subject: Beginner SEO Tips for Wedding Photographers (And Other Small Businesses) [print this page] Beginner SEO Tips for Wedding Photographers (And Other Small Businesses)
There are two different things to look at when thinking about making your site rank well in the search engine results (SERP). One is what you do on your site and the second is what you are doing off of it. The first is probably the most crucial and easy to understand.
Before we start it is important to have a goal. And by goal - it is important to know what keywords you are trying to target. The more specific the better. You don't have any significant chance of being #1 for "wedding photography"
You want to have a good sense of the keywords you are targeting at all times. A good place to start would be to target the term "wedding photographer" as well as the city and state of your biggest market.
As you work on your SEO you will continue to expand your keywords to reach other local areas as well as services and products that you offer.
Also, keep in mind that most people may search for broad terms, but as you work on your site, you will also want to focus on how people are searching for you using long tail keywords. This means they are using many specific terms to find exactly what they want. You have a much better chance of getting a lead from that prospect, if they find your site, than someone who is just searching for wedding photographers.
There are a lot of people that can spend hours and days doing keyword research. But, this is a beginner's guide - so keep it simple for now.
1. META Tags
Meta tags are pieces of code hidden on each page of your website that help search engines understand what that page is about. The two most important tags you need to worry about are the title and description tags.
The title tag displays on the top of your web browser and is also the bold link that search engines display in their results.
This is the first thing that the search engines see and it is very important. You want to make sure that you title your page as accurately as possible, while trying to get your keywords in there without looking like spam. For example - "Joe Smith Photography | Philadelphia Wedding & Portrait Photography".
You want to keep it simple and don't stuff the text with keywords. Remember, you don't want to look like a spam site, you want to look professional.
The next tag is the description tag. Basically, you have about two sentences to describe the page. Because it shows up in the search engine results, I try to do two things: 1) make sure to incorporate your keywords and 2) try to make people click through to your site. Example: "Clay Toporski Photography is an award winning wedding photographer in Philadelphia PA. Please visit our website to view our stunning wedding galleries."
Many people will also talk about your keywords tag. Basically, your keywords tag is a list of your keywords. Google doesn't even use it anymore, and it is slowly losing all credibility among major search engines - so it is unimportant in the long run.
2. Content
In the world of SEO - content is king. The more pages you have, the more search engines will like you. And the more often you update your site, the more the search engines will like you. The first thing I will tell you is that you should lose your flash based websites. They aren't helping you at all.
Next, I will go into details about why blogs are your best friend, writing content is important - and how to utilize your image tags to make sure you are optimizing every part of your on site content to help the search engines find you and index you.
Why is content so important? The most important reason is that 1 page isn't going to give you the opportunity to rank for more than one or two search terms. Multiple pages allow you to rank for more and more keywords and will increase traffic to your site.
So why is flash bad?
Flash is bad because search engines can't see it. They don't know what content you have on that page - and therefore, you won't get a lot out of it.
Why are blogs good?
Blogs are great because you write about who you are and what you do. The more you write about that - the easier it is for people to find you.
You don't know what people want - and generally, you shouldn't care what people want. You should care that search engines know what you do well and what kind of clients you want to find you.
Blogs are great for long tail search. When you talk about the wedding you had at Pine Meadows Country Club in your blog - you are talking to the next person who might be looking for a photographer who has experience taking pictures at that same place.
Remember, it is not the amount of traffic to your site that matter - you want traffic that is focused on what you do.
This shouldn't change much about how you write, although you should include a good paragraph or two for each entry; instead, this is to remind you why blogging is important. And, the more you write blog posts, the more you add to your content and the more and better traffic you are inviting to your site.
Images
As photographers, you are going to have lots and lots of images on your page. The good news is that you can use these to help you and most people don't.
The first thing to remember is the actual name of the file. Don't just import a file named DSC_4285. It is bad. Instead, name the file something appropriate to the picture: bride-groom-kissing.jpg is way better. (Use hyphens between words - don't use underscores).
Next, after you load the image, you should give the image an alt tag. The alt tag is basically the text equivalent of the picture should it not load. That is what the search engines see and understand when looking at your photos.
The alt tag should be a short sentence describing the image - and incorporating some keywords into the sentence. For example, if the file is bride-groom-kissing.jpg the alt tag might be something like "Bridge and Groom Kissing at Wedding at Pine Meadows Country Club Princeton New Jersey".
For multiple images, don't over use your keywords. But definitely make a good description for each photo.
Final Thoughts
Here is the deal - your on site stuff helps Google understand what your site is about and of what things you are an authority. Having good on-site SEO makes it easy for Google to put you in the right place. Having good off-site SEO will help Google to understand how much of an authority you are.
Conclusion
A couple things that I missed are header tags. Basically, the h1, h2, h3, etc tags that make your text bigger and bolder on your site. Basically, H1 tags at the beginning of your page hold more weight than, say, all the text below it.
Again, make sure to incorporate your keywords, but always make your text conversational, normal and easy to read. Don't forget that people are going to read what you write - not just search engines.
