SEO for Photographers: 12 Tips for SEO Newbies

Are you a photographer that doesn't know a thing about Google rankings? In this SEO for photographers guide, we teach you how to improve your SEO game!

Launching your photography career online? Uploading your portfolio to your site?

The photographer’s portfolio is one of the best weapons to a successful business. It’s a display of skill, experience and cumulative years of hard work.

Among the many things about top photographers' blogs, do you know what helps? It’s good SEO for photographers. Search engine optimization can provide you the visibility you need to succeed.

There’s no point in having a pretty portfolio online if nobody can find it.

If you’re new in photography SEO, what can you do to take advantage of this? We have 12 tips that you can do to your website that we’re sure can boost your site. Get more visibility out of them.

Here’s how you do it.

1. Keywords, Keywords, Keywords

The heart and soul of any website are keywords. For photographers, the value of photography keywords is higher than anything out there. They need the right phrases to match customer searches.

When doing keyword research, find words associated with photography. Find long-tail phrases that people use to find businesses like yours. In the advent of today’s mobile and voice search, this may come in the form of questions as well.

Whether it’s for WordPress photo blogs or wedding photo websites, here’s the truth. You would want photography keywords to have low competition, high value. These can give you a quick boost in rankings and traffic.

Once you’re ranking for long-tail phrases, here’s what you do. You would want to move for high-value keywords. Use them to build strong relevancy for your business.

2. Generate As Many Quality Backlinks As Possible

Backlinks are the most potent weapons in any digital marketer’s arsenal. These can give strong boosts to your visibility. This is because Google cares when a site receives backlinks. It wants the source to be relevant and high authority websites.

It’s hard to get high authority websites to link back. You would want to settle instead with related websites with positive authority.

Guest posting with photography taglines as anchor texts is your lifeline. These can add extra link juice to your site.

You can also request for links on many relevant websites. Do so through broken link building. You can ask to link back to you for words associated with photography.

You don’t need low-value backlinks. Instead, you want relevant photography-related sites giving you a link. You would want a word related to photography, and that’s it.

3. Content Is King

For any of the top photographer's blog, the one thing that connects them together is great content. In SEO, content is king. You would want material that is not only rife with photography keywords. You want to give valuable information as well.

People go to WordPress photo blogs and the like to find inspiration or technical help. They’re there to learn from your expertise and even consider doing work with you. Beyond photography taglines, you want people to enjoy your content.

Be conversational and educational. Make sure to provide insight into your blog and share what you know. Supplement your business with information that helps people understand your expertise in the market.

4. Submit Your Sitemaps

Sitemaps are essential link structures that list all your public pages on your website. They can help trackers and crawlers index your site better. If you want to be one of the best wedding photo websites and the like, you need one for your site.

Generate sitemaps through your content provider. For portfolio websites, it’s always a discussion of Format vs Squarespace for the best CMS. Whichever you choose, you can generate your sitemaps.xml, forward it to Google and post it on your website.

While not having sitemaps is not the end of the world, it is useful for something else. It quickens your site’s ability for indexing on search engine results pages (SERPs).

5. Remove 404 and Reduce Redirects

If there’s something Google hates much, it’s broken pages and too many redirects. These are wrong signals to search engines that your website has red flags. SERPs will respond to these with a hard blow to your page authority and complete rankings.

For any WordPress photo blogs, you would want to manage these page errors. Clear them out as soon as possible or redirect them to a relevant page. There are ways to unindex these sites on Google, and the tools should be enough to use.

Webmasters tend to overlook redirects once there’s too many. Use tools to crawl your sites for any possible excessive redirects. Where you can, use canonicals as well.

6. Go For Search Friendly URLs

When creating your very own pages, the URL is crucial for proper visibility. Optimize it with photography keywords that are relevant to the topic you discuss. You would also want to reduce redundancies and duplications in your pages.

One solid tip for optimizing your URLs is to make them search friendly. You would want to use words associated with photography. Prevent the same words from showing up twice in the entire URL.

Why? Google looks for keywords from page title to URL and body content. If you put the same word over and over, Google may penalize you for keyword stuffing. This can weaken your page’s total authority.

Learn how to use a word related to photography. Synonyms and LSI keywords are useful as secondary keywords.

7. Start With Easy to Crawl Architecture

When it comes to websites, you may think it’s not crucial to create a logical architecture. That’s wrong.

Whether it’s Format vs Squarespace for your portfolio site, here’s the truth. You want an easy to crawl, easy to navigate wedding photo websites.

One way to create natural crawl structures is to use silo structures. Connect all related topics in a single category. Keep the supporting content within the same structure only.

If you think you have to connect silos with each other, reference the landing pages. This gives Google the ability to see your content within their own relevant spaces.

8. Optimize Page Title and Meta Descriptions

Page titles and meta descriptions are vital in telling Google about your topics. Many of the top photographer's blogs make sure that their page titles are clear, concise and “clickable.” How do you do this?

For page titles, you want them to summarize your content. Use high-value photography keywords. The meta in blogs right now is the “Buzzfeed Style” headlines. They are easy, enticing and uses robust keywording.

As for meta descriptions, Google notes that they have no impact in rankings anymore. The best way to use them is for your business branding. Talk about what people can expect in your content and entice readers to click.

9. Use Photography Taglines in Image Descriptions and Alt Text

If you’re one of many WordPress photo blogs, it’s crucial for you to know that Google cannot read images. Google sees it as text and sees no value to the image itself. To help your website rank, you need image descriptions and alt text to help search engines identify them.

For image descriptions, you would want to add photography taglines. Use words that you are not using in your body content to prevent stuffing. Where you can, use words that describe the photo as well.

As for alt texts, you can use LSI and related keywords as well.

10. Take Advantage of Content Headings and Subheadings

Search engines care for proper structures within the content they serve. If you want quick brownie points with Google, set your headings and subheadings with a clear hierarchy in mind.

H1 is for your page title and not anything else. H2 should act as general divisions for your sub-topics in the blog. They should contain secondary and LSI keywords relevant to your topic.

H3 subheadings are there to break down your H2 sub-topics. They are useful in detailed subtopics and make them readable for human audiences. The same works for H4 if it ever comes down to it.

A proper structure in your content can help make you look like an expert in your field.

11. Use Outbound Links

Outbound links are links that you use to reference other websites. While these don’t affect your rankings straight up, these can help with better link juice and reputation with search engines. How?

Many of the top photographer's blogs, regardless of Format vs Squarespace as providers, tend to reference more technical details, not within their pages. These outbound links are useful to help establish relevancy.

Google cares about the relevancy of their topics. By using photography taglines as a link’s anchor text, you tell Google that the upcoming page relates to that word. This increases the relevancy of your link chain.

Use plenty of outbound links where you can. Make sure they are relevant to your topic at hand so you can fulfill what they ask.

12. Use Webmaster Tools and Analytics

Google’s Webmaster tools and analytics are crucial tools that can help guide you. Google’s preferred best practices help in making sure that your site conforms with their SEO guidelines.

Their webmaster tools and analytics can help you with creating indicators. These indicators can help note your success when you’re working on your website.

SEO for Photographers is Important For Business

In the photography world, visibility is your top priority if you want to get your business going. A portfolio is crucial to taking more business, but you need to make sure people can find you too.

SEO for photographers help you show up in the search engines and show them you are relevant. There are many ways to do this, but they're quick and easy techniques you can do to score more authority.

Are you looking to take advantage of your images and use them for different products? Do you need graphic designers who know how to do it right?

Talk to us at Print Peppermint and get products for dreamers, by dreamers. Get help from experienced design and print experts today.