Recently I’ve heard quite a bit about how “blogging is dead”, but I have to disagree—at least for the portrait photography industry. While many of my clients do find me by word of mouth, or Facebook recommendations from friends, over half my clients in 2015 found me through google. I worked hard at the beginning of the year to streamline my posting process and optimize my website for the best SEO results. I added the Yoast plugin to my blog, but most of all focused on writing content with specific keywords my audience may be searching for.
Start with the headline! While you do not want to go overboard (google willlllll notice), make your blog headlines lengthy, but effective. My formula is “description of session . age / type of session . location”. Example from a recent post: “Golden Fall Sunset . Child Photographer . Worcester, MA”. Stacked with descriptive keywords! When searched for in google, there are a ton of combinations which will bring up my website: “child photographer”, “Worcester photographer”, “Fall photographer”, even “sunset photographer”.
My website currently ranks first or second on google when you search for “Westborough photographer” or other combinations in my genre/area. Not only that, but at least 1-2 of my blog posts are pulled into the first page of google if the specific details fit the search. Having 2-3 links on the first page gives me a HUGE advantage over the over listings on the page. Almost impossible not to click on one of my links! Just the other day I was searching for a dance studio in my area and came across my own website! I had a post with “my little dancer” in the text, which was about my 2-year-old daughter and her love of dancing + frilly dresses. While the mom searching for dance studios for her daughter isn’t specifically searching for a photographer, she IS my ideal clientele. With a few specific keywords I now have the chance to wow her with the images I took of my own little dancer.
The most important factor, and I can’t stress this enough, is to just get out there! Start talking about your work—the ages you cater to, specific locations (towns, parks, etc), colors, seasons—anything that makes your work special and what you would want to be found for. Visibility is key…start blogging!
