SEO Tips for Photographers | Checklist for 2023

Unpopular opinion. You don’t need a substantial social media following for a successful photography business. However, you need a way to get in front of clients, and that’s where your website comes in. Getting started ranking with Google can feel challenging, but here is a checklist of my best SEO Tips for Photographers. SEO is an investment that will continue to pay big rewards for years.

Number 1 SEO Tip for Photographers, Get a Key Phrase Plan

Nothing else will work if you don’t have a plan for your website. But a plan shouldn’t be complicated. It’s as simple as saying which of your main pages you want to rank for what Key Phrase.

One webpage should only have 1-2 key phrases as a goal. However, one goal doesn’t mean you won’t rank for more because you will. However, it gives each page a target or focus, so Google knows where your authority lies.

Is it Dallas, TX Family Photography, Dallas, Texas Portrait Photographer, or Texas Maternity Photographer? These are key phrase goals.

Check out this blog for a deeper dive into keyphrase planning.

Continue to create new content related to your key phrases

Second, to that keyphrase plan, a tip I give photographers about SEO is keeping your site fresh. Google loves leaving breathing sites, so ensure you are infusing your site with new and updated content.

It doesn’t need to be an overhaul of your home page every month. Simply a new blog or update a section of an existing page.

Here are a few ideas-

• Blogging
• Adding new reviews throughout your website
• Create a section on your main pages where you can recommend specific blogs
• Spruce up 3-4 sentences on high-traffic areas to include a focus on your key phrase

A critical SEO tip for all Photographers is optimizing those images

It couldn’t be a list of SEO Tips for Photographers without talking about photos. Make sure your images are the correct size according to your website builder. Depending on who you’re building your website with, they could recommend different sizes depending on whether they resize them. I use Showit (You can check out my Showit Review Here), and while they say they optimize for you, I still reduce the size quite a bit before putting them on my site.

Correctly using alt-text is another tip to remember when optimizing your images for SEO. You don’t need to keyword stuff your alt text. If you post relevant photos to the expertise you’d like to be known for, the image’s description will organically support your key phrase goal.

Update your header tags to jump-start your SEO success

Header tags are often called heading tags, H tags, or HTML tags. They will almost always have a number after them, signifying the importance, one being the most important, and going down from there. About half of these should talk about or relate to your key phrase.

Remember to keep these conversational. Don’t stuff key phrases into headings but use them in the same way you might talk to someone about your job.

Every website builder uses these a bit differently. Showit and WordPress allow you only to affect the heading tag designation, whereas others might update the header tag, but it automatically adjusts your font. So before updating these, double-check how your website builders handle the change.

Photographers need a good linking structure to get crawled by Google

Make sure your website has a cohesive and logical internal linking structure. A good tip when it comes to linking is to mimic your user. Can you quickly get from one page to the next without having to scroll back up the menu?

When you start working on linking for SEO look for dead ends on websites. Meaning can your user to scroll to a place where they have to scroll way back to go somewhere else? Also, check for content islands on your websites. Content islands are something that really isn’t linked well back to anywhere else. Often for photographers, our portfolios become exactly that.

Extra Credit SEO Tip for Photographers is all about backlinks

Just as the internal links on your site matter to google, so do the links pointing back to your photography website. Come up with a list of ways to get established websites to link back to your site.

Now, this is a lot more challenging for family photographers than, say, commercial or wedding photographers. But backlinks are doable for every genre of photography. Think about all the people you work with, places you shoot, or other relationships in the photography business. Can you offer a guest blog or take photos for a location in exchange for a backlink?

SEO is not about tricking the system or beating the algorithm. Believe it or not, Google wants to rank you. Sometimes it simply needs more information about your business before it can do so.

If you want to go deeper into SEO and keyword planning, you can signup below for a FREE SEO starter kit for creatives. Plus, you can join my newsletter crew, where I share tips and ideas for making SEO work for your business.

Good luck with this list of SEO tips! If you start implementing any of this in your business, email me and let me know how it goes.