The Importance of SEO For Photographers

Photographers usually get their clients through referrals. Word of mouth serves as a powerful marketing tool for them. You may think that this is it. Who needs the internet when you get clients through referrals anyway? You may be getting by through your very traditional way of running your business, but you can reach so much more if you have a website and if you invest in effective SEO efforts.

You can design your website for your photography studio/business website if you want to, but keep in mind that you should follow the fundamentals of good website design. And if you want to use the internet in favour of your business, you need to understand SEO, and why it’s important.

What Is Search Engine Optimisation?

Search Engine Optimisation or SEO represents a wide range of methods used to improve, boost, and amplify a website’s presence online. The main goal of all the SEO work that goes into a website is for your page to achieve higher rankings on SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) for your targeted keywords.

Why SEO Matters to Your Photography Business

Referrals are great, and establishing your reputation offline is an amazing feat, however, times are changing so your strategy must improve too. The digital age allows people to search beyond what their peers recommend. What does this mean for you? It means more competition.

The Internet is the primary reference people depend on to learn about potential acquisitions or investments. Even if a friend recommends your photography services to a potential client, it doesn't mean that they will choose you then and there. They can do their own research, and find a photographer themselves.

Okay, let's say you do have a website, but did not invest in SEO optimisation. How does that affect you? Keep in mind that even if a lot of information is readily available to your potential clients, they are not going to browse until page 20 of the search engine results page. If the second page of their results does not even get to see the light, what makes you think that your website (which is on page 18 due to your non-existent SEO efforts) will see the light of day?

No matter how gorgeous your website is, no matter how much you invested in it, it is all wasted if your SEO ranking is low.

Why SEO Is Particularly Important for Photographers

As mentioned previously, people like to search the internet for information about a company or a brand before investing money in them. They want to make sure that the service provider they choose to proceed with is worth every single penny.

People need photographers to cover important events in their lives. They need to be meticulous when choosing the right photographer for the job. Why? Because most events are fast-paced, and if the photographer ends up missing a shot, then that moment is gone forever.

A photographer has the potential to make or break the memory of an event. SEO experts can help you elevate your page and services to get more attention on SERPs. SEO professionals also understand which target keywords will help you appear trustworthy so that you will get a positive boost on your service reviews and feedback to help your image.

How to Get Started

Unlike designing a website, SEO is not something that you can do on your own. SEO results take time and consistent efforts, trying to master it on your own will interfere with your schedule running your photography business. The best thing you can do is to get in touch with us or seek out a local SEO firm with a good reputation. Preferably, you should get an SEO team that understands the nature of your industry.

What SEO Professionals Do to Boost Your Photography Business

As mentioned above, SEO is hard work. Here are some of the things SEO professionals do to boost your online presence:

They find the right keywords to target.

SEO professionals have the skills to make your brand stand out against your competitors in the same niche or industry. They look for the right keywords for your business. These keywords are the phrases people type into the search bar or speak into Google's voice search. SEO experts will start building a strategy around the keywords they find.

They take care of your metadata.

Metadata includes page titles, headings, tags and page descriptions. Search engines prioritise pages with effective page titles for SEO rankings. Every page on your website should have a header and a small description that describes exactly what your page is all about.

This information, the header and meta description, will appear as snippets on a result page, while the page title will show up on the browser tab. People who design their own websites might miss these details, but an SEO expert will see to it that your pages are equipped with the metadata they need for better ranking.

They take care of image optimisation.

What does image optimisation mean? People can appreciate images, but search engine crawlers cannot. Since you are running a photography business, it makes sense that your website is dependent on images. But because search engines can't interpret pictures on their own, your SEO team needs to help these bots out a little.

The day when machines will take over the world might happen in the future, but it is not now when they can't even recognise pictures yet.

Image optimisation means adding alt text, alt titles and captions to make your images searchable.

They help you plant keywords in a natural flow.

The quality of your content plays a significant role when convincing a client to trust you-- this means that you can't just sprinkle keywords everywhere. SEO professionals understand how to write for humans and still place the keywords effectively in your content for the search engine crawlers to read.

They ensure that your website is listed in business directories.

No, no-- not the traditional yellow pages or business directories. SEO experts will help you list your photography business in business directories. This kind of listing adds a layer of legitimacy to your website. Search engines will refer to your business depending on the reviews and feedback that your past clients leave on reputable directories.

On top of that, business listings provide safe backlinks that refer internet users to your website.

You need to include important information in your business profile and ensure that the information is consistent throughout all your digital business listings. Here are some details that you need to provide to your SEO team for business listings:

• Legal Business Name
• Location (Including your city and/or country)
• Contact details
• Type of business
• Local business search tags
• Awards, specialties, notable projects, etc.

They will help you build link juice.

One of the ways to get the internet to love you is for another website link to your content. Of course, the effect is dependent on the SEO strength of the referring website. If you established that you are an authority on a particular subject, you are given higher preference by search engines when showing results.

Inversely, if you link to another website's content, then you are recommending this other business' page to your visitors. Again, if you are an authority on a subject, you can significantly boost another business' page.

They will analyse your site performance metrics.

As a business owner, understandably you want to ensure growth for your photography business. SEO experts can help you monitor your website search performance and interpret the data.

There are several tools available for observing search metrics including Google Analytics. Tools like this will help you gain marketing insights, audience profiles, browsing behaviour, and analyse your site performance. However, reports from these tools can be hard to interpret for people with no background knowledge about SEO. This is where an SEO team comes in.

They will help you improve your visibility with Local SEO.

An SEO professional can help you add geo-tagged keywords in your content for your local photography business. Targeting local SEO will help you gain visibility within your area. For instance, if you are operating in Sydney, your SEO team can use phrases like "professional photographer in Sydney" for your website to gain more attention in the area.

Conclusion

Your SEO ranking depends on different factors including user experience, quality of content, authority and other SEO-related efforts. The fun thing about Search Engine Optimisation is that it continuously evolves and improves to provide a better experience for search engine users. If you are still heavily dependent on traditional methods for promoting business and getting clients, then you are setting your business up for a dead-end. Choosing not to improve according to the trends will bury you in a sea of competition.

If done right, a business website paired with consistent SEO efforts will help you build up a strong online presence, and gain more clients. Keep in mind that SEO is not something that happens overnight, it takes time, but it is all worth it.