Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Photographers

I'll be honest here....I really didn't go out of my way to optimize my sites for search engines.  I know, terrible, right?  Up until my most recent site, I always had a basic HTML sites so I just figured they were search engine friendly.  And since the majority of my business is referral based, I figured it didn't really matter where I was in the search results.

I'll pause while you are appropriately horrified.

Now that's not to say that didn't do ANYTHING.  I mean, I was careful to have titles on my pages, I would enter keywords now and then on my blog posts, I would sprinkle keywords in the text of my posts. 

But now the number of photographers are growing by the day (as I write this I'm sure someone else in my neighborhood is likely starting their own photography business, and someone else will start one next week).  Is that how you feel too?  It's not just me, right?

So I decided it was time to get serious about my search engine optimization.  So I did a little experiment.  I considered what 4 sets of keywords I would like to concentrate on and I Googled those sets of keywords.

 

WOOHOO!  I was near the top of the first page.  Oh wait, what's that?  Google customizes your search results based on your viewing history?  If you didn't know that and thought you were doing great with the search engines, you might want to go back and give it another look with customizations turned off and see where you stand. See that part circled at the top of the screen?  Click there to see the search results without customizations. EDITED TO ADD: if you do not have a google account or are not logged in, to disable customizations of your search based on web history click on "web history" on the upper right side of the screen, then click "Disable customizations based on search activity".

My local listing, however, does well so I'm happy about that.

 
Part two of my experiment involved the actual optimization part. Purchasing the Photographer's SEO Book (a $39 e-book*) as a resource, I made some small tweaks to my site.  After one week I hadn't really moved.  Then I made a second round of tweaks..and HELLO!  I moved up!  And this is only doing a small percentage of the stuff mentioned in the book.

It doesn't really matter what keyword terms I am targeting because you'll need to find what works for you.  Also, I still have a lot of optimizing I can do as I've just done a few of the things listed in the book.   And I'm optimizing both my website and my blog so it can be time consuming.  But here's a chart showing some of the changes for the four keyword phrases I was targeting.

 

Considering 22% of my traffic comes from Google, I do want to move up in the ranks for certain keyword phrases.  So I targeted four phrases that I wanted to optimize for and see how it impacted where I show up in the results.  Overall, I wasn't in bad shape to begin with...frequently showing up on page 2 or 3.  But for one phrase that I actually thought I would be in good shape for...I was on page 11!!!!!

Over the two week period where I worked on optimizing the site (blue column) and blog (white column) I saw improvements in my rank for almost every phrase set.  The biggest change was moving from number 109 to number 30 for one of the terms.

I still have A LOT of stuff to do, but this shows that even small changes can make a big difference. 

*Affiliate Link

Comments

[Allison]

When I search on Google, the "View customization" link does not appear. Is there another way to access this information or temporarily disable that function?

[Jessica]

If you are not logged into a google account, you can click on the "web history" link at the upper right side then click on the "Disable customizations based on search activity" link. Hope that works for you!

[Julie Stephens]

Do you have any suggestions on keywords? I don't how to think like a consumer in this area. What terms might they be using?

[Daniele]

I just finished with the SEO Book and found it very useful too! I'm curious to know if you also bought his video on how to build a master keyword list. Sounds useful, but not sure if I really need it.

http://photographers-seo.com/seo/buy-products/keyword-list-video-training/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+photographers-seo-book+%28Photographers+SEO+Book%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

[Jill]

I use the information for the Photographer's SEO Book and it's wonderful! I'm at number one and have been for a year and half. Good tip to your readers!

[Melissa]

This is my goal for this year, get familiar with SEO and get my numbers up. Thanks for the link and review on this book, I will look into it. I trust your opinion, you were right about Learnfest ;)

[Patrick Long]

It's a great thing that you have decided to be serious in search engine optimization. SEO can really help you if you want to be more famous and known than any other photographers in Houston. Good choice Jessica!