Last month, we published the case study of an SEO Audit that I conducted for Joe Schmelzer. Joe is an editorial and commercial photographer specializing in interior residential imagery and environmental portraiture. Joe’s site is hosted by Photofolio, arguably the best in the industry for many reasons. In our audit, we found a number of things to address, but primarily it came down to writing more effective metadata, as well as utilizing some resources to help boost his site’s visibility and manage his site, which we worked on in his SEO Implementation.
An SEO Audit diagnoses how a website is currently bringing in traffic and of what sort, whereas SEO Implementation is the treatment for the website. We put into place or implement the changes we have previously recommended.
One of the primary jobs of an SEO Implementation is to write new and compelling metadata for each of the galleries to make sure that those galleries have been indexed by Google and other search engines, to insert keywords at various strategic locations throughout the site, etc. But it can also include installing new security certificates, renaming images, adding alt text, etc. This list is not exhaustive.
Although lots of the changes that we recommend can be done by the photographers themselves, the point of this (and most) consulting services is (1) that a person who specializes in this can bring an objective, practiced eye to the task and (2) that the photographer can focus on the business of creating images.
As I said in the audit case study, Joe needed to use better keywords in his metadata, gallery descriptions, etc. Unfortunately, SEO does not reward innovation or poetic license. With that said, I enjoy writing metadata because it is a challenge to integrate vital keywords in a few words that stand out. Unsurprisingly, I also enjoy writing copy for project proposals, emailer campaigns, etc. For metadata, the crucial elements are the photographer’s specialty and the location.
When writing meta-titles (page titles), the problem is simple because only 55-70 characters are available. This text is written in phrase form, mostly separated by vertical slashes because Google measures metadata by pixel size (yeah, right?!).
So, where Joe previously had “Joe Schmelzer Inc. – Treasurbite Studio, Inc. | spaces-I” for an interior photography gallery, I re-titled it “Interior photography 1 | Los Angeles | Joe Schmelzer”.
Meta descriptions are a little more complicated insofar as this metadata is generally not considered a direct ranking factor. It is, nonetheless, an indirect ranking factor as the user confronted by this information in the search engine results will take it as an example of the content on that page and click accordingly.
Joe’s meta-descriptions for all of his site pages were all the same: “Joe Schmelzer Inc. – Treasurbite Studio Inc. Los Angeles and New York-based photographer and director. Specializing in anything environmental: portrait, interior, architecture, food, travel, and hotels.”
Whereas, I rewrote them for each individual gallery. For the aforementioned interior photography gallery, the new description reads, “Impactful interior photography for luxury hoteliers, private residences, high-end architecture publications, and well-known periodicals.” I have been quoted elsewhere on my contempt for the word impactful (as well as content), but since the internet is generally not concerned with my opinions about the English language, I defaulted to its newest trend.
While Joe did not break the top 100 results for any appropriate keyword searches prior to the SEO implementation, that is not the case with several months having passed since the implementation.
Keywords | October 2022 |
---|---|
Los Angeles environmental portraiture | 4 |
Los Angeles environmental portrait | 1 |
Los Angeles travel photographer/-y | 14,12 |
Los Angeles hospitality imagery photographer | 14 |
Los Angeles interior photographer/-y | 100+, 22 |
Editorial photographer Los Angeles | 32 |
It should go without saying that there are alternate search keywords not included here for which Joe is still not ranking. For example, Joe’s had the opportunity to photograph more than a few celebrities but does not rank in that search. To this my response is only, I’m still impressed with the rankings above. Damn!
One of the recommendations implemented was to set up Google Analytics (GA) for Joe’s sites. Hitherto, Joe had Statcounter set up for his site, and I certainly applaud his divergence from the opinion of the hoi polloi. However, GA, even though it may have too much information, still has information that Statcounter does not provide. So I created both UA and GA4 accounts for Joe (for information on the difference between), anticipating the move that Google is making next spring to end support for UA, its standard bearer up until this time.
When we consult UA’s count of monthly users, we see an incremental increase in the number of users from February until August of this year, which is admirable. September’s number of users is still more than the period from April to July, but it’s not as high as August (nor the insane month of March, for that matter). And of course, it’s not yet possible to predict October, yet it’s down for the time being, with less than a week left.
In reference to the number of visitors to Joe’s site coming from search engines, the results are similar to the number of users overall. Namely, a general increasing trend is visible throughout August, but then September drops — actually lower than almost all of the previous months. And October is uncertain. In short, these numbers are encouraging but equivocal.
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