Have you ever wondered why some photographers show up on the top of the search and despite your best photography website SEO efforts, you can’t seem to get it to the top? In our digital age, people are turning to the internet to find their service providers, and you can’t afford to be stuck on page 30 when you need more clients to find you! Many photographers unknowingly make simple photography website SEO mistakes that prevent their dream clients from ever finding them.
But here’s the good news: these mistakes are easy to fix once you know what they are. In this article, I’m sharing the top 5 SEO mistakes photographers make, and exactly how to solve them.
Mistake #1: Using the Wrong Keywords
The biggest mistake many photographers make is not using the right keywords. For many photographers, this is because they didn’t stop to research and analyze their keywords before sticking them onto their sites.
Here’s the thing about keywords: there are good keywords, and there are bad keywords.
Ideal Client Terms
Photographers like to use vague or artistic terms like “moody,” “documentary style,” or “lifestyle,” in their keywords, but these descriptors are industry terms, not well-known words clients typically search when looking for their photographer.
As you brainstorm keywords, think about the terms and queries your ideal client would be searching in Google. Make sure they are location specific. Remember, they don’t know what industry terms mean, they just know what they need.
Research Search Volume
Another common error photographers make is targeting keywords that don’t get searched. I can’t tell you how many times a photographer has come to me saying they’re ranking top 3 on a certain keyword but don’t get any traffic to their sites. This is because there are keywords, and keyword variations, that are more searched than others. Here’s a good example: the keyword “engagement photographer atlanta ga” gets about 90 searches/month, while the keyword “georgia engagement photographer” doesn’t get any searches.
Don’t skip keyword research. Make sure that the keywords you’re targeting are actually being searched by looking at the search volume.
Competition & Difficulty
If keyword research is skipped or neglected, photographers might be using keywords that are overly competitive and won’t have a shot at ranking for, so their site gets buried in search results. In the above example, you can see that “spokane wedding photographer” has a KD (keyword difficulty) or 15%, while “wedding photographer in spokane” has a KD of 37% (and on top of that, doesn’t get any search traffic).
Check the competition or keyword difficulty for each term you consider. This will inform which keywords to go after, and which are not worth your time. This is crucial for your photography website SEO strategy.
Lastly, photographers sometimes forget to consider the search intent of their target keywords. Make sure to think about who might be searching the query in Google. You’ll want to target keywords that are being searched by your ideal client, not just anyone (and not other photographers).
Search Intent
Be more intentional about the keywords you choose to go after. It’s not just about getting tons of traffic, it’s about getting the right people to see your website. Make sure your keywords are location specific, so you’re not spending time getting traffic from people in Michigan when you’re based in Hawaii…
Keyword research is going to be a game changer to make sure you are targeting keywords that are actually being searched, not an unrealistic difficulty and competition level, and that are going to reach your ideal client. Don’t skip the research! My favorite tools are Semrush, SEOmator, and Google Keyword Planner.
Mistake #2: Not Optimizing Images
If you own a photography website, you know that displaying high quality images that showcase your best work is a must. However, this means that you’ve got large image files all over your site, and if left unoptimized, can slow your website down, resulting in poor rankings and inaccessible content (which Google hates).
How to Optimize Images
- Include descriptive file names like “los-angeles-wedding-photo.jpg)
- Use alt text to describe the photo, while using keyword rich text.
Mistake #3: Not Enough Content
Many photographers make the mistake of focusing their websites solely on sharing their images and portfolio. While sharing images is an important component to marketing your photography, focusing only on visuals is a huge issue for a photography website’s SEO (and conversion in general). A photography website without helpful content is not going to rank on Google very well, especially since Google wants to show helpful, trustworthy content to its users. It’s important to understand how search engines like Google work. Search engines understand pages based on the value of the content, and pages filled with images and no content is detrimental to a site’s success online.
Incorporate Keyword Rich Copy
Incorporate great copy that is both keyword rich and written to share your unique selling point. This is important to help both humans and bots to understand what you have to offer. Add detailed descriptions to every page of your website, making sure to share your value and unique selling point.
Write content that is helpful to your ideal client and answers their questions, while incorporating keyword to help bots understand what your page is all about. Break your text up with headings that include keywords, and don’t forget to include call-to-actions frequently to keep users on your site and to encourage them to take the next step. Your website content says a lot about your website to both human readers and search engine crawlers.
Mistake #4: Having Multiple H1’s
On the last photography website I worked on, the photographer had over 20 H1’s tagged. It’s a commonly overlooked mistake many photographers make, but it can cause issues when it comes to SEO.
Search engines read a website by analyzing the HTML code of each page, including metadata, text tags and headers, and text content. The H1 of each page is one of the key pieces of information needed for Googlebot to understand what the page is about.
If you don’t know what your H1 is on each page, chances are you’ve got random text tagged as your header such as “client love” or “imagine this.”
Tag Your Text
Go into your website builder and tag each piece of text with a header tag (H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, p, div, or nav). Make sure each page only has one H1 tagged, and it accurately describes your website’s contents. Bonus points if you can include your target keyword naturally in your H1 and other headers. The goal is to provide clarity and structure to search engines, making it easier to understand.
Mistake #5: Blogging Without a Strategy
I often see photographers churning out content once a week just to meet their monthly quota of four blog posts, because they’ve been misled by authorities in the industry who claim that in order to rank on Google, you have to blog every week. As an SEO specialist, my take is that they are completely missing the point. In fact, continually sharing blog posts that serve no real purpose for SEO can even negatively impact your site, weighing your site down with meaningless content. A key strategy many SEO’s use is actually deleting old blog posts that don’t help the site.
It’s not about how many blogs you can write. It’s about helpful, relevant, and strategic content.
I help photographers plan a rock-solid content strategy that focuses on:
- Ranking for new and creative keywords to increase traffic
- Establishing topical authority to boost the overall site’s rankings
Each piece of content we plan has a purpose and are optimized so they help steadily grow traffic to the site.
Blog with Intention
Focus on writing content that is helpful to your ideal clients, would reach a broader audience (through strategic niche-adjacent and long-tail keywords), and is related to your niche, location, or photography. These will ensure the blog posts are contributing to your website’s overall growth, and be good for SEO.
Evaluate Your Photography Website SEO
Now that you know these five mistakes, and some of my best SEO tips for photographers, make sure to take some time to evaluate your website to ensure you’re not using the wrong keywords, having multiple H1s, not including helpful content, ignoring image optimization, and creating meaningless blogs. Bonus tip: make sure you’re using the best website platform for SEO.
Need help with your photography website SEO? I offer done-for-you SEO services to help photographers reach dream clients online. Let’s chat!
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