Numerous people use search engines to find photographers. To make it easier to locate, you’ll need to optimize your website’s SEO and keep it updated. It may seem difficult at first, but if you follow the basic rules, you can reach the top positions of search engines.
Why do we need backlinks?
You will use these keywords in your work with backlink services for companies. So you can improve the position of your site in search results for the most important keywords.
The presence of backlinks gives the site one thing – link mass. Link mass is necessary for the site for one reason – the search engine Google pay attention to it when ranking (sorting sites in SERPs for a particular query). Search engines even have unique indicators to measure link mass. For example, Google has PR (page rank).
Select keywords and phrases
It is helpful to start SEO for photographers with the selection of keywords. This is the foundation of search engine promotion, without which you cannot succeed. The words that people type into a browser to find you are SEO keyword phrases… For example, a client is looking for a “wedding photographer.” The search engine will list the site in the search results for that query if this phrase is spelled correctly on the site.
Perform basic SEO optimization
Now you need to add the selected keywords to the text on the site. Such as:
- Title and Description tags,
- Title H1 and H2,
- URL pages,
- Readers on the site.
Optimize photos
Portfolio content, primarily photographs. It would help if you optimized them too: they will be helpful not only for clients but also for SEO for photography website.
Step 1: Prepare the photos
When working with photos, it is crucial to balance quality and file size. “Light” but blurry photos will make a wrong impression on clients. And a high-quality picture that weighs a lot can increase page load time – then customers will leave the site, and search engines will stop showing it in searches.
We need to compress all the pictures before uploading them to the site. Reducing the weight of the photo can be exported in Photoshop or Photza service for image compression. After optimization, check the speed of page loading with Google PageSpeed Insights. Optimal time – up to 3 seconds. The home page of the site loads in 1.5 seconds – this is an excellent indicator.
Step 2: Filling Alt tags
It’s essential not just to put photos in your portfolio. It would be best to make it so that search engines can understand what is shown in them. And show up in response to relevant search queries. This is especially important for a photographer’s website because they are often found in picture searches.
Tips for filling in Alt tags:
- Fill out Alt tags for each photo.
- Describe the picture briefly and clearly. Then, if the image doesn’t load, the browser will show the description, and the user can at least understand what he was supposed to see.
- Only add keywords in the report that are relevant to the photo.
Start writing a blog
The right SEO settings are just the beginning. Next, you need to improve and develop the site constantly. First of all, fill it with unique texts. After all, without them, the site will never make it to the first pages of Google. Simply copying them from other sites or your articles can not – for this, you can get sanctions and disappear from search engines altogether.
Build links
Search engines are constantly learning how to evaluate their quality and usefulness. One of the criteria that the site is good – is references. Suppose other sites publish links to it.
Quality links — are an excellent tool for promotion. To do this, they must be natural and from different reliable sites. To get them, you can publish posts on social networks, write guest articles, make partnerships.
Take seasonality into account
Traditionally, the wedding season starts in April and May and ends in September. Consequently, search queries have a similar seasonality: during this period, people are more often in need of wedding photographers. Therefore, it is better to start SEO optimization in advance to prepare for the surge.
Reindexing of the site lasts, on average, from 2 to 6 weeks and goes from the home page to the internal pages. This means that you need to update the texts on the site and fill out all the basic settings as early as February. Then, when the number of search queries grows by March, the robots will check the site and start showing it in search. And then, throughout the year, you can post articles and new shoots with optimized photos to consolidate the effect.
Conclusion
After performing SEO optimization according to the checklist, you need to update your texts, write a blog, and post pictures. As a result, the site for many queries will be on the first pages of Google. The number of visitors will grow and make up half of all traffic to the site.
