In a super education-filled winter and early spring, I had the honor of speaking at a local photography event held  by the Central Illinois Professional Photographers Association in February about a topic I love endlessly: blogging! Along with blogging, I spoke about SEO and while that is a huge topic with a lot of different facets, and I am not an SEO expert, a lot of my practices for SEO hinge on my blog– so the topics went pretty well together.  I loved speaking with a room of photographers who just get it…they get what I do and why I do it– and they are all doing the same sorts of things!  But it was clear that SEO is a tricky topic for everyone, so I wanted to share my big 3 tips for SEO beginners on the blog today!

Now, really quickly, let’s start at the beginning: What is SEO anyways? If you already know, feel free to scroll down to the tips! If you don’t SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and basically describes how much google, or another search engine, decides your website MATCHES other’s searches- and therefore how highly to rank it.  With millions of searches every hour, it is safe to say that you want to have strong SEO so when someone in your area searches for “Springfield IL Wedding Photographer”, you show up on the first page.  Building your SEO takes time and work, but with these steps you can be on your way!

3 simple SEO tips for photographers

1). Content is king!

More than anything, google and other search engines are indexing sites highly that have good quality content. Great content more likely draws viewers to it, and the more people see your site the higher google will rank it.  This also means that blogging is important.  You may have heard me write about it before HERE, but blogging has been the number 1 marketer of my business, and I know that daily publishing new content tells google each day that my site is active, that there is new content, and that it should send people to me!  Can people have great SEO without a blog? Sure. But it takes a lot of extra work and blogging has so many benefits!   If you are stuck on what HERE to blog about, click for over 2 pages of blogging content ideas!

2). You have to have text on your home page

I totally understand the artistic desire to have a beautiful home page full of just images…after all, we are photographers, right? But the thing is, google has no idea what to do with that (even if you name your images, which we are getting to!).  If you want google to see your home page, you have to have text on it stating what you do and where you are.   You want to try to use the search terms people who are looking for what you do might use– think about the locations and the text they would use, and get that on your page. This is what I have on mine:

and

While google certainly doesn’t care about my obsession with statement necklaces, my ideal client might…and google DOES care about where I am and what I do!

I do think there is a fine line between having so much that it just feels like a sales pitch– but you have to decide what works for you! Either way, get some text on your home page!

3). Name your texts and your posts with keywords!
It is really easy to export and upload images with whatever name our camera used, or perhaps the client names like “Jessica+Nathan001.jpg”.  But Google doesn’t know or care who Jessica and Nathan are– and it’s  not helping you! Make sure that either on export or through another program (I use Blogstomp to prep my images for my blogposts!) you are naming your images something that people might search, like: “Illinois Spring Blush and Navy Classic Wedding Photography.001” (you can have a number if you want!).  That is the sort of thing a bride might be searching in my area and then they might end up on my photos- but there is no chance that happens with the clients names.  The same concept applies to your post title– I know it feels very personalized to use their names, but it is hurting your SEO! I use a subtitle plugin (search for them- there are many!) so my couple’s names can still be in the title, but my actual title that Google cares about uses those same sorts of keywords I would have used to name the photos, because google can find that!

This is just the beginning of a vast topic of SEO, and I would be happy to answer any questions or share more about it if you are interested! Also make sure to join the exclusive JGP education newsletter by clicking HERE— hundreds of photographers are getting new content that isn’t just on the blog there each week and I’d love for you to be a part of it too!

I have to share this one image my Michael took when I spoke for CILPP, because it is literally the only picture ever of me teaching where I don’t look crazy! I am a little over-expressive for the camera when I teach apparently. 😉

For other FREE education posts for photographers and small business owners, click HERE!