How Does Local SEO Affect Your Photography?
These days getting your photography business online is equivalent to owning a shop in the crowded marketplace. In both scenarios, you are always surrounded by many potential customers who want to avail of your photography services. Moreover, for local customers, your services are boon, and for you, these customers bring a plethora of opportunities and significant revenues.
Referrals and word of mouth were the ways to attract customers to your business. Now with digitalization, search engine optimization has replaced the old-school techniques to attract potential customers. Moreover, by availing of the affordable local SEO services, you can get found by the local customers on the internet. All you need is, tell Google about your photography business, location, areas you serve, the services you provide etc. Once you provide all the services and optimize your website by following the likes and dislikes of the search engine, your business will more likely be on the top search results when a potential customer looks for photographers.
Why should local SEO be given due importance for a photography business?
As per our findings, most customers prefer taking local services despite going to a different place. Also, one in every two people who made a local search on their phone went to the store within that day. Simultaneously, one in every three customers who searched on their tablet or computer went to the local store within a day. All these stats represent the importance of local SEO services to attract local customers to your photography business.
Another critical thing to note is local based searches have a high purchase intent. If anybody is searching for “photographers near me,” “photographer in Florida,” “photography services in California,” represents the searcher will be more likely to turn into a buyer.
How to get started with local SEO for photographers?
Here are the steps that will allow you to rank higher on search engines for your photography business.
1. Use on-page optimization to get the traffic for your photography business
On-page optimization is a crucial factor which helps search engine like Google to understand your website. To attract local customers, you should include the location of the photography business on your website. You must create the contact us page containing your business name, full address, contact number and email address. Besides, you can also follow the instructions provided below for detailed on-page SEO for photographers.
- Optimize every page for the keywords relevant to photography.
- Interlinking of pages is another crucial factor that increases the conversion rate by helping visitors move around the website.
- Word length should be a minimum of 500 words on each page.
- Our SEO expert USAprefers writing 1500 words blog post to rank higher on Google.
- Using natural language on H2 headings also gives you an edge over others on search engines.
- Optimizing the images on your website makes them load faster, enhancing user navigation.
- Always use a strong call to action buttons for your visitors to navigate to the other web pages.
- Use keywords in meta title, meta description, H1 headings and at least one H2 heading to add relevancy to your website.
- Hire the best local SEO services to optimize your website for mobile, tablets and other devices.
- Link your website to social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn to promote easy sharing among visitors.
2. Keyword localization is the key for local SEO for photographers
Localizing your keywords will help the search engine know more about your business, the area it covers and the local traffic that you can serve. The thumb rule is you should add the location you cover with the keyword. Supposedly, you offer services in New Jersey, then use the keyword “photographer in New Jersey” or “best photographer in New Jersey,” etc. This way, you can give a local spin to your photography business and optimize your page titles, meta descriptions, alt tags for images etc.
3. Focus local search intent while optimizing the website
Focusing on your website’s right search intent will help Google know your site better and help drive the right traffic to your website. Additionally, Google gets to know about the blog post, videos and images on your website. You can also add local-based queries on your website, for instance, the most scenic places in (city) for a wedding. By creating such blog posts of local intent, you can help Google understand your expertise in the field, making you the preferred candidate for topping the charts on Google.
4. Get quality backlinks to authenticate your website
Backlinks are the hyperlinks that connect the highly authoritative sources to your website, building the right image and driving enormous traffic. The SEO expert USA considers the website’s authority as the primary focus while ranking the website to the top of the search results. To meet the local SEO needs, getting your photography work published in local publications or newspapers can help you attract the local mass very quickly.
5. Create Google My Business profile
Creating a Google My Business profile is another most crucial SEO strategy for photographers. It kicks start for free and helps you flash your services page on the Google search engine. Another best pick is Bing places, which makes your photography business appear on Bing. You simply need to mention NAP, your business name, address, and phone number to start using these services. Moreover, your services are given ratings based on customer reviews, along with considering other factors. Many local SEO services offer to create the GMB profile on a priority basis.
6. Take help of local directories
There are several sites like Facebook, Yelp, Photographer central, Pinterest, where you can register your business. These websites have built a strong reputation with search engines, and their suggestions are preferred across various channels. These websites list your NAP details, increasing the possibilities for you to get found by potential customers. Ensure the correct NAP details so that when the customer tries calling, they should not feel trouble contacting. Here is the list of local directories to help you increase the chances of search appearance.
- Google My Business
- Yelp
- Yellowpages.com
- WhitePages.com
- Photographer Central
- Manta
- The Knot
- Local.com
- And much more
7. Don’t ignore the importance of online reviews
Before taking the services, users often notice the review ratings of a website. If they found it satisfactory, they finalize the offer. However, if the reviews and ratings are not up to the mark, they jump to another higher credibility option. Google simply takes the information on user reviews from the GMB profile and flashes it when someone searches for the keyword relevant to your website. It builds a trustworthy reputation for your photography website on users.
As per the new research from Google, social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter influence search results. That means you shouldn’t be surprised to see your photography’s Facebook page on Google search results that too on the top. Another search engine Bing has also confirmed its love of social media platforms considering people’s high-volume over these platforms.
To increase the chances of ranking your website, you must create a profile in all the social media platforms, preferably on the websites with more significant influence locally. Make sure that all your NAP details are identical across all the social media platforms.
SEO is not an option but a topmost priority for photographers
After going through this blog, you would have gotten aware of the importance of SEO for photographers and how helpful it can be, once followed correctly. In photography, 80% of business comes from local customers, which requires you to be quite serious about using the SEO services. It makes it easy for potential customers to find your business online, giving you an edge over the peer competitors. To summarize, here are the key points to kick start the SEO for your photography business.
- Use on-page optimization to get the traffic for your photography business
- Keyword localization is the key for local SEO for photographers
- Focus local search intent while optimizing the website
- Get quality backlinks to authenticate your website
- Create Google My Business profile
- Take help of local directories
- Don’t ignore the importance of online reviews
These points will prove to be the milestones on your journey to set up a successful photography business. Many people, however, are surrounded by a myth about SEO as a costly and premium services. The cost of most of the affordable local SEO services is much less than advertising on TV or other campaigns. Nevertheless, you have to put in some effort to find the best that suits your need and your business.
With the power of search engine optimization, your business has an opportunity to appear in front of millions of people and attract them to take your services. SEO is indeed a powerful tool if used wisely.
