SEO for Photographers Archives

7 Warning Signs That Your Search Engine Skills Are Outdated

This is a guest post by SEO Expert Zach Prez.

Ranking in search is a huge factor that can put a local small business in the photography industry on the path to success. Search is huge to the tune of $80 billion — that’s how much economic activity Google generated for U.S. businesses in 2011.

It’s fun to dream about ranking #1, growing your business and gaining a bucket of disposable income. I’d spend it on a lifetime supply of Keurig coffee cups, an entire furniture collection from Pottery Barn Kids, and a season pass to Disneyland with airfare for five.

The money is appealing, but it certainly isn’t the lone benefit of ranking well.

A high search ranking can help you to:

Get more clients
Attract the right clients
Grow your business to a point where you can charge the fees you deserve
Scale back paid marketing activities
Look like you’re the best in your area

And we haven’t even reached the best part: New business that starts in search engines has a multiplier effect that leads to repeat clients, referrals and reputation.

I talk about these benefits in my newest ebook “Recipes to Rank Higher: The Search Engine Cookbook for Photographers.”

The cookbook covers everything I’ve learned the past 10 years that’s relevant to ranking higher — from image optimization and video ranking to Google+ and Google Places. I wrote this new ebook because so much has changed. I consult with photographers every day and all of them have preconceived notions about what Google cares about. And they’re wrong!

Instead of writing a traditional post here that discusses the same ranking factors as everyone else, I’m here to turn the discussion upside down — to convince you that something’s wrong with your current search engine optimization (SEO) process. [Click to read more]

Get the Photography Clients You Deserve from Google Search

This week’s post is a guest post from Zach Prez.

You take stunning child portraits that can change the attitude and environment of an entire household simply by displaying your work on the wall.

Why doesn’t Google see your website in the same light and reward your quality photography with an outstanding rank?

First, search engines look at your website differently than clients. Search pays special attention to titles, URLs, and image text that clients ignore.

Second, people search for more than a “photographer in city X.” Clients search a particular style, season, and price all in a single phrase. This post outlines how to rank well for dozens of key topics in your niche so you can finally get the business you deserve from search.

[Click to read more]

Are You Making These 3 Common SEO Mistakes When Blogging?

The number one struggle that photographers have when starting their photography business is getting the word out about their business and finding more new clients.

Blogging is one of the best ways to get new clients that haven’t heard of you before.

If you can show up when people search for a photographer in a search engine like Google, then you’ll have a better chance of finding new clients. In fact, we get the majority of our new clients this way.

While this can take a lot of time and be overwhelming, there’s three mistakes that I see almost all new photographers making that are easy to fix that will help you rank higher almost immediately. I’ll be showing you how to change these things quickly in WordPress, since it has all the tools you need in it to help you rank higher (so I think everyone should be using it!)

Are you making these three common SEO mistakes?

[Click to read more]

The Photographer’s Guide to Building Links (And Why They Are Necessary)

No matter how optimized your website is, around 60% of the ranking factors for search engines involve links from other sites to your site called backlinks.

There are important aspects to each link which may make one more valuable than another.

So lets see if we can break all of this down and tell you how to get these valuable links without getting too technical (like I promised in my last post).

[Click to read more]

Does Your Photography Website Have a Twin and Not Know It?

The question is: Does your website have a twin and not know it?

The answer is: More than likely.

We’ll be getting a little technical here, but the concept is simple and it’s important to get resolved early on. It has to do with the little “www” that either appears or doesn’t appear when you look at the address bar when visiting your photography website. It’s OK to have one or the other, but it’s not OK to have both.

We want to establish a “Canonical” website address, which is just a fancy way of saying a default website address so that one takes precedence over the other.

[Click to read more]

How to Configure WordPress SEO Plugin by Yoast for Maximum Online Exposure

There is much debate about what Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Plugin for WordPress is the best. Currently I use the WordPress SEO Plugin by Yoast. Aside from being a very talented WordPress developer, Joost de Valk (pronounced Yoast) has a good handle on the needs of WordPress users in addition to all the benefits that ship straight out of the box with WordPress.

[Click to read more]

Show Up in Search Engines: 3 Easy WordPress SEO Tips for Photographers

Showing up on the first page of search engine results can seem like an impossible task when starting a new website. These easy tips will help you on your way to getting more traffic and prospective clients to your blog by ranking higher in search engines.

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is simply a name for the things you can do to help improve your chances of ranking well. While this generally take some time, there are three very easy things you can do within WordPress that help immensely right from the start. These alone will not get you to the coveted page 1, but they will give you the framework you need to get started.

[Click to read more]