SEO For Photographers

7 key SEO strategies for photographers to show up on google

Inside this SEO workshop we’re going to cover an important and confusing topic: SEO for your photography website. Whether you’re a brand new photographer just trying to build your business or you’ve been in it for a couple of years but are struggling to get bookings, understanding the essentials when it comes to SEO is absolutely key to getting your website to show up in google.

Over the last 6 years I’ve had the chance to build several photography websites and have learned a LOT about what it takes to rank on google. In this workshop I’m going to share the SEO keys I’ve used to get my photography site ranking number 1 across the most competitive search terms in my city, and give you practical tools and strategies you can start applying to your photography SEO efforts today.

While mileage may vary depending on the competition in your city or town, the beautiful part about SEO for photographers is that 90% of photographers out there have almost no clue when it comes to SEO strategies. This is super good news for you!

Over the next hour or so we’ll cover how SEO works, what factors effect your google ranking, and the practical things you can start doing today to work on your SEO and be one of the few photographers who shows up on the first page of google.

Ready? Let’s dive in!

[powerkit_collapsibles]
[powerkit_collapsible title=”(Click Here For Video Transcript)”]
Do you want your website to show up in
Google search or are you struggling to
figure out how to show up in Google
search? Today we are going to be talking
about the seven keys to showing up in
Google search with Google search 101. Are
you ready? Let’s get into it.
[Music]
hey guys Ryan here at signature edits
and today we are going to be going over
the keys to showing up in Google search
now whether you are a photographer a
videographer a creative of any kind or
just somebody who wants to have your
business show up in Google search
today’s video is going to be for you now
first off is this video worth my time is
it worth your time that’s something
you’re going to have to decide but I
promise you it is going to be loaded and
packed with practical things you can do
to start showing up in Google search
today some of these strategies that I’m
going to share with you literally took
me from page four up to page two in one
day
one quick little tip one of them of the
seven I’m going to show you took me up
by two pages in about five minutes work
so let’s get into it and we’re going to
go over the content together first off
who will mine I am a full-time
photographer videographer filmmaker
right now I am the creative director
behind signature edits we produce
branding templates and marketing guides
tutorials and instructions for
photographers videographers and
creatives so I started four years ago
but I really struggled when I started
out like most of you I had no idea how
to design a website how to start a
business how to get clients all that
sort of stuff I spent hundreds of
dollars on training template
subscriptions and spent years trying to
figure out this SEO thing SEO stands for
search engine optimization it’s
basically what you do to get your
website to show up on Google so I spent
tons of money tons of time trying to
figure this stuff out and eventually I
got there but the purpose of today’s
video is so that you’re not going to
have to spend hundreds of dollars in
training and spend years learning this
stuff in order to see results I’m going
to show you the key steps some really
quick strategies you can use to see
results today and full disclosure I am
going to give you a pitch for a product
at the end of this video but there’s no
obligation there we’re going to give you
tons of value before that and stuff you
can practically apply this is just if
you want to take it to the next level we
are going to offer that to you okay so
let’s get into it
ranking on Google here’s the seven
tested and proven strategies I got to
start off with my story to get you to
understand a little bit of where I’m
coming from and why this stuff is so
important so my very first website I
went out and did what a lot of you
probably did I created a website I
upload
a few photos and I waited for the
bookings to come piling in pouring in
and that wasn’t really the case my
results were a little different from
what I expected what actually happened
was I created the website I uploaded my
photos and nothing but crickets it
turned out nobody was going to my
website nobody saw my photos to begin
with so without that I had zero bookings
zero inquiries nothing was happening and
I was frustrated so I bought a tub of
ice cream and I cried on the couch that
is round one of website design and you
might have gone to the same place
because they say and it’s very true that
the best place to hide a body is on the
second page of Google search you do not
want to be listed in page nine ten
eleven twelve of Google search when
someone searches for your business
because they’ll never find you most of
the people click on the first two three
four results or the first page and
that’s about as far as they go on their
research so you need to place an
emphasis on your SEO if you want to get
a lot of business now flash-forward to
today I actually am ranking number one
we’re gonna turn on the internet here
while we’re waiting for that I am
ranking number one for my main keyword
in my area so if you go onto Google and
you search for a Kelowna wedding
photographer and if you scroll down to
the very first result after maps we have
my website at the very top here and this
is so important because ninety-five
percent of my business guys comes
directly from my website because every
single bride who searches for their city
and wedding photographer well if it’s my
city they’re going to see my stuff at
the very very top and I’m going to be
kind of the first consideration that
they go through so the beauty of this
stuff is it’s not actually that hard
it’s pretty simple guys it’s easy to
implement strategies it takes a little
bit of work a little bit of time but I’m
even going to show you some fast ways to
get results so let’s hop back into our
presentation here now
here’s the problem that I had when I
first started out nobody knew that I
existed if you don’t show up on Google
search no one ever sees your website or
photos to begin with so how are you
going to book your clients and maybe
you’re in this place right now you’ve
started a website you have some decent
photos but no inquiries why is that well
it’s probably because people aren’t
visiting your web
to begin with so I started experimenting
I started reading marketing blogs I
tweaked and redesigned my website four
or five six times over I wrote a bunch
of random blog posts because somebody
said that blogging was a way to get
traffic I spent about $200 on Facebook
Ads that didn’t do absolutely anything
and that was the worst the worst is when
you spend money and you’re not getting
any results it was super frustrating and
here was the challenge the challenge was
there was a huge crazy stupid long
feedback loop and a feedback loop if
you’ve never heard of one of these
before is basically how long it takes
you to try something get feedback see if
that thing worked and then tweak it if
it didn’t or keep doing it if it did so
for instance if you were a programmer
you choose an action you write a little
bit of code and you enter that into your
computer then you press Enter that’s
performing the action then you go
through you wait for the code and you
see ok did that work did that not work
and pretty much instantaneously you get
that feedback you know if the worked or
didn’t if it didn’t you change something
if it did you keep going and you keep
working and you cycle and you build your
business right the problem is if you are
doing this with SEO it takes forever
it’s crazy stupid long so I might write
a blog post today and wait three months
only to find out that blog post didn’t
do anything
I might redesign my website and wait two
three four five months and not really
see any results SEO is super super
tricky that way because the results come
over time you don’t get that instant
feedback you don’t know if things work
right away so that is why it is so
important not to just waste a bunch of
time trying random things but to figure
out from somebody who’s actually done it
what are the things that work okay so
that’s what we’re going to go over today
the things that work do you want to
spend months just to find out what you
tried didn’t work no of course not you
want to find a roadmap that lays out
exactly what you need to do to get your
site to rank so fast forward four years
later here’s the difference that SEO
makes after spending all this time
experimenting reading buying training
that sort of thing I managed to figure
out how to rank my site and now it ranks
number one for competitive keywords so
instead of me having to chase down
business and worry about where my next
shoots going to come from 95% of my
business comes directly to me from my
website now just picture this if your
website had those kind of results if you
were actually not having to search for
require ease but inquiries were coming
to you how much better would that be
that’s why SEO for photographers is so important why it
matters that you show up on the first
page of Google so now that we’ve kind of
talked about what works what doesn’t the
difference between following a road map
and just making it up as you go let’s
get into the meat of the content and I’m
gonna give you the seven keys to ranking
on Google all right so number one
ranking comes down to this authority and
relevance that’s what Google is kind of
weighing in its mind if it decides to
show your page or somebody else’s page
when someone searches for whatever term
it is you’re trying to rank for
so Authority is the amount of trust that
Google has assigned to your domain
around a given topic and relevance is
how closely it perceives your topic to
line up with whatever is being searched
for so let me give you an example of
this really quickly let’s jump over here
and we’re going to search for how to
change a tire great so we’re gonna look
here and the very first result how to
change a flat tire by Bridgestone tires
so notice that my search was how to
change a tire it’s got all those words
in the result that is obviously very
relevant now Authority we are writing
this is by Bridgestone tires a huge
company which Google assigns a ton of
authority a ton of trust because they’ve
been around for a long time because
they’re a known brand and because they
have a lot of traffic and various other
factors that determine what authority is
given to that website so we’re going to
jump in and show you seven different
techniques you can use to build
Authority and relevance in Google’s eyes
so that when someone searches for an
inquiry Google decides to show your
website okay so let’s jump into number
one that is the age of your site that’s
called site domain age how long your
site has actually been around and in
existence Google looks at companies that
have been around for longer and says
okay they’ve been around for longer
therefore they’re probably more
trustworthy they have more authority so
this can be one of the biggest stumbling
block blocks in getting your site ranked
right away is if you just created your
you know Ryan’s photography.com domain
it’s brand new and it doesn’t have a lot
of authority because Google doesn’t
trust it yet it was just put up there
how do they know it wasn’t a hacker or a
scammer or a business that doesn’t
really have a lot of credit so one way
to get around this I’m going to show you
is really really
you can jump over to something like a
domain auction so you can actually buy
domains that have existed for a lot
longer and get way ahead in the ranking
curve so normally if you wanted to rank
your site you’d have to wait probably a
minimum of six months before you can
expect to see good results from just a
brand new domain however if you buy an H
domain somebody else’s photography site
that they’re now selling you can grab
one of those it already has been around
for a couple of years and you can
probably rank it in weeks instead of
months or even years so let’s jump over
to GoDaddy its auctions GoDaddy calm
there are lots of these kind of sites
and we just type in photography hit
Search it’ll update for me so it’s fresh
and new and you can see we’ve got all
these domains that are up for sale some
of them are very expensive and some of
them are dirt cheap and that’s what’s
the best about this so for instance Roy
gray photography comm you can buy this
domain for $8 now would I buy this
domain probably not because my name is
not Roy gray but we can look for one
that maybe is a little bit more generic
and if you don’t care it’s a lot about
the name of your photography studio this
is a way to go definitely so we’re going
to scroll down here and I’m actually
going to sort these domains by estimated
value it’s going to scroll down here and
at the very top we’ve got vivo
photography com how to wedding
photography com let’s go with remember
photography com I get out of a studio
called remember photography so I am
going to just copy that domain and my
next step is I’m going to head over to
web archive org so I’m just going to
reset this page and we’re going to put
that domain into the Wayback Machine and
what that’s going to do is it’s going to
pull up archived versions of this
website this is important because if I
were to actually just put in this
website address nothing is going to show
up I’m not gonna have any info about how
long it’s been around how many links it
has to it how much the domain is
actually worth because nothing is there
it’s an expired domain so what I can do
instead is put it in here it’s going to
pull up archived saved snapshots of this
website and I can see that this website
was actually created way back in 2003 if
I select this year I can even look at
different screenshots from different
points in this website’s history so
let’s go to June 18th for example and
you can see that this is a beautiful
website
just getting it honestly probably wasn’t
too bad back in 2003 when things were
just taking off in the Internet but the
beauty of this is this website has been
around for a long time that’s the
purpose of this is we can see how long
it’s been around now we can buy this
domain for how much twelve dollars for
twelve bucks I can buy this domain have
a domain that can rank right away and
has a lot of street cred in Google’s
eyes so that’s a way to get around the
site age let’s hop over to our next
little tip here so site age two options
you can either buy or you can wait
waiting takes a long time but if you
want a specific domain name that’s just
what you’re gonna have to do you can’t
expect instant results although there
are some strategies that can get you
ranked quicker and I will show you some
of those later on and the other option
of course is to purchase an aged domain
for a fast way to rank so that’s a
number one secret you can apply super
easy super cheap hopping over number two
we have active content so Google is
looking at how active your website is
whether the content is being engaged
with whether new posts are being added
whether there are comments social shares
this all indicates that your website and
content are still relevant not ten years
ago relevant but still being used
referenced and enjoyed today Google’s
goal is to answer any person who
searches in their system with the most
relevant up-to-date information to help
them because the more value they can
provide to their customers the more
loyal people are to Google so they want
to show the best sites therefore they’re
looking for active content so let’s look
at a few ways that we can actually
engage this portion of Google’s ranking
system we’re going to go down here and
look at some different ways we can do
that the first is with the power of the
blog by creating active content making
sure we’re posting regularly we can
actually tell Google ok this website is
being updated it’s being engaged with it
is fresh it is relevant content now most
photographers make a very beginner’s
mistake of updating their website once
every six months every 12 months this is
missing out on so much potential to
actually engage people and get more
content on your site so what I mean is
you can actually produce articles that
have nothing to do with wedding
photography go figure
so this is an example of a post that is
super old no judgments okay this is from
2014
I knew that bride and groom’s were
looking for wedding vows that’s just
something that everybody struggles with
when the wedding day comes
so I put together this collection of
different wedding vow templates and in
between I interspersed what then were my
what I thought were really good photos
and I just gave him this content and it
wound up going viral because I had
content that no one else was producing
people were looking for this I wound up
getting like 600 visitors a day and
Google says whoa people are engaging
with this site people are looking at the
content the content is fresh it’s active
we’re going to boost your ranking so
with this one article I went from like
page 8 on Google to page 3 page 2 okay
so that is a very simple way to engage
that active content posting one time per
week will leave you miles and miles
ahead of most photographers out there
most creatives out there most businesses
out there because most businesses make
the mistake of updating their website so
rarely this is a very easy way to get
ahead is by having active content now
content that creates value for your
readers things like wedding bow guides
that people are searching for will wind
up not only building that active content
from Google it’ll provide more value to
the reader they’ll appreciate it and in
the process you might wind up ranking
for a keyword that has nothing to do
with your actual business but then the
customer while they’re there says oh
this person does wedding photography and
it’s pretty good
amazing okay so use your unique
personality and experience to build
relationship bring whatever it is you
have that expertise and use it you don’t
have to do 100% original content you can
actually rework content that’s already
working well so for instance you can go
onto Pinterest and find content that is
already ranking so I would go through
and maybe I’d look for wedding planning
and I’m just gonna see what pins are on
here so we’ve got 29 budget wedging went
wedging wedding saving tips we’ve got
different bloom flower guide we’ve got a
wedding invitation timeline so these are
all great ways to create content I can
take this and I don’t have to rewrite
the book I can actually just create a
new graphic with a different picture and
list the exact same information and all
of a sudden I have this piece of content
I can post on my site it’s new it’s
relevant it’s fresh it will get
engagements so let’s move on here we
have site age and active content those
are super easy things now let’s move on
to point number three we’ve got load
times load times are the bane of every
photographers existence because you
want to show off your photography and
you want to show off the highest quality
photos that you can but the problem is
when you do that you actually affect
your ranking and most people don’t even
realize this if we go to the average
photography website so let’s look up
here and let’s go to and we’ll go down
here to one that’s not ranking very well
and let’s try white willow photography
notice how slow it is to load this page
and why because it’s a great image but
it took a long time I bet you it’s a big
image we’ve also got audio playing here
some kind of a song so the website might
be great the photos are great however
the problem is because it took so long
to load Google is going to penalize the
rankings which might be one of the
reasons that is ranking so poorly down
in Google so how do you control how fast
your website loads
well there are a few key things you can
do to make sure that it is loading as
quickly as possible and really boost
your rankings overnight this is how I
actually took my website from page two
on Google to page one with one simple
change let’s hop over and look at some
things we can do to help with load times
our first is web hosting now this is the
one change that I would recommend you
make today if you aren’t using web host
that is fast now different web hosts
we’ve got hostgator we’ve got GoDaddy
SiteGround
there are lots of different ones to
choose from but basically they are
delivering your images and your content
to people who are requesting to load
your website on their computer somebody
asked to send that information to them
to download the web host is what
determines how fast that stuff gets sent
through so my number one recommendation
is SiteGround
simply because they offer amazing
customer service and their server times
are extremely extremely fast for years
and years I was using GoDaddy I paid
probably five or seven bucks a month and
I wasn’t ranking I wasn’t ranking as
well as I should have been and that’s
because my site took a long time to load
but once I switched to SiteGround it was
the same cost more or less and all of a
sudden I was ranking it was amazing how
much of a difference that makes now the
other thing that you need to look at is
your image size and your page size so
you can see that that website literally
took that long just to load this audio
so for whatever reason this website
probably has a huge amount of
downloading that has to happen when you
load this homepage and and that is
probably why this site is not ranking as
well as it could so let’s jump over to a
tool called tools Pingdom comm now in
there you can actually paste the URL of
whatever website you want to test you
can test your own or test your
competitors whatever you want I’ve
entered in white willows information
here and we have a performance grade of
82 so it’s pretty good the website is
doing well we’ve got a load time of one
second which is pretty fast but look at
our page size it is astronomical thirty
nine point nine megabytes that is not
good and not going to help your Google
rankings whereas if we hop over and we
look at our website we’ve got a pretty
similar load time performance grade this
changes depending on the test but look
at the difference in our page size we’ve
got one megabyte compared to 40 now in
Google’s eyes smaller pages especially
with so many people using mobile and
data they’re going to get a huge
advantage when it comes to rankings all
right
so that is one thing that you can do how
do you improve your load times and your
image size while we export at a
resolution max 1500 pixels you don’t
want to export any larger than that and
when you export you don’t need to export
at full quality either you can compress
in lightroom around 82% and you can also
use something called image compressor
this thing has changed my life if we go
over to image compressor comm all you
have to do is upload your file so I
would just grab my photos let’s see if I
can find an example here let’s download
a photo let’s take a screenshot of this
photo alright we’ve got that screenshot
upload I’m going to go to desktop here’s
our photo it’s originally 420 kilobytes
open that up upload it on to image
compressor comm and bam 30% smaller just
like that now that is actually not as
much as you’d normally see when you’re
doing this from fresh high-quality
images you’re normally going to see more
like 80 90 percent reduction it’s crazy
so I do this with all of my home page
images because I want my home page to be
as small as possible with my post it’s
not as important but it still matters so
make sure that you’re exporting smaller
photos max 1500 pics
so let’s look at some other things next
we’ve got our home page design we want
to limit the amount of images we have
and the large files that are necessary
to load at the beginning so your tenancy
and probably what you want to do is load
50 images on your home page so that the
bride can look at everything there
however this is going to affect how well
you rank on Google so let me show you
what I mean I’m gonna hop over to our
website tailor fit photography comm load
that and you’ll see it loads very
quickly we have one image that’s all
that displays on the top here one image
and I’ve even cropped it to save on some
space rather than doing a full size
image and then we have a lot of text so
I have testimonials I have text all
these things I’ve got some blog posts
but notice how small these images are so
I still get the bang for buck by having
more than one image however they’re
smaller so in size I’ve compressed all
of them and saved room now I have a
larger banner image here again but
you’ll notice something interesting if
you look closely a it’s not very sharp
we’ve compressed the goodness out of it
so it’s very very small we’ve also just
taken this photo and kind of made a
trendy whatever design choice by having
this photo repeat itself to save on
space and we’ve got more text here which
takes up very little room everything is
optimized for load time and even though
we have other images displaying here I
have something going on in this site
called lazy loading now lazy loading is
just a sneaky way of having your website
only show visitors what they need to see
rather than loading everything on the
page at once so if we hop in here to our
home page when someone lands on the site
all they see is this area right here
they can’t see anything beneath as we
scroll here that doesn’t show up so lazy
loading make sure that all that gets
loaded before the website is shown to
the visitor is this little bit here it
doesn’t show these other images or load
these other text boxes or anything like
that it only loads those images and text
boxes as someone is scrolling down and
needs to see them so that can speed up
your page a ton another thing that you
can work on is installing a caking
plugin w3 cake or total cake for
WordPress are up great options if you’re
using a different web host such as
Squarespace or Wix those actually have
caking in them so you don’t have to
worry about that as much but if you have
a wordpress definitely take advantage of
those I have tripled the speed of my
website just by installing a caking
plugin
another lasts more advanced way of doing
this and making sure your page loads
fast is by installing a CDN a content
delivery network so when I’m actually on
here and I’m looking at photos so let’s
go here and we’re going to open up oh I
don’t know
let’s open up Doral evila here and we’re
scrolling down we’ve got all of these
images right and they’re being served by
our host which is SiteGround
which is great however basically we have
all this data coming from one host so
picture a pipe there’s one pipe
delivering all of the water to the
faucet now a content delivery network is
like having ten pipes from different
areas so they’re all coming from here
here here here
you’ve got locations all over the world
so depending on where someone is they
get their content a lot faster because
it’s coming from a closer source so
that’s what a CDN is and another amazing
way or a reason to use SiteGround is
because it actually includes a CDN for
free you can install that it’s pretty
easy to set up they have tutorials for
everything can’t recommend them enough
and before we move on on this one I’m
going to show you here if you want
SiteGround is normally 1195 a month but
you can actually use this link that i’m
going to include in the description
below to sign up for 395 a month so no
pressure you can do whatever you want
however if you want to deal you can use
that link and get it for 4 bucks a month
it’s super cheap and super worth it and
their customer service is so good they
will have you set up and if you ever
ever problem it takes about 10 seconds
to get somebody and it’s amazing can’t
say enough good things about sycron ok
so those are some ways to increase your
speed and decrease your load times and
that’s going to really help you with
your SEO let’s move on so we’ve got load
times we’ve got active content we’ve got
site age our next step is to look at our
backlinks to our site so remember how is
just talking about pipes and water well
backlinks are kind of like pipes and
water for your viewers
so where do viewers actually access your
site from other sites and links to your
site and that’s what backlinks are
Google looks at the number of these that
you have and also the authority of those
sites of the sites are random little
niches or if they’re a big trusted
website they’ll give you credit
accordingly so if a big trusted web site
were to link to my site like say then
not calm for weddings and they’re
linking to my site directly I’m going to
get a lot of credit from Google for that
so backlinks how do we build our
backlinks let’s take a look at a few
ways if your websites the faucet your
backlinks or the pipe network having
lots of different pipes you’re going to
get a lot more flow out of that faucet a
lot more visitors to your website and
that doesn’t only help with rankings it
helps with booking so you’re gonna get
more inquiries when more people see your
work right so you want larger pipes
that’s better websites to link to you
and more connections more websites to
increase your traffic flow and authority
Pinterest definitely the easiest way by
far to get started on this so there are
lots of ways to get backlinks you can
send vendors your info and ask them to
link to you on your site you can submit
to publications that’s another really
really great way to get backlinks but
Pinterest is an easy way to get started
so I’m going to show you how I do that
here we’ve looked at our info Blum piece
of content that we could borrow and make
and post onto Pinterest let’s say I took
this and I saved it took a screenshot
and I made my own and I upload it now if
I actually go here and I upload my own
pin I can and I’m not going to keep this
obviously it’s not my photo but I would
upload it I would go blooming flowers
for wedding seasons or whatever this
piece of content is right I’m gonna put
some information that is some keywords
related so blooming flowers for each
season of wedding planning and prices
okay so I put that in there I upload my
pin and then I’m going to make sure I
have this as a post on my blog so I’d go
to my website I would make a blog post
and I would link here link to my blog
and then I would pin it to a board now
what is really crazy about Pinterest
unlike Facebook or Instagram Pinterest
is actually a search engine in itself
it’s kind of like Google so once I save
this and I pin it to my board and
somebody sees it and we’re going to exit
out of this because that’s not my image
but once it that gets saved it’s going
to show up in different people’s feeds
and if they find that piece of content
helpful which they probably will if I’ve
taken something that’s already being
used on here and just repurposed or
remade it or made a better version then
they’re going to save it and pin it to
their board now what’s really
interesting is as soon as they do this
they’ve also pinned the link to your
website
they’re bored as well and so Google
looks at that and can’t sit as a
backlink so sometimes I’m going to show
you my boards right now hop over here
I’ve boards for various different things
I’m for photo editing some for free
Lightroom presets some for branding
templates and I have had some pins that
I’ve uploaded for instance we’ll take a
look here that I’ve gotten hundreds of
backlinks from one pin so I created this
100% free 45 unreal Lightroom presets
and I had this free download to my
website and as a result of this one pin
I’ve had probably three four thousand
visits to my website as well as a ton of
backlinks to help my website rank so
that’s a really easy way to get started
just take your articles move them to
Pinterest and you have to make sure that
your Pinterest your pins are pin worthy
things that people are actually going to
pin so if I were to pin random images of
myself so let’s look up Ryan profile and
I were to grab this photo and upload it
to Pinterest or just random stuff from
my portfolio or whatever it is people
are not in general going to pin that
stuff because they’re not looking for it
whereas if I go here I’m searching for
let’s say wedding photography tips and I
can go through and I can see what is
actually being searched for six tips to
shoot for your first wedding now this is
obviously going to appeal to
photographers instead of brides but how
about this wedding day tips and really
quickly you can see what’s ranking
what’s working and you could just take
this and make a new version so for
instance five wedding fashion rules
every groom should know now I could do
five wedding fashion rules every bride
should be aware of or every maid of
honor needs to know you know I can take
this add my own images if I have them or
just do text if I want and upload this
little post to my blog and get tons of
backlinks that way it will help with my
ranking substantially so that’s a great
way to build backlinks let’s move on to
our next topic here relevant content so
what is relevant content we kind of
looked at this earlier when we were
looking at our example from changing the
flat tire relevant content is how
closely related the search term is to
the content that you have on your site
so when I search and I jump back here to
how to change a tire we had our first
result is almost exactly
what I search for how to change a flat
tire now if I scroll down and I go to
let’s say way over to page 14 someone
who’s not ranking at all and we’re going
to see a difference here here instead of
having how did I change how to change a
tire I have different versions of about
how do I change a tire changing a tire
Volkswagen how to change a tire on your
Toyota Camry now this one is actually
pretty close however you can see with
most of them the reason that they’re not
ranking or at least a reason that is
contributing to that is they’re not
matching perfectly with my search query
also our actual domain is not as
Authority so Milton Hyundai is not as
good in terms of tire information in
Google’s eyes as Bridgestone Tire
company is so you can see we’ve got
different versions of these articles but
they have longer keywords they’re more
aimed at niche like changing your tire
for your Toyota Camry now for most
people just saying how do I change a
tire they don’t want to see how to
change a tire on a Toyota Camry they
just want to know how to change a
general tire and so Google is going to
penalize that particular link for that
search query but if I were to search how
to change a tire tire on a Toyota Camry
you’re going to see that key ones that
are at the very top that exact same
article how to change a tire tire on
your Toyota Camry so that’s how you
create relevant content let’s look at
what the keys are to creating this first
off is specific post keywords what are
your clients actually searching for and
do your article titles match what
they’re searching for so this might even
extend beyond your original keyword so
for instance if you’re a family
photographer a wedding photographer you
would obviously want to do your city
wedding photographer your city family
photographer however you might have
missed possible keywords that you could
be ranking for that are kind of related
to your niche for instance when I was
starting off in my photography business
I said what else are brides and grooms
looking for they’re looking for wedding
venues so I started creating posts with
roundups of a wedding venue so I wanted
to rank for this one term Vancouver
wedding venues because anyone who’s
searching for a wedding venue is
probably getting married and then they
can see my photography at the same time
so I went through and I created some
advice for choosing a Vancouver wedding
venue
and then I just rounded up a ton of
different locations that you can get
married in Vancouver and I put the
information for each of them the link to
them email info and just provide a value
for the brides and grooms now as a
result I’ve started ranking for these
keywords that really have nothing to do
with wedding photography per se but when
a bride’s here they’re on my site and
Google also sees my site as more
relevant to Brides in the Vancouver area
simply because I have a post even
unrelated to wedding photography about
Vancouver wedding venues so the next
thing that we can actually look at to
make our post more relevant is by adding
alt text to our images this is very very
important if you want your post to rank
we want to add as much information for
Google to see what that post is about so
it can say oh this is very relevant to
this person let me show it to them now
this is one area that many photographers
know nothing about don’t take advantage
of all you have to do when you’re
uploading your files is add a
description to them so for instance
let’s go down here and you can see that
these are not optimized very well but
there we go
alt text is this stuff right here and
what alt text is is it’s a description
of whatever is in that photo so for
instance this photo was taken a from a
wedding at Thompson River University
that’s why I have that in the title and
then in the alt text I have a
description of what that photo is
wedding ceremony at TR u Thompson River
University Kamloops wedding now this is
a little bit keyword stuffy a little bit
spammy and Google doesn’t respond to
this as well as it used to however I
want to make sure that I have my
keywords and a description of what’s
going on in the image because Google is
a computer program they can’t look at a
photo and say oh that’s a bear cuddling
a rabbit no they have to have actual
text that says bear cuddling rabbit and
the advantage of this is then when
someone is actually on the internet and
they search for bear cuddling rabbit
look what comes up images at the very
front so if I put in let’s say sanctuary
Gardens Kelowna this is a wedding venue
in Kelowna you’re going to see that we
have image results up here and if I were
to click on these images they would take
me through to whoever posted that image
so this one was taken by Joel’s view
photography and I would go to their
website that’s an easy way to rank on
Google
even if your content or your website
itself is not ranking so let’s go back
here they’re ranking up here even though
their websites are not actually showing
in the top results now ours is showing
up here because we did another side post
to create some relevant content around
this venue sanctuary Gardens is one of
the favorite places that we love to
photograph so we went through and we
grabbed a roundup of all the photos that
we’ve taken there over the last year or
so and we posted them in here
we tagged all of these photos with the
alt text saying sanctuary Gardens
wedding indoor wedding at sanctuary
Gardens outdoor wedding at sanctuary
Gardens that sort of a thing in the alt
text and then we added text here
describing sanctuary Gardens some info
about sanctuary Gardens what to expect
if you’re booking a wedding at sanctuary
Gardens and as a result we are showing
up number one or not number one we’re
behind sanctuary Garden CA and wedding
wire but right below these images at the
top for sanctuary Gardens so we get a
lot of inquiries from this venue and we
love it because we want to shoot there
so that’s a quick tip that you can take
if you want to start ranking for topics
venues places that you want to
photograph create posts around those
venues now let’s jump back here and look
at a few last things keyword variations
are very important in your posts so when
we were actually creating this post
we’re going to look at it together
you’ll see here that if I actually press
command F I search for sanctuary Gardens
we have sanctuary Gardens in this
description 15 times in the entire
article so that’s a lot now we’ve also
got variations of this we’ve got
sanctuary Gardens a clone a wedding
venue best wedding venues in Kelowna
Okanagan wedding venue and then I’ve
listed some other locations nearby
Kelowna Vernon Penticton Summerland o
Soyuz and these are all variations of
different things people would be looking
for if they were looking for sanctuary
Gardens so I’ve got sanctuary Gardens
Kelowna sanctuary Gardens in Kelowna
vineyard acreage sanctuary Gardens I’ve
taken this and out of different
variations of this it’s important that
you’re not just putting sanctuary
Gardens in places that it doesn’t belong
or it reads improperly you want to put
your keywords where they read properly
and we also wanted to get as many
variations of them as possible now
jumping back here a few last things with
relevant content you want to look for
relevant backlinks and Link text so for
instance when someone links to your blog
article if you share it
instead of just linking a bunch of a
random gibberish and then this is the
link to your website it would be way
better to have your keyword in the link
so for instance if I want to be a
African safari photographer I would want
people to actually link African
photographer a photographer in their
post and have this be the link that they
click rather than Ryan dot-com slash
something like that that wouldn’t do
anything for my link or it wouldn’t do
as much because Google can’t read the
text it doesn’t know what the link is
about or what it’s in reference to
now relevant backlinks also means what
site it’s coming from if your site is
all about kids photography and you’re
getting linked to from oh I don’t know
Abu Dhabi tours com that link is not
going to mean as much as if you were
getting linked to from kids photography
school com something that actually is
more to do with children and kids and
specifically kids photography those are
going to be the best sites magazines
blogs that sort of a thing now lastly
social shares and bounce rate we want to
make sure our posts are relevant and
getting shared and Google will give us
extra bonus points for that and bounce
rate is just how long people are on your
page whether they read the whole article
and stay on your website or whether they
only look for a second and leave if they
do that Google says oh that content must
not have been very good therefore we’re
not going to show people that again
we’ll show somebody content that people
are sticking to because obviously that
must be better so those are just some
different things you can do to create
relevant content now we’re almost done
here we’re going to go through two more
our next is traffic and social we’ve
kind of talked about that here and you
know active content how much current
traffic is your website getting and how
many social shares does your site
receive the more you get the more
relevant Google sees you in its eyes
okay this about affects both your
relevancy and your authority so for web
traffic we want to look for social
shares we want to look for the number of
visitors to go up and we want the
quality of the visitors to be as high as
possible so for instance on fiverr.com
you can actually purchase web
visit you can purchase links you can
purchase all sorts of things but most of
the time those visitors are coming from
you know India or Africa or random very
faraway countries that likely are not
your target demographic if you’re from
America or from the UK so Google looks
at those and says okay those sites those
visitors aren’t really worth as much
credit as if someone was coming from
America so if I was from Kansas
searching for a Kansas wedding
photographer I would be giving more
credit to that site than someone from
Japan
okay now best way to get free traffic
create relevant helpful content we
talked about this already with Pinterest
another great way to do it is in web
forms QA
guest posts those are great options for
you to get your work out there forums
and QA are unreal let me show you an
example that I used recently so I’m
gonna hop over here and we’re going to
go to Reddit we did a recent tutorial on
tone curves and how to use the tone
curve in Lightroom so I went through and
I searched in reddit for people who are
looking for the same kind of stuff so I
looked up photography editing or
something like that and in here we have
different groups inside of Reddit we’ve
got videography post-processing ask
photography and I think I actually went
a little bit step further and I looked
up Lightroom photography and I came up
with this group here photography 101 so
I subscribed to this group and I added a
post sharing my tutorial for anyone who
was interested and we got 21 up votes
now we’re at the very top of this
article and 4500 people have seen this
video so as a result now in the past
eight days we’ve gotten about 1,100
visits in free traffic to our website
and it’s all been good traffic because
people are looking for editing tutorials
they’re there to learn they stay for a
long time and watch the whole video so
that’s a great option just look for
those kind of groups whether that’s a
forum a QA or even guest posting on
other sites to lend your expertise to
those people alright so we’ve gone
through web traffic we have one last key
to ranking in Google and I’ve saved it
for you because it is the very best the
most effective or at least the easiest
way to get results with SEO ranking and
that is security Google takes security
very very seriously for people who are
using their service and they only want
to send people to secure websites now
recently they have actually started
boosting websites that use secure sites
and penalizing websites that do not now
the beauty of this is a huge opportunity
because most photographers most
businesses aren’t aware of this they’re
still using old HTTP instead of HTTP and
I’m not going to say that several times
fast because it’s very hard to do but
the s essentially stands for secure um
who would have figured right now what
Google sees the S at the end of your
website they boost you I actually went
from page to page three and several
different keywords to page one just by
adding this one little designation to
the front of my site and the best part
about this it’s super super easy now if
you’re in Squarespace Wix you can
actually look up how to do that in
Squarespace it’s included for free which
is really cool but if you’re in
WordPress you’re going to have to
actually add a security certificate if
you’re using Hostgator you can do that
for about twenty-five bucks it’s pretty
quick and simple but what I love about
SiteGround yeah they go all the way and
they give you HTTP for free so all you
have to do is hop on over go to your
HTTP settings and literally it’s just a
switch that you put on and all of a
sudden your site is secure and they’ll
even rewrite all of the links that you
have on your site to make sure that
they’re secure and just like that all I
did I installed it I clicked the on
button and I started ranking for several
terms I wasn’t before so that is a quick
tip that can help you rank really really
fast so security rating must use HTTPS
you have to keep your web theme
up-to-date and plugins up-to-date that
makes a big difference as well make sure
you’re using a secure web host now this
doesn’t matter probably as much to you
because likelihood is you’re already
using one but SiteGround is definitely a
leader and delete unused files and posts
on your pages you basically want to keep
your website secure from hackers and if
it’s secured Google says good we’re
going to boost this post or this page or
this website you get my point so we have
gone through and we’ve looked at the
seven keys let’s do it really really
quick recap here we started off by
looking at the key steps to ranking on
Google and just sharing my experience
how most people go and they create the
website they upload photos they wait for
bookings to come piling in and crickets
and then they’re like what what’s going
on why is this they say the best place
to hide a body is in the second page of
Google search well that’s true because
no
goes to the second page of Google search
the problem is that nobody knows your
work exists and therefore how are they
going to find you and the challenge of
all of this is the crazy stupid long
feedback loop it takes forever to figure
out what is going on with your website
what is working what’s not working so
you need a road map or a blueprint to
speed up the process you really want to
spend months just to find out what you
tried and didn’t work so I gave you some
really quick keys that you can use to
rank on Google where you can start with
today to get your site ranking better
and I promise you if you apply these
things if you find a domain that has an
age domain you use one of those or you
just wait for your site to age you will
see progress if you use active content
that is relevant and engaging you’ll see
progress work on your page load times
with these different strategies make
sure you’re building backlinks so you’re
getting visitors to look at your site in
the first place again
relevant content it all comes down to
making sure that people are engaging
with your work and your content is
relevant to what people are searching
for then we looked at a few ways to
generate web traffic and how much that
matters we talked about security ratings
and how easily you can update that and
start ranking above your competitors who
haven’t now that’s the recap was this
valuable for you I hope it was I know
for a fact if you apply the stuff you
were going to rank better and you’re
going to outstrip your competition fast
now here’s the question do you think
that this will save you time compared to
just randomly figuring it out trying one
thing after another and just waiting to
see the results do you think it will
help your business do you think it’s
going to make a difference if so please
leave me comment make sure to LIKE this
video and do you think this will get you
results I know it will I believe it will
and so that’s why I want to hit you with
the offer now you don’t have to buy it
you can totally go ahead and start on
this stuff for free but we have created
a full course for ranking on Google this
unpacks all these strategies step by
step
it actually looks at how to build these
links it looks at how to get traffic and
it shows you one crazy fast ranking
technique that no one else is using out
there so even if you don’t have an age
domain even if you aren’t working on
this other stuff it can get you ranking
very very quickly it’s going to give you
results now how much would you pay for
this how much would this be worth for
you if you were to get one booking from
this let’s say that you shoot families
one booking you might be charting two
hundred twelve hundred how much is it
would it be worth it for you if this got
you one
you’re booking and if you were on the
front page of Google do you think you’d
get at least one extra booking out of
that I know that I would now one wedding
if you’re shooting weddings you’re
making far more than that for one
wedding you’re making twelve thousand to
twelve thousand I wish 1,200 to $4,000
depending where you are and what stage
you’re at in your business would it be
worth it for you how much will you be
willing to pay to get to that first page
of Google rather than wasting years
trying to get to the front now normally
we’re going to be selling this course
for one hundred and seven ninety seven
bucks and compared to four thousand
dollars for one wedding I think that’s a
bit of a steal but if you are watching
this video it means you are in for the
early bird price you still have access
we’re selling it for 75 bucks so you can
go to this link down below enter the
promo code rank now where it says have a
coupon you put in rank now all caps and
you can get this course for 75 bucks for
the first hundred people that’s it so
we’re doing it cut off it’s an early
bird launch we can’t sell this to
everybody so we’re gonna do it for the
first hundred as a tester as a bonus for
being an early op tur and I promise you
this is the very cheapest it is ever
going to be now before I sound too
infomercial infomercial II I’m going to
ask you one more question do you still
want to spend months just to find out
what you tried didn’t work that’s what
it all comes down to today do you want
to keep spending time trying and testing
things and not really knowing if you’re
doing it right or wrong and then months
later finding out you did it wrong
you’re gonna have to restart you’re not
getting the results you wanted or would
you rather invest in yourself or would
you rather invest in yourself buy a
blueprint and a roadmap that shows you
exactly which way to go instead of
waiting and trying to figure it out
while your competition goes by you so if
you want to stop wasting time and start
moving forward just head to that link
here I’m gonna show you exactly what
you’re gonna get to you’re gonna land on
this page here and you can hit this buy
now for 197 and you don’t have to pay
that 197 if you’re one of the first
hundred people hit have a coupon we’re
going to enter in here rank now all caps
apply bam 75 bucks for 75 bucks you get
the entire course and we have a results
promise guarantee so let me scroll down
here yes 100% satisfaction guarantee
we’re absolutely confident you’re going
to see results with this we wouldn’t
sell it if we weren’t and we wouldn’t
want you to keep the money if it didn’t
work for you so if you take this course
you apply what’s inside and you don’t
see results we’ll give you your money
back we don’t
want you to pay for something that
doesn’t work you’re not gonna get that
if you buy a camera you’re not gonna get
that if you buy a subscription to some
advertising thing but you will get that
with this course we promise you you will
get results with this okay
so there’s literally no reason not to
buy it if you want to move forward in
your business you want to start ranking
your website go to this link into the
promo code rank now and you are going to
move ahead now I’m gonna give you one
more thing for those of you who are
Keener’s you want the very best that we
have to offer we are currently launching
an all-access branding membership so if
you want to go even further than the $75
course you can buy the all-access
branding membership and that’s going to
give you this course and every other
course that we are producing over 2019
so we’ve got 12 courses coming out when
every single month talking about
branding talking about marketing talking
about getting clients talking about SEO for photographers,
we’ve got one on Pinterest one on
Instagram all sorts of topics and you’re
going to be able to get those right now
for ninety five percent off so this is
the craziest sale we have ever done I’m
going to show you right now you go over
to signature edits shop signature
Eddie’s calm and we’re going to go to
our photo Bismark atang school click on
that it’s regular 997 so this is two
thousand dollars worth of training two
thousand dollars worth of courses
presets templates everything you need to
start a successful business you get all
of this you get all of these workshops
you’re going to get 700 and templates
295 in our branding template membership
so that’s all our upcoming templates you
get free access to for the entire year
you’re going to get a hundred and fifty
dollars in presets and training and nine
hundred dollars in monthly workshops so
it adds up to over two grand worth of
stuff and for the first hundred
customers only the first 100 after that
it’s closing off we can do this for
everybody it’s going to be just 99 bucks
so if you want to spend another 25 bucks
you can get all of this in addition okay
so if you want to do that you’re gonna
go to this website go to this link and
you’re going to enter the promo code
Black Friday 2018 okay go to shop.signatureedits.com
put that in there exact same thing I’m
gonna do it for you right now we’re
gonna click buy now have coupon enter
all caps Black Friday 2018 apply 99
bucks for the first hundred people only
okay so we’ve already sold out a good
portion of these but if you act fast you
can definitely jump on that as well if
not and you’re
to slow you can always get the SEO
package by itself whatever works best
for you okay so if you have any
questions please leave them in the
comments below and if you want to
receive this for free if you want a
chance to win your course for free leave
a comment for me in the video below was
this helpful do you have any questions
that I can answer in the future what
other training do you want to see let me
know in the comments below and one of
those comments is going to receive a
free membership free of charge 100% free
you don’t have to pay a thing and that
is all so that has been our workshop for
today I hope it was helpful for you that
is the seven key steps Google search 101
seven keys to showing up in Google
search I hope you had a great time don’t
forget to hit that like button make sure
to subscribe for more videos and
training and I will see you in the next
one peace
[Music]
[/powerkit_collapsible]
[/powerkit_collapsibles]

SEO for photographers isn’t complicated – But its not easy!

You can waste months or even years trying to rank your site and get found in google search, only to find the SEO strategies you were using didn’t work. Don’t start trying random seo tricks and crossing your fingers hoping for fast ranking. Find someone who has actually DONE IT, and get the road map from them. That’s the fastest way to rank a website – By skipping the guessing and learning what actually works.

For in an in depth, step by step guide that will walk you through absolutely everything, check out our full course here.

This SEO course is included along with over $2000 in other templates, courses and presets in our photography marketing membership.

Siteground special promo code: https://www.siteground.com/recommended?referrer_id=7889162

Thanks so much for watching – I hope this Photography SEO Video Workshop was helpful for you and you’re feeling inspired to go out and take action!

If you have any questions leave them in the comments – I respond to every single one 🙂

Talk soon

Ryan