But as a photographer, do you really need SEO to make your site appear in search engines? After all, you have top-quality photos that are sure to attract prospects. In addition, your website’s hosting company is responsible for your SEO and online marketing, right? Nope, wrong.

SEO definitely matters! In the competitive world of internet marketing, your website falls farther in the search results without a sound SEO strategy. Ultimately, viewers won’t be able to find your business.

Here is the list of reasons why you should care about SEO when it comes to your online marketing strategy.

1. The simple truth of online marketing is that if your business can’t be found, you could be missing out on valuable business.

There are so many companies promoting their business online and the competition to be “#1 on Google” is extremely fierce. Innovative website marketing is required to make your business stand out, and SEO is the primary way to ensure your website is being seen by your potential clients.

2. The right SEO techniques attract the right client.

You see, a lot of prospects are looking for the right photographer who can address their specific requirements. And hopefully, you’re that photographer! However, you lose that opportunity if they cannot find you when they search online.

Knowing what your target market is looking for is important. This is where the right keywords come into play. A keyword is a word or phrase that is inserted in your web content that makes it possible for people to find your website by using a search engine. If your website is well optimized, the search engine will display the page where that particular keyword is located.

If you know the keywords your viewers are searching for in Google, you can incorporate those keywords in your content in a natural way.

As Google indexes and ranks your pages for those target keywords, your site becomes more visible. Subsequently, you will draw visitors that match the profile of your ideal clients.

3. Content is king.

Content is everything you publish in your website—text, video and audio clips, photos, infographics, and more. People—and search engines—love to read, view, or listen to content that is interesting, useful, and addresses their specific needs. Quality updated content can easily put your page on the first page of a search engine results page (SERP).

Google crawls over the internet searching for new content, so it is important to regularly update your content. If your content sits and does not get updated regularly, Google loses interest in your website, resulting in decreasing your SERP ranking.

4.  A lot of photographers believe that Google does the SEO.

This is definitely not true, and many photographers have lost potential prospects and opportunities due to this belief. To rely on this myth is like having a garage sale without marketing it. No one will come because nobody will know about it But, if you hang signs throughout the neighborhood to let people know that you are having a garage sale and you have great things to sell, then neighbors will be much more likely to come and people may even tell friends and family about your amazing garage sale.

In a nutshell, Google’s work and responsibility are to search your site, index your pages, and calculate your ranking. But improving your chances for better ranking is totally up to you. This can be done through SEO techniques such as publishing quality content, adding strategic keywords, and more.

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5. Properly executed SEO allows your website to rank higher in Google’s results.

Studies show that if your page is positioned on the first page of SERP, around 80 to 90 percent of viewers will most likely visit your site. About 14.6% will possibly become customers (Source: http://growthlightning.com/5-reasons-why-seo-matters/).

6. As mentioned in the previous point, it is very difficult to determine how many people actually visit your site or convert to customers with social media likes, tweets, pins, and the like.

Results from your website’s organic SEO, however, are easy to track with the use of Google Analytics. With such a tool, you can see how many customers are visiting your website, how many views you are getting over a certain period of time, what keywords they are using, and other important information. You can even see real-time analytics as potential clients view your website and look through your content (kinda creepy, huh?).

Using this data, you can form strategies to make your website rank higher or be more visible in search engines.

7. With a bit of know-how (or assistance from an SEO expert), you can re-direct pages, add meta descriptions (meta descriptions are short snippets, specifically tags in the HTML, that summarize the content of a page.), strategically place and regulate keywords, and more.

In other words, you have the ability and freedom to customize your content to make it search engine friendly. In addition, your most popular pages/content tend to stay in SERP for a long time, making SEO an excellent strategy for long-term benefits. We even have articles written and published several years ago that are still being visited today!

Many photographers feel that they only need social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and good ole’ word of mouth. These channels are effective marketing tools, but they’re only good for the short term. Let’s assume you rely 100% on Instagram to market your photos. What if, one day, Instagram is replaced by a different channel?

Also, unless you pay an advertising fee, most of the time, your social media updates are visible only to your contacts, followers, and subscribers. What about those who do not know about your business yet? What about those who haven’t subscribed to your social media accounts yet?

This is not to say that social media is inferior to SEO; it can actually be an important component of your SEO strategy.

8.  Your competitors are probably utilizing SEO to their advantage.

This is especially true for photographers who are tech- and web-savvy. Photographers know the value of spending time on their search engine strategy. Fortunately, you can catch up as long as you take SEO seriously and dedicate time to improving the content you are posting on your website. Combined with effective keyword research and social media marketing, your website will soar up to the first page of Google and other search engines before you know it!.

As you can see, SEO definitely does matter. Search engine optimization is an essential part of any company’s business plan/strategy in today’s day and age. Done properly, you can and will start to see real results. Of course, this does not happen overnight. Improving your SEO and SERP ranking takes time, so get started today in order to help drive more traffic to your website and help you get your business in front of new potential clients. Good luck!

Here are some tips on how to write creative and engaging captions for your photos.

1. Proper spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and grammar should be observed. Nothing is worse than a caption that is borderline unreadable.

2. Write short and concise captions. Generally, two or three sentences will suffice, with a total of around 140 characters. Only add a third sentence if more contextual information is necessary to explain the image thoroughly.

3. Adding the third sentence is a good idea if you want to direct the reader to the detail in the photo that you want them to focus on. For instance, in a real estate photo, you might write the third sentence as, “Note the Baroque-style archway in the hallway.”

4. If there’s a beautiful story behind the photo, then it is definitely fine to share it. The captions of National Geographic’s Instagram photos are perfect examples of long-form captions. Their impressive stories add value to their visuals.

5.  Make sure the information in your caption is correct and accurate. This is especially important in journalistic photos such as those in newspapers, magazines, journals, and reports. Ensure that professional titles are included, the names of the entities are properly spelled, the location is the right one, and the date is included. Double or triple-check your data to ensure that it is correct.

6. Avoid stating the obvious. If the bride and groom are smiling at each other, don’t write that they are smiling at each other. The photo already visually shows what the subject is doing. Rephrase the caption to reflect the story behind the image. Instead of saying, “The couple smiles at each other,” write, “John and Mary share a light moment during a break in their wedding ceremony rehearsal.

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7.  A quote from a famous person adds a meaningful touch to an image, especially if it is strongly related to the photo. Travel, landscape, wedding, wildlife, and portrait photos often use beautiful quotes to make the images more poignant.

8.  If you are writing for a specific audience, utilize jargon that the audience uses. Use the vocabulary, slang, nuances, and terms of the subject in your photo. For example, if your subject is a rock climber, use rock climbing jargon.

Write “John red points the tricky 5.15a Kong, finally conquering the crux of the route—an extremely steep overhang with no feet.” Your caption sounds awkward to the rock climbing community if you write, “John climbs and completes the 5.15a Kong after going up the most difficult part of the cliff.”

Using the wrong terminology or not knowing your subject’s jargon makes your caption sound amateurish.

9. Ask a question; it could be an open-ended question, a yes-or-no question, or a skill-testing question. Doing so engages the readers and encourages them to comment on your photo. The increase in engagement does wonders for your site’s search engine optimization (SEO). With good SEO, more people and potential clients will notice your website.

For example, for your latest glamour photo, you can write, “What do you think about La Ville’s new line of summer sundresses?”

It would also be a good idea to include a call to action to improve engagement. Ask people to write a comment, tag their friends, share your photo, join your contest, or share their opinion.

10. Use your business’ tagline or hashtag. This gives the photo a sense of identity and helps with branding. Additionally, using taglines and hashtags that are associated with your industry or business can help to you gain more followers, increase interaction, and also helps your images easier to find by people looking for specific images and tags. A perfect example is Nike’s photo below; it utilizes the company’s tagline “Just Do It.”

Hint: Avoid the overuse of hashtags, especially in Instagram captions. Hashtags help improve visibility, but they can be quite annoying if you put a hashtag on almost every word. Hashtags should only be used on words that are relevant. A good rule of thumb is if there’s no reason for the reader to click on the word, then do not put a hashtag.

11. For SEO purposes, insert strategic keywords in your caption. You can use Google Adwords Keyword Planner, Moz Keyword Explorer, Wordtracker, and other keyword research tools to determine the best keywords. In addition, remember to put the most important words first.

12. Use captions in your blog posts, product descriptions, photo displays as well as your social media accounts.

With these techniques, your photos will have a deeper meaning or a more comprehensive story. Using beautifully written captions is sure to attract and engage your readers.

1. Create an account and post your photos on image bookmarking sites.

Image bookmarking sites such as Instagram, Fotki, Flickr, and Pinterest are very effective in showcasing your work. Don’t forget to put a link to your website from your image bookmarking page.

2. Submit your website link in directories.

Directories such as Reddit, DMOZ, and Hotfrog allow your website to be easily searchable. They do this by organizing links into different categories and subcategories. Thus, users who are looking for websites about photography in web directories may stumble upon your link.

Setting up an account in these directories is easy; just sign up then input your name, email address, and other information needed by the directory. The directories will do the rest. You can also customize directories to auto-update whenever you add new content to your website.

Sites like Houzz, Behance, and Freelancer are great directories for real estate photographers.

Just for reference, here are brief descriptions of the examples of directories as stated above.

* Reddit – allows registered community members to submit text posts and direct links. Registered users can then rank and organize posts by voting submissions.
* DMOZ – a multi-content directory of links. Open content refers to content that others can copy or modify.
* Hotfrog – an Australian web directory that categorizes websites regionally and topically.
* Houzz – an online community of architects, interior designers, decorators, landscapers, handymen, contractors, and of course, real estate photographers
* Behance – a great directory for self-promotion. You can create and display your portfolio here.
* Freelancer – an ideal directory for freelancers to advertise their skills and services. Businesses looking for freelancers look for providers here.

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3. Use social media to promote your website.

Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter are currently some of the biggest social media sites. Take advantage of them by creating accounts for your photography business. Social media not only expands your reach but it also allows you to interact with your market one-on-one. You can also make accounts on other photo-heavy social media sites such as Digg and Tumblr. They are very popular among photographers.

Post images links to articles, announcements, and more on these accounts. Don’t forget to link to these accounts on your website and share them with your target audience to keep them up to date on your latest projects.

Daily posting is highly recommended, but 1 to 2 posts a week will do just fine. Some platforms such as Facebook have features that allow you to automatically schedule the publication of posts.

You can also use tools such as Tweetdeck or Hootsuite to aggregate your social media accounts and posts from one place.

Remember that the number of quality links that you have from trusted sources and social media accounts will definitely help your SEO. They build credibility for your website, your social media accounts, and ultimately, you as a professional.

4. Invite others to submit guest posts.

Inviting photobloggers, manufacturers, and writers to publish a guest post on your website is beneficial. Once you publish their article, they will share the link to their networks. Clicking the link will bring their network to your blog, which drives traffic, increases the number of natural links, and improves your rank in a search engine results page, or SERP.

If you want your photography business to reach new heights, then optimizing your website should be on your must-do list. Check out Part 1 for using keywords correctly and Part 2 for tips in link building. These strategic and effective SEO techniques can get your site in the front line and help establish your business a strong foothold in the competitive realm of online marketing.

1. Make sure your images are search-engine friendly.

The images themselves are important for effective Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. To ensure Google indexes them, place them in strategic positions such as the top of a page. Google also favors images that load fast, so compress your files so they will load quickly. In general, 30 to 50KB is recommended.

Finally, know that Google puts relevance on large images.

You can use the following tools to check if your pages—and images—are optimized.

1. SEO Site Checkup
2. Google PageSpeed Insights
3. GTmetrix
4. WebPageTest

2. Gather enough quality links.

With enough quality links, you can rank up a search engine results page, or SERP. A link is a reference to a web page that the user can directly follow or access by clicking the text. A link may point to an entire site or page, or a specific element within a page.

Competitive keywords and phrases need around 50 to 100 links for you to rank while minor ones take a dozen or so. Each link to your site from another site will help you move up the page.

But note that the key here is “quality.” Such links should be helpful and related to your business. For example, in the photography industry, links from photography websites, popular and trusted online resources, or articles about you and your company are examples of relevant, quality links. Links from unrelated websites, link farms, and low-value resources will not add value or help with your website’s SEO.

Next, you will need to develop a sound link-building strategy. But first, how do you get relevant, quality links?

You can increase the number of quality links to your website by doing the following:

1. Write guest blog posts and articles for fellow photographers.  Make sure that these blogs have links back to your website and vice versa.
2. Link to all your social media accounts.
3. Join Facebook Groups related to your business and share your articles in these groups.
4. Link to any article or content where you or your work is mentioned or shown.
5. Look for other helpful sources that are not competitors and link to their content. Of course, you will want to ask the contact person or company to link back to you.

3. Stick to a link-building schedule.

Schedule two or three hours a week for getting a link to your site. Why do you need a consistent schedule? Well, success doesn’t happen overnight, and you need to continuously build links to continue to improve your SEO and SERP ranking.

As a benchmark, we recommend at least one high-quality article that contains one high-quality link per month. Although, as you might imagine, the more you are able to post and link back to your website, the better and more effective your link-building will be.

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After determining your schedule, list potential sources where you can acquire a link and send them a proposal for a link exchange. Here are some suggestions:

1. Top photography blogs that accept contributed articles
2. Photography gear manufacturers websites
3. Vendor or partner sites
4. Online photography magazines and news sites
5. Websites of local photography clubs and organizations
6. Business and photo contest sites
7. Online community groups and forums about photography

Link building is more than just an SEO technique. Since it involves communication between two parties, it also gives you an opportunity to develop mutually beneficial relationships and expand your network.

4. Attach your blog to your website.

Your photography website does not need to be just a portfolio and information about your business. If you have a blog, you should attach it to your website too. If you don’t have one, start one now! A blog is one of the most important assets of any website.

1. Add life, color, and a personal touch to your website through your blog. You can create a blog post for every shoot, which tells your readers about your experiences, tips, etc. about the shoot. This can also act as your living portfolio that new/potential clients can check out before hiring you.
2. Your blog posts can generate related keywords, which can help rank your articles. For example, you can insert keywords related to your style of photography, the location of your shoots, and more.
3. Maintaining a blog by regularly posting new content makes your site SEO-friendly. Google ranks pages on how often they are updated. A weekly publication, for example, allows Google to see your site as “active.” Consistency and sticking to a schedule will help your SEO and increase page rank over time.
4. Blog posts act like gateways. Readers who find your blog post in search engines or elsewhere can trace their way back to your website.
5. You can write blog posts on other related topics and include keywords that are organic. In that way, these related posts draw people to your website.
6. You can publish gear reviews, tips, promos, and other useful information that photography enthusiasts would love to read.
7. You can write personal stories which make you a more interesting photographer.

Make sure your blog is in the same domain as your photography website so that you can take advantage of the links and traffic that you have built up in your blog.

Let’s move on to Part 3. There, you will find tips about how to effectively use social media to improve your online presence.

You can just imagine the thousands of photography websites around. To stand out from the rest, you need to incorporate Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your website. Why does SEO matter? How does SEO work? How do you increase your website’s SEO?

With the right SEO techniques, you can:

1. Attract the right target market
2. Increase traffic to your website, which helps to acquire more clients
3. Develop a client base that can refer you to even more prospects
4. Reduce paid advertising and subsequently, save money
5. Establish yourself as a credible and authoritative entity in your industry
6. Get connected with influencers in your industry
7. Provide great value to your clients
8. Answer common questions your clients or leads are asking

That’s a lot of advantages you can enjoy! So let’s start optimizing your photography website by following these useful and proven tips.

1. Insert keywords in your website’s page titles.

Check out your main page titles. Do they contain essential keywords? Do they describe exactly what the page is?

EXAMPLE: Rather than “How to be a Better Photographer” which is vague and too general, use the title “Tips in Becoming an Effective Real Estate Photographer.” The keyword being inserted is “real estate photographer,” which is easily crawled by search engine bots.

Also, rather than force keywords or search-friendly titles on existing pages, why not create new, search-engine friendly, and keyword-optimized pages? Each page that ranks in a search engine is like opening a new gateway to your website.

EXAMPLE: Let’s use the same keyword in the example above. Rather than inserting “real estate photographer” in an existing article or web content, create a new page or an article about essential photography gear or necessary skills that a professional real estate photographer should have.

2. Use the right keywords to optimize images.

You might think that only text-heavy websites use keywords to improve their online visibility. But no, the same principle also applies to image-rich websites. Thus, insert keywords in the following sections of your images:

• image title
• alt tags
• filename of the image
• text near the image

HINT: If you are using captions (and you should), include keywords here as well.

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3. Use long-tail keywords.

Most likely, you won’t rank favorably for competitive keywords, at least not right away. That is due to the saturation of competition. Being a new player in the space, your content will take some time and traffic in order to gain traction.

A good option is to utilize longer phrases that include multiple competitive keywords; in SEO terminology, these phrases are called long-tail keywords. They include three or four keywords that are very specific to what you are selling or offering. Long-term keywords are a good option since specific multi-word phrases have the tendency to rank well and more easily than generic single- or double-word keywords.

REMINDER: Make sure your caption, title, or description isn’t more than 60 characters, including spaces. This is because search engines, like Google and Bing, truncate phrases and sentences that go beyond this limit.

Let’s consider the title “Tips in Becoming an Effective Real Estate Photographer.” It has 54 characters, including spaces, which is adequate. Do not use “Excellent Tips in Becoming an Effective and Award-Winning Real Estate Photographer” as it has a character count of 82, including spaces. Google will truncate it at the 60th character.

Also, remember that the idea of keywords is to target words or phrases that people might type into Google or another search engine. While you might not rank favorably for “Boston Wedding Photographer”, you might have a better shot with a long-tail keyword phrase like “outdoor wedding at Boston golf course”. This is something a person looking to get married outside at a golf course near Boston might actually type in their search engine. Always remember that you should only use these long-tail keywords when appropriate like when you’re blog post is showing an outdoor wedding at a Boston golf course.

We will publish more tips in Part 2—tips that focus on how to get quality links. We will also give you some pointers on how to make your website more SEO-friendly and how a blog can help you get on top of the game. Stay tuned!