Making it as a professional photographer requires a range of skills beyond the ability to take good photos. For one thing, any professional photographer operating today needs a professional website and a strong online presence to drive their lead generation and ensure a steady stream of clients. However, one important skill that many talented photographers struggle with is search engine optimisation.
Every website needs an SEO strategy plan in order to grow and increase the volume of traffic (potential new customers) it receives. When users (real people) search for specific keywords or phrases, the search engine (such as Google) they use will fetch thousands, sometimes even millions, of websites that contain those keywords along with other trust metrics. Search engine algorithms (the machine) analyse numerous (around 200 key factors) key metrics in deciding which websites to place at the top of the results pages. Search engine optimisation ensures Google trust your website enough to place it within the top results during the algorithm analysis.
If you're new to SEO and looking for ways of optimising your Wix photography website to rank as high as possible in search engine results pages, this article is for you. Below, you will find everything you need to know to get started with SEO for your Wix photography website.
1. Identify the right photography keywords
The first step of any SEO strategy is keyword research. This research will tell you which keywords and phrases your audience will likely use to find your images and services online. By identifying the most important keywords, those that are likely to generate the most organic traffic for your website, you can focus your SEO efforts on targeting the phrases that will bring the most significant returns. If you target the right keywords, you should see your website start to climb the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) rankings.
Begin by thinking like your customer. Ask yourself what search terms they might search for that are relevant to the kind of photography services you provide. Once you have a list of keywords to work with, you can use any keyword research tool to identify the most fruitful one or two, which will serve as your main keywords. As well as these, you should pick three or four additional secondary keywords to target.
A last piece of advice when it comes to selecting the right keywords phrases for your Wix photography website...
Be as specific as possible. What do I mean by this?
Just because you are a photographer doesn't mean you should select photographer as you main keyword. Why? For one, unless you travel around the world taking high-level photos for clients, what's the point, plus it is highly competitive so you would need to be prepared to invest many thousands into securing a top ranking for that specific keyword.
Ask yourself...
What kind of photographer am I?
What geographical area do I cover?
Am I affordable or high-end?
Do I provide a specific type of photography service?
The more specific you are, the better your chance of ranking for that keyword, the more highly-targeted visitors you will receive to your Wix photography website, the more new clients you will receive. All this means more revenue for your business.
By specific, a few suggested phrases might be...
Aerial landscape photographer in Lake District
Professional corporate events photographer in Bristol
Affordable wedding photographer in Cardiff
You don't want to showcase yourself as just another photographer. You want to present yourself as 'the' photographer in your niche industry within your area.
2. The importance of content
I have worked with many photographers over the years helping them to generate new business through their website. One common thing I hear all the time is...
"I need SEO but I don't want to add any content to my website as I want the focus to be on my images."
Let's think about this for a moment!
Google is a machine. As a machine it determines where to rank the pages on your website based on being able to understand what each page is about and the off-site trust factors of that page.
My question to you is...
"How is a machine meant to understand what a page is about if it doesn't contain any wording?"
Now we have established that it is so important to include content to your Wix photography site, we can move forward...
Look through each page of your website and ask yourself...
"If people landed on this page, what do they need to know in order for them to contact you?"
Start with this mindset and start writing content for each page. You might have read that for SEO purposes you need to add 2,000 words of content to each page. Don't worry about the length of the content. The important thing is that you add as much or as little content as needed to the page in order for anyone to fully understand what that page is about and it explains what they need to do next.
3. Getting the images on your website sorted and optimised
As a professional photographer yourself, you don't need me to tell you the importance of using quality images to your Wix photography website.
You might of heard that before you upload your images to your website, you need to resize them first so they are fit for web. The good news is that you do not need to worry about this and I would also advise you to upload the biggest file size image (in .jpg format) you have as Wix automatically resize and resample your image during the upload process to ensure it loads fast and it looks quality.
Although Wix sort that out for you. There are a couple of things you do need to do with your image SEO...
One - Rename the image file. Instead of uploading your image 367231.jpg, rename the image file according to what the image is about. An example might be aerial-view-of-lake-widermere.jpg. Also make sure you use hyphens between each word and never leave a space between each word when you are name an image file.
Two - Once the image is uploaded to your website, you need to add an image ALT tag description to your image so Google and other search engines can understand what the image is about. Again, if your image is of an aerial view of Lake Windermere, you would set the image ALT tag to 'Lake Windermere aerial view'. To do this, simply...
Open the Wix editor
Open the page where you have added the image
Click on the image
Click the settings icon
In the box 'What's in the image? Tell Google', add your image description
Click the blue Publish button in the top right of the editor for the changes to go live
If your image is added to your Wix photography website as an image background within a strip, you can change the image ALT description by...
Open the Wix editor
Open the page where you have added the image
Click on the image
Click the 'Change Column Background' button
The Column Background panel will open, you now need to click the 'Settings' button on the image thumbnail
Scroll down to 'What's in the image? Tell Google' and add your image ALT description
Click the blue Publish button in the top right of the editor for the changes to go live
That's the images on your site sorted.
4. Structuring your Wix photography website
You have your list of keywords and you now realise why you need to add written content to your pages. The next step is to make sure that your website is structured correctly.
What do I mean by, structuring your website?
Firstly, you need to map your list of keywords to the related page on your website. As an example, your main keyword might be 'aerial photographer' which you would assign to the homepage as this is your main keyword. A secondary keyword might be 'landscape aerial photographer' so you would assign that keyword to the page that is devoted to landscape aerial photography, and so on...
It is important to note that you should never assign two keyword phrases to two different pages if they mean the same thing. By this, I mean 'wedding photographer in Cardiff' and 'Cardiff wedding photographer' mean the same thing so you wouldn't have two different pages.
Secondly, you need to link the pages together in a logical order.
Go to each page individually and ask yourself...
"If I landed on this page, what additional information would I want to know in order to give me the trust and confidence to contact this photographer?"
Once you have answered that question, your call to action on that page is to simply link to the next page through your sales funnel. The whole purpose of an internal linking structure is to drive your website visitors through your sales funnel so they make contact with you so you can start a conversation with them.
Does this make sense? Like I said, it's just logical thinking!
5. Tidy up your URLs
When you think about ways of making your Wix photography website more beautiful, you probably don't think far beyond its visual design. However, beauty is an important consideration when it comes to your website's URL. A beautiful URL is one that is easy for people and computers to understand. The first part of any URL will be your domain name (https://www.wixseoguy.com/). You can't change this part of the URL as that is the web address of your website, but you do have control over everything that comes after the forward slash.
To make your URLs easy to understand, you should ensure that they continue in the following format: 'wixphotographywebsite.com/page-name'. By ensuring your URLs are written in this format, you'll make it easy for your human users to navigate around your website while also ensuring that Google's search engine bots can navigate your site easily. Try to keep your URLs as short as possible but related to the page; you might have to truncate some of your page names to keep the URL reasonably short.
You can edit the URL for any page on your Wix photography website by...
Open the Wix editor
Select the required page
Click the three dots to the right of your page name
Select 'SEO Basics'
In the box 'What's in the URL slug (last part of the URL) for this page?' add your page URL
Click the blue Publish button in the top right of the editor for the changes to go live
Important to note...
If you do change your URL, you need to make sure that...
You format it correctly. As an example, if the specific page is related to aerial photography services, you would format the URL as '/aerial-photography-services' as it contains the main keyword that relates to that page. Also, use a hyphen (-) between each word and never use spaces. If you use a space in between the words within your URL, the URL will actually look like '/aerial%20photography%20services' which is both messy and it is not good for SEO.
Each URL essentially is a page on your Wix photography website. Google has hopefully indexed your existing pages. If you change the URL, you need to tell Google that the old URL is now this new URL to avoid the Google crawler from getting confused as to which page to rank for its related keywords. To do this you need to setup a 301 redirect. A 301 redirect is the process of automatically redirecting someone who is trying to view the old page URL to the new page URL so it keeps the user journey seamless. Here's how to setup a 301 redirect...
Go to your Wix dashboard and select your Wix photography website
Browse to Marketing & SEO > SEO Tools
Select URL Redirect Manager
Click the blue 'New Redirect' button located in the top right
Make sure 'Single Redirect' is selected
In the 'Old URL' field, type the last part (after your domain name) URL of the old URL (what it used to be)
In the 'New URL' field, type in the URL of what you changed it to
Click the 'Save & Close' button
You should now have a well structured website with each page written to convert your website visitors into leads.
6. Ensure your Wix photography website is mobile-friendly
It's hard to overstate how important mobile optimisation is for any website in 2021. For photography websites that tend to be very image-heavy, proper optimisation is even more essential. You want mobile users to see all your individual photos and your portfolio as a whole, exactly how you intended. It's also crucial that mobile users can navigate around your website just as easily as desktop users.
Google use the mobile version of your website when deciding where to rank your website. This is commonly known as mobile-first. In short, ensuring your website visitors have the best experience possible, regardless of the type of screen they're browsing on, will bring dividends with regards to your SEO.
Although Wix automatically optimise your photography website for all mobile devices, it is still best practice to double check. Just open your Wix editor and click the 'Switch to Mobile' icon at the top right of the screen. Your desktop display within the editor will resize itself and into a long thin strip, just as you would see it on your mobile phone.
View the mobile view of each page of your website to make sure that everything is displayed correctly and it looks great. You can edit the mobile version directly within the mobile editor view. It is important to note though that as already stated, Google use the mobile version of your website to determine where to rank your website. With this in mind, make sure that none of the key elements (such as the content) are hidden as this will impact in a negative way towards where your website ranks for related keywords.
That's the Wix photography website SEO basics all sorted
When it comes to SEO, it is an endless process. The six points described above are to make sure that your Wix photography website is search engine and people friendly. Depending on your target geographical area and the competitiveness of your photography niche will depend on where your website ranks on Google after they have re-crawled it. To help to speed up the re-crawl process you can use the Wix SEO Wiz which will guide you through the process.
Once Google has re-crawled your website and you find that your rankings still need a little boost to get them to where they need to be in order to start driving leads, take a tour through our Wix SEO Course and take your SEO knowledge to the next level.
All that is left to say is...
Good luck and if you have a specific SEO question, feel free to get in touch with the WiX SEO Guy!