SEO for Wedding Photographers: 10 Tips to Try Now
The Glorious Company Team
Tip #1: Determine Your High-Value Keywords
Tip #2: Set Up Your Google Business Profile
Tip #3: Set Up Your Bing Places for Business Portal
Tip #4: SEO Tips for Wedding Photographers: Start a Blog and Create Content Regularly
Tip #6: Acquire Backlinks for Your Wedding Photographer Website and Blog
Tip #7: Open Social Media Accounts and Curate Social Content
You have your photography studio set up, you have some clients lined up, yet there’s one crucial factor missing. Have you even thought about SEO for wedding photographers? After all, you need to be found in your local area, so that you can build a steady and growing client base. Without search engine optimization, you won’t get found aside from word-of-mouth recommendations.
According to BrightLocal’s Local Consumer Review Survey 2023, 87% of people relied on Google to evaluate local businesses in 2022, which represented a 7% increase from the year before. Separate research from The Milestone Research Department confirms that 69% of a website’s traffic is based on organic search and local traffic.
Your clients are using organic search and local search to find your competitors in your area, so you might as well be on Google and have an active presence to bring in more leads for your photography business.
Here’s how.
Tip #1: Determine Your High-Value Keywords
SEO is based on people looking for businesses, information, and answers to their questions in search engines’ organic searches. This includes your potential and future clients searching for wedding photography services in their local area. Whether it’s the bride, groom, or their parents, there’s always potential business with each relevant search.
These searches involve the keywords or keyword phrases that you want to rank your website for in search engines like Google. The higher in the search engine results pages or SERPs that you rank for, the more your potential clients are going to easily find you, visit your website, and contact you for wedding photography engagements.
Let’s look at how you find the right keywords that your clients are already searching for on Google.
Keyword Research: Brainstorm With SEO Tools
You likely already have an idea of what people interested in your wedding services are using to search for wedding photographers in your area. They could use terms like “wedding photographers near me” or “where to find wedding photographers near me.” But those are only two out of dozens and dozens of possibilities online.
If you need more ideas for additional keywords that you could rank your website for, then use tools like:
Each SEO tool lets you brainstorm a series of related keywords from your original starting point. For example, within Semrush, if you start with a short-tail and broad keyword like “wedding photographers near me,” you get numerous, sensible keyword possibilities that you’d also like to rank for, such as:
“affordable weddings photographers near me”
“Best wedding photographers near me”
“wedding photographer and videographer near me”
Before long, you’ll have a plethora of keyword ideas that you can use on your website to drive organic search traffic straight to you. Once you’ve determined your keywords, insert them in places like your:
Homepage
Meta descriptions
Services pages
Landing pages
Title tags
Blog posts
URLs
Use Long-Tail Keywords
Long-tail keywords are more specific keywords that are several words long. They better represent the search intent of a person who’s more willing to make a transaction. For example, a long-tail keyword can be “wedding photographers under $1,000 near me.” It’s quite clear what someone searching for this phrase intends to do.
Long-tail keywords are also less competitive because they’re so specific, so your chances of ranking your wedding photographer website for these keywords is greater. While their search volume may not be as high, long-tail keywords provide easier opportunities to rank on Google.
Local SEO: Include Where You Are and What Services You Provide
SEO tips for wedding photographers are based on local search in large part. You serve your local market, after all. By remembering this, you can include your location and services in the same keyword phrase.
Here are some use cases of strong SEO keywords for wedding photographers:
Wedding photographer in (your city or state) — Example: Wedding photographer in Houston
(city or state) wedding photographer — Example: Miami wedding photographer
Wedding photographer (city or state) — Example: Wedding photographer Texas
Best wedding photographers in (city or state) — Example: Best wedding photographers in Las Vegas
Tip #2: Set Up Your Google Business Profile
Your wedding photography business requires a listing on Google, making it possible for you to show up in local searches. This profile directs people to your website and contact details.
Setting up a Google Business Profile involves a few simple steps. First, sign in to your Google account and go to Google Business Profile. Then, click on the "Manage Now" button and enter the name of your business. Next, select the category that best fits your business and provide the location, contact information, and website URL. You’re encouraged to also add images and a description of your business to make your profile even more appealing to potential customers.
To optimize your Google Business Profile, ensure that all the information you provide is accurate and up-to-date. This includes your business name, address, phone number, and website URL. It's essential to verify your business to establish trust with your customers and improve your chances of showing up in local searches for your keywords.
Once your profile is set up, monitor and respond to customer reviews and regularly update your information to keep it current and relevant. A well-maintained Google Business Profile can help attract new customers and improve your online brand awareness.
Tip #3: Set Up Your Bing Places for Business Portal
According to Statista, Bing commands about 10.51% of all organic searches on desktop. While Google still commands the vast majority of searches, it’s a good idea to establish a listing for your wedding photography services on as many platforms as possible, including the 2nd-most used search engine in Bing.
Setting up a Bing Places for Business profile involves the following steps:
Go to the Bing Places for Business website and sign in with a Microsoft account. Enter your business information, including the name, address, phone number, and website. Verify your business by receiving a verification code via mail, phone, or email. Once verified, claim your business listing and edit the details, such as business hours, photos, and categories. Optimize your profile by adding relevant keywords and ensuring all information is accurate and up to date.
Tip #4: SEO Tips for Wedding Photographers: Start a Blog and Create Content Regularly
One of the best tactics to keep ranking for new keywords on Google and staying relevant is by constantly adding wedding photography-related content to your blog. All content management systems (CMS) like WordPress, Webflow, and Squarespace make it super-easy to add a blog to your website. Once your blog is set up, you need to brainstorm content.
Figure Out Keywords for Blog Topics
Brainstorm topics that you know your wedding photography clients are interested in. You can come up with a whole host of keywords this way. For instance, a blog post about wedding venues can lead to the keyword of “how to choose a wedding venue.” Or if you are thinking about a topic like budgeting for a wedding, that can lead to a keyword of “wedding budget breakdown.”
Again, if you’re stuck, you can use tools like Semrush or Ahrefs to help you find more of the best keywords for SEO for wedding photographers, for your topic clusters.
Answer Questions Those Planning Weddings Have
Another way to ensure you have an endless stream of content ideas for your blog is to think about what questions your audience has.
Your audience is likely people planning a wedding, so some questions that come to mind include:
How much is a wedding photographer?
How do you budget for a wedding?
Do you tip a photographer at a wedding?
Are wedding photographers worth it?
Not only are these questions perfect ideas for blog topics, but you can also ideate additional, more specific topics from each of these questions.
Tip #5: Master Technical SEO
Technical SEO is an integral component of SEO for wedding photographers. This is behind-the-scenes SEO that doesn’t involve keywords, but has important benefits for surfacing your wedding photographer’s website in Google and Bing searches.
Make Your Website Speed Fast
Having a fast website speed is crucial for SEO because it directly impacts the user experience of prospects who land on your website to evaluate your wedding photography services. When a website loads slowly, users are more likely to leave, resulting in a high bounce rate. This negatively affects search engine rankings as search engines prioritize websites that provide a good user experience. Additionally, site speed is a confirmed ranking factor in Google's algorithm, meaning a fast website can improve your SEO performance.
To make your site load fast, you can start by optimizing images, minifying CSS and JavaScript files, enabling browser caching, using a content delivery network (CDN), and reducing server response time. You can also consider using a reliable hosting provider, implementing lazy loading for images and videos, and avoiding too many redirects. Regularly monitoring and auditing your website's speed performance using tools like Google PageSpeed Insights and GTmetrix can help you identify areas for improvement.
Compress Your Images
Compressing images is vital to good technical SEO for several reasons. Large image files slow down website loading times, which negatively impacts user experience and can lead to higher bounce rates. In turn, this can have a negative effect on search engine rankings, as site speed is a key factor in SEO. Additionally, search engines favor websites that are optimized for speed and performance, so having compressed images can improve overall website performance and SEO.
There are several methods to compress images. One way is to use image editing software to manually reduce the file size of the image without significantly compromising its quality.
Alternatively, there are online tools and plugins available that can automatically compress images without the need for manual editing. These tools can reduce file sizes while maintaining a visually appealing image.
Some good choices are:
Another method is to use responsive images, which can dynamically adjust the image size based on the user's device and screen size, reducing loading times for different devices.
Tip #6: Acquire Backlinks for Your Wedding Photographer Website and Blog
Backlinks are a confirmed Google ranking factor, according to Google’s Andrey Lipattsev. Links, especially do follow backlinks, that point back to your website confer link juice or ranking authority to you. This means that websites that link to you are essentially giving your site a vote of confidence. This is especially true when websites in your niche that are relevant to your subject matter link back to you.
Therefore, it’s in your best interest to get as many backlinks as possible. You can do this through any number of ways, some more white hat or black hat than others:
Organically earning them when other websites voluntarily link to your website
Being featured in earned media
Guest posting
Purchasing backlinks
Working out a link exchange with other websites
Just because some SEOs take part in some of these practices don’t necessarily mean you should. Review Google’s guidance on getting quality links to your site for more details.
Tip #7: Open Social Media Accounts and Curate Social Content
Posting your wedding photography and actionable tips directly to social media is one of the best ways to build brand awareness and get new clients. Plus, social signals—like engagement, likes, and more followers—can benefit you by increasing your brand awareness and driving more organic traffic to your site.
Let’s look at the best social platforms for wedding photographers.
Instagram’s visual-heavy focus is tailor-made for wedding photographers. Your candid shots of brides and grooms, wedding receptions, and the festivities will be well showcased here. Plus, Instagram drives sales: According to Facebook, 54% of people confirmed they purchased a product or service either in the moment or after they viewed it on Instagram.
Another platform that’s focused on aesthetics, Pinterest’s use of pins to spark visual discoveries makes it a no-brainer for you to promote your wedding photography here.
YouTube
There’s a lot of potential on YouTube. Video is a popular medium, and YouTube is one of the world’s biggest search engines. The wedding photography content you post on YouTube can drive organic traffic to your website.
According to Statista, Facebook is far and away the world’s biggest social platform, with more than 3 billion monthly active users (MAUs), as of January 2024. Become active on this platform to take advantage of all the potential clients you can reach.
X or Twitter
According to a study by Semrush, posts with photos had the highest engagement rate on X or Twitter. This further proves that visual content, such as the snapshots you take as a wedding photographer, does well on social media.
Tip #8: Write Guest Posts
When you write a guest post for a popular wedding blog or website (read: a website with more organic traffic and a higher domain rating or authority score than yours), you can usually include a link back to your own website within the content or in your own bio. This link, also known as a backlink, can help to improve the authority of your wedding photography website in the algorithms of search engines.
When reputable websites link back to your wedding photographer's website, it signals to search engines that your website is a credible and reliable source of information. This, in turn, can improve your search engine rankings, making it more likely that your site appears at the top of search results for specific keywords when potential clients are looking for wedding photography services.
Guest posting can also help to drive organic traffic to your website, as readers of your guest post may click on the included link to learn more about you and your services. This not only improves your brand visibility, but also increases the likelihood of acquiring new clients.
Tip #9: Appear on Podcasts
Try appearing on photography podcasts to build your brand awareness and authority as a photographer working in the wedding niche. A BBC study determined that branded podcasts deliver an 89% increase in brand awareness, so what more evidence do you need that building your brand on a podcast can be very effective?
A quick Google search for the long-tail keyword “list of photography podcasts” returns us multiple results, as well as numerous listicles that feature dozens of podcasts. Reach out to some of them today, and ask them if they’re willing to interview you or mention your brand in some way, shape, or form.
Tip #10: List Yourself in Wedding Photographer Directories
Getting listed in directories tells people that you’re a professional. It also provides another channel for organic traffic to your website and potential leads getting in touch with you, both of which increase your discoverability online. List yourself in the following directories.
Wedding Wire
Wedding Wire is tailor-made for wedding photographers. One of the best tactics for SEO for wedding photographers is increasing your brand awareness and discoverability on wedding-specific directories like this.
Credit: Wedding Wire
Wedding Wire is a wedding-vendor directory. Get yourself listed by signing up today as a vendor.
Yelp
Yelp is one of the globe’s most widely visited business directories. Let people find your wedding photography services when you list yourself on this platform. You can also link back to your website to drive traffic there. Follow these steps to create a Yelp page for your business.
FourSquare
Another business directory you should list yourself on as a wedding photographer is FourSquare. This website and app helps people discover the best places to shop and utilize services. Sign up to get your business listed on FourSquare here.
Alignable
Alignable is a website that encourages networking among small business owners. List yourself on this platform and network with other business owners in the hopes of getting referrals from your network. Follow these steps to list your wedding photography business on Alignable.
Zola
Zola is another wedding-vendor-specific platform. Get yourself listed on this directory to appeal specifically to couples looking for wedding services and professionals. Sign up here to get listed on Zola as a wedding vendor.
Build Your Online Presence as a Wedding Photographer
We hope our SEO for wedding photographers guide has helped you wrap your head around the specific steps you need to take to increase your online discoverability. Much of the business you can drum up as a wedding photographer is generated online these days, so we encourage you to implement these actionable tips immediately to get ranked for your keywords, drive more traffic to your website, and generate more wedding leads than you can handle.
If you’re in need of a content marketing agency to partner with for your wedding photographer SEO, then reach out to us now. Contact The Glorious Company today for a consultation and estimate.
Any questions? Keep the conversation going by leaving a comment below.
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