SEO for wedding photographers
What is SEO for wedding photographers? It’s really important for wedding photographers to stand out from the crowd. On the whole, many people will want to use photographers who are local to them and that’s where good SEO can help to make a difference.
Sure, you might be a widely-recognised photographer with experience and many recommendations but it’s no longer enough and that makes it even more important to ensure that you have the right SEO in place to help people discover you. With this in mind, what can you do to improve your wedding photography SEO and increase your visibility?
It All Begins With Keywords
Sure, SEO is more than just keywords but this is not a bad place to begin. However, it is important to remember that you are going to need to rank for keywords. Therefore, if your pages do not contain relevant keywords then people are going to be unable to find you when they search.
This is where you need to consider what your clients are thinking of. What will they search for? What terms will they use? So, you might want to consider keywords such as “wedding photographer in (enter your location here)”
There are a number of tools that you can use to determine these keywords and even small variations in keywords can make a difference so make sure that you carry out the right research. So, an example of this could be the keyword “Dublin Wedding Photography” which only gets 20 searches per month. However, if you change this to “Dublin wedding photographer”, you might find that it gets hundreds of searches per month.
Use Keywords in Titles and Headings
This involves using H1, H2 headings and so on within your content. Google trawls websites to gain an idea of what they are about and it does this by looking at title tags and headers.
Therefore, your title might say “Ireland Wedding Photographer, (insert name)”. The H1 heading is the same as the title although you can only have one per page while the H2 headings can break up sections of the page. You might discuss the likes of “ Top Wedding Dress Trends in 2021” before using other H2 headings for each of the trends. If you have subsections then you can use H3 headings.
Make Sure What You Do and Where You are Can Be Found Easily
If you want more people to know who you are, what you do and where you do it then this information has to be readily available above the fold of your page. This means that it can be seen without the need to scroll. So, you will need to include the name of your business, where you are located, whether that is a city or town and what you offer which is wedding photography.
Create Captivating Content on your Homepage
Sure, you have identified keywords but you need to place those keywords in content that resonate with your audience. Tell them about who you are, what you love about photography, who you have worked with and anything else that you feel is valuable to you.
Make Use of DoFollow Backlinks
If someone links to your website from theirs then that is known as a backlink. These links can then be categorised in two ways known as NoFollow and DoFollow. A DoFollow link will inform Google that the site linking to you considers you to be authoritative and credible and that Google should consider your website as recommended. If you have a NoFollow link then this could harm your ranking.
So, the aim is to ensure that you obtain links where possible without going overboard as this can cause problems for your ranking. The aim here is to find the right balance so it all works in your favour and not against you.
Remove Duplicate Content
If Google comes across two or more pages that have identical content then it is not going to know which one is relevant to those searching for it. What this might mean is that Google either chooses the wrong one or none at all.
If you have enabled HTTPS then you should ensure that the HTTP correctly 301 redirects to the HTTPS version.
Get Your Images Right
As a wedding photographer, the one thing you are going to want to showcase is your photography capabilities and projects that you have worked on.
So, it might be tempting to upload lots of large images thinking that they are going to work for you but this won’t be the case. Overloading your website with large images will only cause problems with the load speed and Google will penalise your for this. So, if you want to ensure your website remains responsive then you should make sure that you resize your images before you add them to your website.
It is known that websites that are owned by photographers are slower than other websites. This is because they will contain more media than others. Despite this, the rule you should follow is that your images should not be any bigger than 1400 pixels on its longest side. In general, if you are using a WordPress site, then these are configured to display images at 960 to 1200 pixels wide. However, the majority of users now use their smartphones to view websites and so, you need to ensure that your website is also set up to display images correctly on these devices too.
Google My Business
This is extremely useful when it comes to SEO and Google also considers it important. Google now places an emphasis on local searches and if someone searches for “wedding photographer” then it will take their location and display local results. It enables Google to provide specific and tailored results that give users what they are looking for.
Social Media
Absolutely! Fb, Instagram, Pinterest etc … You can not ignore social media. It’s a great way to bring potential clients to your website. As a photographer, you care about the quality of pictures and that’s why you like people to see them on your website, where they are much better resolution and nicer than for those compressed photos for example on Fb. So yes share your pictures and content on all platforms you can it really help.
What it all Means
You have to satisfy the needs of Google if you want your website to rank well and be easy to find by those looking for a wedding photographer. Fortunately, the changes are extremely easy to make and they can have a big impact on how your website ranks.