO, including website optimization (think things like site speed, fixing broken links, etc.) and local SEO for those building up a business nearby or in a specific area. However, this piece will focus primarily on the importance of keyword optimization for a primary keyword you’d like to be known for and keywords for blog posts. I also include a few tactical, bite-size steps you can try today.
Table of Contents
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Why Focus on Search Engine Optimization for Photographers?
As a fellow photographer, I get it. I want to be outside capturing photos of my amazing couples, providing them with epic photos of their day. I don’t want to be behind my computer, at a desk, trying to figure out the technical details of my website or writing blogs.
However, doing these things provides natural lead generation for my business. By optimizing my website and creating evergreen, helpful content for my clients focused primarily on high-volume, low-competition keywords, I help bring clients to me naturally without having to play into the social media hustle as much.
And eventually, writing content optimized for SEO may be something you outsource. However, it’s good to understand how all aspects of your business work together—and content writing is no different.
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How To Get Started With SEO for Photographers
Ok, so maybe you’re thinking—Andrea, this all sounds great, but how do I get started optimizing my site for SEO? Here are a few actionable tips to get you started.
Do Some Basic Research on Your Competitors
Think of what you want your business to be known for. Maybe you’re based in Washington as an elopement photographer. Open a new Google window in incognito mode and search “Washington elopement photographer”. Opening it in incognito mode is important because your computer knows your search history and will try to feed you the results it “thinks” you want.
Ignore the sponsored results, if there are any, and skim down to the first few listings. Click on the first three to five websites and take a look at their sites. Chances are, they are heavily optimized for the keyword “Washington elopement photographer” and variations of it. For example, you may see terms like “Washington elopement photographer”, “Washington elopement photography”, and “Washington adventure elopement photographer”, etc. You get the idea.
So, if you are servicing Washington as a Washington elopement photographer, make sure you don’t just have “elopement photographer” top and center, with the Washington piece buried in the text below. The term “Washington elopement photographer” should be top and center. You want to make it clear to both Google and your clients who you serve and where.
I’m partial to my own site, of course, but if you’re wanting to go along with the Washington example, here’s another site to check out.
You’ll notice, too, that many of the top-ranking sites have well-formed article content targeting keywords. You can see this on my own resources page and also on the website I linked above.
While most photographers will do gallery blogs or maybe even some short inspo blogs to accompany a gallery, the top-ranking sites will also likely contain several pieces of helpful content aimed at serving their clients (and possibly fellow photographers, too!). You never want to copy an article title or copy from another website, but you can certainly use content others have published as inspiration for your own pieces!
Action Steps:
Go into incognito mode on Google
Search for the term you want to be known for
Make a list of the top 3-5 sites for that term
Look at how they optimize the page you clicked on, as well as what sort of helpful content they’re offering their clients and peers
Get inspired to do the same on your site!
Use a Tool to Come up With High Volume Low Competition Keywords for Your Niche
I personally use and love Semrush. However, it’s up there in price. Fortunately, they offer 10 searches a day if you want to try them out. And, if you search “Semrush free trial”, you can find several sites offering free two-week or longer trials through their affiliate links.
You are looking for keywords that pertain to your niche and an article or blog you’re looking to write for clients that aren’t up there in ranking difficulty. Unless your site is already ranking well and you have high domain authority, you’ll likely have trouble ranking for words with high keyword difficulty.
For example, using Semrush, let’s say I type in the keyword “elopement photographer” into the Keyword Magic Tool. It shows that people searching for this term are primarily looking to purchase something (that’s what the C stands for), which makes sense because it’s likely a client looking for a service.
If I move over in the row, I see an average search volume of 2.4K and a keyword difficulty of 43, which means ranking for this keyword is possible, but hard to do. However, if I niche down and continue with my example of “Washington elopement photographer”, I get an annual search volume of 320, with a keyword difficulty of 25.
With optimized content, this term will be much easier to rank for and likely in less time. Now I realize we’re jumping around between optimizing keywords for a homepage and for blog posts. Something to keep in mind is that the primary keyword your homepage or a main page is targeting might be harder to rank for. And that’s ok!
To still bring people to your site, especially if you are in a more competitive market, you can focus your keyword strategy around helpful, evergreen articles that serve your client. So, maybe your client finds you because you write a post about a guide to getting married in Olympic National Park or in the San Juan islands.
In this case, it is your content that targets a specific keyword your client may be searching for. And, because you just helped for free with your guide, they start to trust you and may reach out and book you because of your post.
Quick note: Remember how I mentioned earlier the importance of landing in one of the first few spots on Google? Those spots closer to the top are going to get a much larger portion of the search volume traffic for your chosen keyword than those on page 2 or 3.
Pro-tip: When targeting keywords, keep in mind your client and how you’re going to help them find a solution with the content you write.
So, for a homepage, make it clear who you are and what you do. For pieces of content, lean into helpful topics, like how to pack a wedding dress for an elopement, how to avoid altitude sickness during your mountain elopement, or magical places to elope in the Hood River valley.
Not only will you build content that drives traffic to your site, but your clients will begin to establish trust in you because you’re already helping them even before they’ve booked you!
Other Tools to Consider for Keyword Research:
Google’s Keyword Planner (you’ll need a Google Ads account for this)
Several other tools exist, and this list is non-exhaustive. It’s meant as a starting point to get you into some keyword research.
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Use Semantic and Secondary Keywords
So we’ve talked about general keyword research. And the step above about finding target keywords with some volume and that are low competition is a great first step. However, to build a strong piece of content that ranks well on Google, you should also target secondary and semantic keywords.
Keeping with our Washington elopement photographer example, let’s say you decide to build a piece of content around the search term “Olympic National Park Elopement”.
It is absolutely ok to target keywords in your niche with lower volume or what seems like no volume. For example, let’s say by using the keywords listed above, you rank first for Olympic National Park elopement and use a clear title like “Olympic National Park Elopement: Your Complete Guide”.
It has an annual search volume of about 170, and by holding a top spot on Google, you get a large piece of that search volume. You could end up booking several clients who want to elope in Olympic National Park by optimizing that one keyword. And with well-optimized content, you may also have clients who find you because of your secondary keywords.
Consider Pillar Posts With Supporting Content
One way to help yourself stand out as an authority and rank higher in Google is through a strategy that includes longer pillar posts with supporting smaller pieces of content.
For example, maybe you create a long-form piece of content about the best places to elope in the Pacific Northwest. From here, you could internally link to shorter-form pieces about specific locations to elope around the Pacific Northwest.
You just need to be careful to avoid something called keyword cannibalization. This means that you don’t want several pages on your website competing for the same keyword.
So, if your homepage is optimized for Washington Elopement Photographer, you don’t want a guide or pillar post also targeting that keyword as you’d be competing against yourself. Tools like Semrush can help point out to you if you are competing against yourself in this way.
Format Your Posts to Optimize Your Keywords
How your post and copy are formatted and where you place your keywords in your text also matter. A strong title is important, and your title should include your primary keyword—preferably towards the front of the title.
Since most people read on their phones or tablets, ensuring your content is skimmable is important too. Skimmable content improves the user’s experience so they stay on your page. Breaking up your text with what are called H2 and H3 headings improves a reader’s ability to skim and will keep readers on your page.
Appropriate headers also provide a great spot to place primary and secondary keywords. So, make sure primary or secondary keywords show up in the headings for your H2s and H3s.
Just ensure you don’t do what’s called “keyword stuffing”. Your content should flow and not read like you are trying to stuff a bunch of keywords where they sound unnatural. Bullet points for lists are helpful, as are tables. And paragraphs shouldn’t be more than 3-4 lines long.
If you write a long pillar post like a guide, also consider including a table of contents with jump links to that part of the post.
Additionally, behind the scenes, you’ll want to optimize the other parts of your post, like the permalink, meta description, and meta title. The permalink should closely match the title of the post in as few words as possible and without any dates (i.e. 2023). The reason you don’t want dates in a permalink is for when you go and update the post at a later date.
Meta titles are what shows up as the title on the Google search page, and meta descriptions are a brief summary of the piece. Include targeted keywords as possible in these sections.
Photograph by: Adobe Stock Images
SEO Tips for Photographers' Next Steps and Resources
I realize I just threw a lot of information at you, and if you’ve never worked on SEO optimization, this all may feel a little overwhelming or challenging to understand. This is simply a brief, high-level overview of some of the key components of SEO optimization, and it only touches the surface of how to optimize your content.
I did not go in-depth into the website side of SEO optimization, such as site speed, indexing vs. not indexing posts, setting up Google search console or a sitemap, local SEO, etc.
However, if this is something you intend to take on, consider reading the Fuel Your Photos blog, listening to their podcast, and joining their free Facebook group. Their podcast and free Facebook group are a wealth of helpful information if you have questions or feel stuck. And they also have a paid Fuel Your Photos course and membership if you need additional help and information.
Many aspects of SEO can seem confusing. So my hope is that by discussing how to optimize for a targeted keyword and doing some basic keyword research for a blog post, you have a starting place to begin building SEO optimization on your own website.
No one’s blog or website is perfectly optimized when they first start. And I’m constantly working on improving my own site, too. However, regardless of where you are in your journey, the most important step you can take is the first one—give it a try, ask questions, and learn to accept challenges as opportunities for growth! So much of successful entrepreneurship is your mindset!
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Elopement Photographer Andrea Enger (Portrait by Realm Studios)