Part Three: How To Flourish In Your Photography Business- Marketing and SEO
We are coming to a close of this 3-part series, and naturally the last of the three blogs took the longest to write. This is the nitty-gritty, more “advanced” advice I have to give to you, so grab a pen and paper and write down the things you feel ready to implement in your business!
Do you need a website to be a photographer? No. With Instagram, Facebook, social media marketing, and good old word of mouth, a website isn’t necessary to start a business or be a fabulous photographer. But it is critical in moving forward!
For starters, relying on just social media is a more risky move. We don’t own our business pages, so who’s to say Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t one day pull the plug on the whole app. There goes all of our time, effort, and main marketing outlet.
If you’re just using social media, or haven’t updated your website/blog in months– take this as a push to get in a better habit! When I have a session I know I want to blog, I go ahead and blog it the same day I am delivering the gallery so it’s off of my hard drive and out of my brain. I know if I leave something to “come back later” to do, I typically don’t.
Same things for weddings. You do not need to have the entire gallery completed before you blog it! I try and send back a large chunk of highlights (50-80 images) the next day or two to my couples, and those exact same images I throw on a blog and I go on my way. This makes my workflow so much more efficient!
I could truly write 1,000 blog posts on SEO alone and still have more to go. There is a huge learning curve to SEO, but just a few small things could help boost your exposure quickly.
Google takes forever to trust websites. This is why blogging with lots of words and images, getting google reviews, having a fast loading website, etc is so important to start working on NOW. Your goal is to be on the first page of a google search.
As they say, “The best place to hide a dead body is Page 2 of Google”. Lol. Ouch.
My advice? Invest in a website designer for obvious reasons- one main one being marketing and SEO. Sarah at Alisabeth Designs did a lot of the initial legwork of SEO for me years ago, because it’s a lot to learn. If you’re not at that point, here are some good tips!
2. Name all of your images. SEO is “search engine optimization”, so when naming your images, think of something your client would search when looking for you. They should all be different variations of different searches to help cover all your bases. For example, I name engagement session blog images, “Jacksonville Wedding Photographer”, “Jacksonville engagement photographer” “jax beach engagement photographer”, etc. It’s tedious, and I’m sure there are short cuts I haven’t found! But this is an easy thing to help with SEO.
3. Make a short and descriptive key-phrase for your blog and repeat it within the first paragraph, a few more times throughout the blog, and in your Google Meta Description. It sounds repetitive but I promise it isn’t! It helps Google pick up your blog, in a nutshell.
4. You should have one internal and one outbound website link. I typically like to link a social account, and another similar blog post or my contact page. This (hopefully) keeps a viewer on your website longer, which inevitably helps build credibility for your site.
A well coded website will 100% increase your chances of being seen by so many clients. A well designed website will 100% increase your professionalism by having a place to show off all of your work.
A close second in “MC’s favorite topics”, right after Client Experience is all things Marketing! (If you missed it, we covered some basics about client experience in the last blog. You can find it here.)
Marketing is all the different ways to show off your business that speaks to your ideal client. It’s a bit of a moving target, which makes it so much fun. In the wedding industry, depending on the type of photographer you are (bright, moody, luxury, causal, budget, destination, film, hybrid, etc), there are certain ways to promote yourself.
e. marycatherineecholsphoto@gmail.com
w. marycatherineecholsphoto.com
p. 803.528.5501
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Recently Featured In:
Allure Bridals
TOWN Magazine
Trends Wedding and Lifestyle Magazine
Iconic Bride
Love and Lavender
Every shoot, bring one new thing. An idea you want to do for a fun pose, a styling element you want to try, a workflow you haven’t done yet, an organizational tool, whatever!
Get an apron and monogram it with your logo. I throw in pens, business cars, timelines, an extra battery and camera card, and it literally has my business name on the front for everyone to see!
What do you like to do to market your business? Leave me a comment or contact me here!
And if you’re not already, follow me on Instagram!!
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