Complete SEO Training for Photographers
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FOREGROUNDWEB Complete SEO training for photographers ALL MY SEO-RELATED CONTENT IN ONE SINGLE PDF: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT MAKING GOOGLE HAPPY CONTENTS: 2 The complete SEO guide for photographers: 50 tips to maximize your Google rankings & get found online 63 One single SEO tip to rule them all 66 A simpler approach to writing your SEO titles and meta-descriptions 72 Image SEO essentials: How to optimize for Google Image search to drive more traffic to your photography website 92 The photographer’s mini-guide to backlinks: how to create, gain & track links back to your site 97 SEO is no longer a game you can “win” with tags & keywords 99 20 quick tips to reduce your bounce rate & keep visitors on your site longer 104 ForegroundWeb Q&As FOREGROUNDWEB The complete SEO guide for photographers 50 TIPS TO MAXIMIZE YOUR GOOGLE RANKINGS AND GET FOUND ONLINE This is not a shallow list of Google’s ranking factors; that would have been too vague. I wanted to instead gather all photography SEO ideas and turn them into straightforward actions to improve your site in Google’s eyes. Prepare to take some time to go through this entire list and put in the hard work, all toward a photo website that both users and Google will love! This article covers 50 (yes, fifty) SEO actions to go through: • on-site & off-site SEO factors • getting backlinks • website performance & mobile-friendliness • image optimization best practices • free SEO tools • examples & graphics • links to other relevant articles & resources Some of the actions are gathered from my 60+ Photography Website Mistakes guide while others are the result of tens of hours of extensive research. You will be learning SEO basics and more advanced tactics, how to avoid common SEO mistakes, how to increase conversion rates & promote your photography site online. Many of the actions below assume you also have a blog. From an SEO point of view, a blog certainly offers a lot more content for search engines to “digest”, it can help you rank higher in search results for certain keywords. First of all, in order to harness all the ideas in this article, you should at least have a vague understanding of SEO and get acquainted with Google’s list of ranking factors. Here are some fantastic resources to get you started: • The aptly-titled “What the heck is SEO & why should I care?” • MOZ’s excellent “Beginner’s Guide to SEO” • Google’s own interactive “How Search Works” It would have been pointless to try to repeat these great pieces of content, or just put out a list of Google’s ranking factors. I wanted instead to extract all the photography-relevant ideas and turn them into clear actions you can take to improve your photo website in Google’s eyes. If you’re overwhelmed by all of this and would rather hire an expert to handle all the SEO work for your photography website, check out my complete SEO review service for photographers. I’ll give you all the help and clarity you need to rank higher in Google. Given this great diversity of ideas, I’ve tried to estimate their importance, as well as difficulty and time to implement. I’ve also tried sequencing them in a logical order, to make it easier for you to progress through them as you build or improve your website. One of the mantras here at ForegroundWeb is to always start with WHY? Intro: Why is SEO important for your photography business Photographers are very creative by nature, so SEO understandably falls under the gloomy area of “technical stuff”. But the fog is starting to lift. The SEO industry has definitely matured over the last few years, and Google’s algorithms are becoming easier to understand. It’s true that many SEO aspects require some technical experience, but the SEO grand-scheme-of-things is becoming simpler. By many estimates, there are over 200 signals that affect SEO rankings (though this is likely an exaggeration). Many of them fall into the “on-site” category (page titles, header tags, on-page copy etc.) – things that you can control. The SEO community estimates that 60-80% of all click traffic goes to the first three search results. Not only that, but if users are not satisfied with the results, they’re more likely to refine their search than to go page 2 (once again, quality beats quantity). In fact, 75% of users never view the second page of search results. So ranking well for relevant keywords leads to more visitors to your site, and, therefore, more sales or clients. Not only that, but it’s one of the most cost-effective and future-proof investments you can make. If you’re not hiring an SEO company to do the work for you, and you’re handling your site’s SEO on your own, your only expense is time (unlike investing money in advertising). And all your competitors are doing it. You can’t ignore the online market changes and just hope that your photography is good enough to rise to the surface. A mediocre photographer with a properly optimized site and well captioned/ keyworded images can take business away from you. So you need to keep moving forward (because SEO is a long-term game) and improve your position in the photography industry. Let’s get started! 1. Merge multiple websites into a single one (where appropriate) Many photographers like to spread out their online presence into multiple sites, and then having them all link back to one main website. They hope that this will help their SEO, and we can understand why: having more links is better (both in terms of number and diversity). But, in this case, it’s actually doing more harm than good, it’s losing much of the SEO value received from external sites. Let’s take a fictitious example: John Doe has his main photography website at www.johndoephotography.com (which acts as his main portfolio). But then, for simplicity, he built his blog on a separate domain (like johndoephotoblog.com) and also has a separate site specifically dedicated to selling prints (johndoeprints.com). He gets various backlinks pointing to his blog and prints sites, so this will obviously in turn help his main site’s SEO, right? That’s incorrect; the opposite is true. He is basically losing SEO “power”. If only part of those backlinks pointed directly to his main site, his SEO would be in much better shape. Those other domains are creating a (partial) barrier between brand/social signals (“link equity”) and your main website. By collecting all of the ranking signals on one main domain, you built the best possible SEO scenario. Why? Because of the ever-important concept of “domain authority”. When a domain becomes more popular, it passes its importance to all its different (internal) pages, so, in turn, they rank higher in search results. But the domain importance doesn’t get passed to other websites, so that’s basically true for the blog and prints domains in the John Doe example above. Their specific domain authority is somewhat lost when linking to the main domain. And let’s not forget about simplicity: you’re left with only one website, you can focus on it alone. The entire online marketing process becomes much easier. Branding (and SEO as well, of course) will be simpler to work on. Where isn’t this appropriate? If the website topic is completely different (two truly separate photography specialties), it makes sense to break them into two. (But it also means you’re spreading your career into two, should you be focusing on one thing alone?) Or sometimes it’s good to have a separate microsite for branding purposes (like promoting the images from an event on a mini online portfolio). But for SEO purposes, one single domain is best. Don’t take this lightly, there are exceptions. Deciding if you need to have one or multiple websites for your type(s) of work is critical, and should come before any other design or SEO considerations. Learn how to navigate this compromise before proceeding: “Having separate photography websites or merging them?” Further reading: 3rd part of this video (06:55) from Moz: How to Structure Links for SEO – Whiteboard Friday 2. Get a good domain name (if you don’t have one already) You know the basic ideas: the domain should be short, memorable and, if possible, include your brand name and/or relevant keywords for your business. Photographers usually opt for their full name (johndoe.com) and often add “photography” at the end (johndoephotography.com). Other suffixes (like “photographer” or “photo”) are less popular. Too many people include hyphenated keywords in their domain (best-photography- in-the-world.com), but that’s not ideal. The very small SEO benefit you get from using keywords in the domain name is nothing compared to the zero branding value you have: it’s difficult to remember, it lacks credibility. Further reading: • “Domain” knowledge base article (Moz) • How Your Domain Name Will Impact SEO & Social Media Marketing (Seach Engine Journal) • How To Choose Domain Names For SEO (SeoBook) • How to Choose the Right Domain Name (firstsiteguide.com) • New top-level-domains (TLDs) for photographers (ForegroundWeb) 3. Renew your domain for a longer time From an SEO standpoint, it’s always best to register (or extend) your domain name for many years in advance. It’s like a commitment. If Google notices that your domain is registered for more years to come, it considers it a sign of credibility.