I get it.. you have Googled your industry keywords a million times and can’t figure out why you’re not on the first 50 pages of search results. At this point you’d be happy just to get to page 10 even though you know no one is ever going to go that far. You need some SEO best practices to boost your ranking and help you along the way, am I right?
You can relate to the above statement, but you need me to backup even more because you’re not quite sure what SEO means. You’re not alone! SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is essentially what gets Google to rank your website higher on search results for your potential clients.
With the following three tried and true practices your website could be ranking on page one as long as you consistently do them! Now, let me be transparent for a second – there are so many things that go into SEO. I am not an SEO expert, though this is an area of study for me this year, and if you’re not working with a designer to create your website, you’re really going to want to make sure you read up on all things SEO. Yoast is an excellent place to start, with so many free resources. Plus, you need their plugin in your life!
The practices I am sharing are not the only items used to boost SEO that you should be focusing on; they are however key elements you won’t want to forget on an ongoing basis. Plus, they’re super easy!
01. Boost your SEO by Blogging!
I know I know – but you don’t have time, right? You don’t know what to write or whether or not anyone is going to care. Friend, we do care and you don’t have the time NOT to be blogging! I could go on and on with this one, but I will leave you with this:
Google likes sites that are updated with new and relevant content (often). Chances are, you’re not going to update your website on a weekly or monthly, or even yearly basis. Your blog is one of the only ways your site is going to update regularly. Use this as your opportunity to continually post keywords your ideal client is searching. When you’ve finished reading this post, go ahead and scroll to the very bottom where you’ll see a sentence about The Kate Collective. I use this on every blog post, so that way I am always referencing what I do and who I serve. This is one small way you can incorporate those keywords into your blog post, but they should show up in the general content as well.
You don’t have to have a million and one blog posts with fresh new content every other day. Start with one post a month, and then increase to bi-weekly. You don’t have to write a novel, but Google does like content so be sure you’re providing your visitor with some copy. Blogging is huge when it comes to trying to boost your SEO.
02. Image Titles
When you upload your images from your camera to your computer have you ever looked at the file name? Chances are it’s something along the times of “dsc_459893”. Have you ever searched something like that into Google? If you want to boost your SEO, another tip is to name your files with keywords that your ideal client is using. Be sure that you add a dash between each word for Google to be able to read it. An example of this might be: phoenix-arizona-light-and-airy-wedding-photographer
You can use the same titles across different images and you can mix them up to incorporate some other keywords. Be specific! If you are strictly a film photographer, add that! If you don’t want to photograph families and children, be sure you’re not leaving out keywords like “wedding”, “engagement”, “couples”, etc.
03. Proper use of heading tags
Proper use of what?! Those funny little H1, H2, H3 settings you’ve seen but have never paid attention to – yeah, those are your heading tags. This lets Google know which order to read your page in and what the focus of the page is. To boost your SEO, be sure you’re using these properly. Characterize your paragraphs as (p) and your titles as (H1). Each page of your website should only have one title. This tells Google what this whole page is about. For a photographer, they might have their H1 tag for their portfolio page set to read “View the galleries” (this is their page title that the visitor sees). Your heading after that should be H2 and subheading H3. H2 might look something like “wedding galleries” for that particular section of the page.
If you have any questions about SEO and how to update certain settings within your website please do not hesitate to reach out! I love helping fellow small business owners! Email me and ask away!
The Kate Collective is a branding and website designer with a primary focus on photographers and wedding industry professionals. The Kate Collective is based in Phoenix, Arizona and serves the United States and Canada. To inquire with Katie fill out the form to connect!
