In today’s digitally-driven world, a visually stunning website isn’t enough. Photographers need to ensure their sites are SEO-friendly to get noticed in the crowded online space. My colleague Josip and I specialize in SEO and Web Development, aiding photographers in optimizing their web presence. One such photographer we recently had the pleasure to assist was Matthew Coughlin, an award-winning commercial and editorial photographer based in Florida. We worked with Matthew on an SEO Implementation.
When Matthew approached us, our journey began with an essential step, the SEO audit. An SEO audit, for those unfamiliar, is akin to a health check-up for a website. Just like you’d consult a doctor to understand your health issues and get remedies, an SEO audit pinpoints the areas of a website that are lacking and offers improvement solutions.
Surprisingly, many websites, even those that appear polished and professional at first glance, often neglect basic SEO principles. This oversight can seriously undermine the website’s potential. So, creating engaging content, like blogs, is a good approach. However, if the foundational SEO elements are absent, the content may never reach its intended audience.
Matthew’s audit highlighted several SEO issues which we categorized into high, medium, and low-priority segments. After a meeting in which we presented and explained these findings, he had the option to either fix them with his developers or let us handle the implementation. Ultimately, he wanted us to do the implementation and we agreed on 6 hours of work during which we would tackle issues based on the priority of each task.
Once we had access to his Photofolio site, our first move was to set up Google Analytics and Google Search Console. By implementing Google Analytics we could see the website traffic, discover which pages visitors spent the most time on, identify the sources of this traffic (be it direct, from social media, referrals, or search engines), and much more. While Google Analytics offers insights into website visitors, Google Search Console provides a window into how search engines view the website. GSC can highlight site errors, from broken links to crawl issues, which can impede search engine rankings. Additionally, it offers insights into the search queries that lead users to the site. As you can see, both of these are immensely helpful to have on the website, and that is why they are usually our first step during the implementation.
While these tools started gathering insights, we dived into keyword research. Matthew’s desired search terms, which blended his specialties like sports and healthcare photography with locations like Pensacola and Florida, guided us. However, keyword research isn’t just about finding popular terms, it’s about finding the right balance. Popular keywords might attract vast amounts of traffic, but they’re also highly competitive making it challenging for a site to rank prominently. On the other hand, more niche keywords might be easier to rank for but might not attract significant traffic. Our mission was to locate the “sweet spot,” terms with a substantial search volume but not so competitive that ranking for them would be an uphill battle.
After we had the keywords ready, we turned our attention to enhancing Matthew’s Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions. Meta Titles are the primary headlines users see in search results, indicating the main topic of a webpage. Meta Descriptions, on the other hand, offer a summary, giving potential visitors a glimpse of what to expect on the page.
We carefully crafted these elements on Matthew’s site, ensuring they were keyword-rich, resonant with his photography style, and appeared inviting to potential visitors. After drafting these elements, we sent them to Matthew for approval. His feedback ensured the final wording was SEO-optimized and true to his brand’s voice.
Another hurdle was the H1 tags. The H1, or “Heading 1,” acts as the primary title of a webpage, serving as a beacon for both search engines and users. These tags are important because search engines use them to identify the main topic of a page and users rely on them to understand the content they’re engaging with. Good SEO practice ensures every page has a unique H1 tag and that there’s only one per page. We implemented this for Matthew, ensuring the site adhered to this principle within Photofolio’s constraints.
During the past few years, we noticed that photographers often lean towards image-heavy sites, sidelining text. However, for search engines to understand (and rank) a page, text content is vital. Search engines need text to figure out what a page is about and rank it properly.
We told Matthew that additional text could boost his site’s visibility without overshadowing his photos. We understand this can be an issue for many photographers. However, our goal is not to change the artistic style of the website, but just to give it a little bit more context so others can discover it easier. So, we suggested that he should add a few blog posts or case studies if he feels up for it.
As you can see, we managed to resolve a lot of pressing issues on Matthew’s website and now his SEO foundations are rock solid. We also set up his Google Analytics and Google Search Console and we wrote a guide to help him use these features properly. Furthermore, we offered guidance on essential SEO practices, such as renaming and resizing images for SEO optimization and the correct implementation of alt tags. While these are expansive topics, our insights aim to empower Matthew to manage basic SEO tasks independently in the future. He was delighted with our work and has already seen some positive results!
Further Reading
Expert Advice: SEO Terminology
Expert Advice: Dofollow and Nofollow Link Attributes