Digital marketing for outdoor and adventure sports photographers (Part 2) - Search engine optimisation
Part two in a series of articles related to digital marketing for outdoor and adventure sports photographers. This one is focused on optimising your website for organic traffic.
Considered use of search engine optimisation techniques will enable you to maximise your search engine page rankings, drive organic search and help you to rise above your competition.
But I’m a photographer, not a web developer!
Brian Dean at Backlinko shares that Google has 200 page ranking factors it uses to measure a web page before it positions you within its search engine page rankings (SERPs). As a photographer, unless you’re also a web developer, you’re likely not able to concern yourself with, or even care, what many of these are (some will be driven by the content management system that you choose to host your website) but there are some simple things you can do at content level which can aid your success. The key thing I’d suggest is to always think about your client. If you aim to make it easy for them and optimise their user experience, you should, in theory, be rewarded as a result by search engines.
Optimising your website for search
As photographers, there’s a number of things we can do to customise our website and maximise our presence online. These techniques, under the umbrella term ‘search engine optimisation’ (SEO), apply regardless if you are building your website yourself or commissioning an agency to build one for you. The content that follows is targeted at photographers who are building a website themselves, using templated solutions from a supplier. If you’re commissioning someone to build your website for you, you can use the content as a means to help you choose an appropriate web development agency. (If your intended supplier doesn’t ask you questions related to the below, I’d question their suitability for your needs).
a.) Defining keywords
Keywords are simply the words your clients type into Google (or other search engines) when they are seeking something of interest. Simply put, the more relevant the keywords you choose are to the keywords your client uses, the higher the chance you have that your website will be ranked in search and be found by your clients. A focus for photographers looking to improve their search engine page rankings is therefore to understand your client base and establish what keywords your clients use when they browse the internet and are seeking to find photographers online. You can then tailor your content to include these keywords and match their needs. If you agree your keyword strategy up front, it’s really fairly easy afterwards to ensure your content always aligns to it.
Depending how considered your approach is to SEO, there are tools that can help you identify keywords, including Google’s KeyWord Planner and ahrefs Keyword Explorer. Both of these tools, plus other solutions, are paid-for applications and will give you lots of detail (e.g. the price you’d pay to advertise on those keywords). The stripped-down functionality of Google’s search field may be of use instead (simply type in a keyword into the search box on Google.com and it will tell you via a drop-down menu what other people have been searching for related to those keywords). Alternatively, if you’re simply looking to generate some keywords you want to use on your web pages and your blog to drive traffic to your website, a suitable tool I’d suggest is your brain. Establish the keywords you most want to be recognised for and then think about other topics that are related to those words.
Example keywords I use as an outdoor sports photographer based in Scotland, UK;
UK, Scotland, photographer, Edinburgh, commercial, advertising, editorial, photography, outdoor sports, outdoor, adventure, adventure sports, active lifestyle, outdoors, athlete, mountaineering, hiking, trekking, running, trail running, mountain running, surfing, cycling, mountain biking, landscape, travel, tourism, fitness, health, environment, etc.
b.) Choosing a domain name
If you’ve followed the advice I shared about choosing a web hosting company from an SEO perspective, the technical aspects of your domain name will be optimised for search, working without the www prefix and being presented to your clients via a secure connection, i.e. HTTPs. A steer for what to call your domain name would be to choose something that is short and memorable and, if you wish, contains a keyword related to photography. Aim for a domain name that is easy to remember and shy away from using multiple keywords in your name, which Google could class as spammy, plus hyphens or underscores, as they could make it more difficult for your clients to recall or type your address.
You may wish to choose what you do for your domain name, or to use a company slogan, for example;
ukoutdoorsportsphotographer.com
bestoutdoorsportsphotographer.com
The choice is yours but there’s a risk that search engines (and your clients) class this keyword-targeted approach as spam-like and related to poor quality content (think of similar sites in other industries with lots of adverts). I’d recommend instead choosing a simple domain name, e.g. firstnamelastname.com or firstnamelastnamephoto.com and using the content itself on your website to generate your SEO. (The value being you can get much more breadth with your content - customising individual web pages for targeted search - than you can with just your domain name).
c.) Structuring your website
A good way to start thinking about how to structure your website is to research other photography websites. There’s only so many options to categorise your content when you’re presenting photographs and you’ll likely find the majority of the sites you visit are structured around a variation of a theme (Homepage, Portfolio, Galleries, Projects, About, Blog, Contact).
You may be tempted to try something different to stand out, and people do, but most photography buyers will expect some standardisation across websites and you may make it difficult for them if you break from ‘the norm’. I’d recommend to focus on wowing clients with the quality of your photographs rather than a fancy website and keep it simple as possible.
Tips for creating a site map
Have an overview or portfolio page so buyers short of time can clearly see what you offer
Aim for three clicks max for a client to find lower-level content (ideally two clicks). For example, if they’re on your homepage, Galleries (1 click), Adventure sports (2 clicks).
Make your labels clear and concise and relevant to the page you’re sending your clients to (Labels are the words your client clicks on. Depending on your CMS, these can be different to the labels you provide for search engines - see adding page meta data below)
Have an ‘About’ page that clearly describes who you are and what you do
Consider a biography if you have an interesting back story that supports or adds to your brand
Ensure your contact details are easily accessible (name, location, phone number and email address)
Should you have one website or multiple websites? Research I’ve conducted would suggest that photographers are best to focus their business on a speciality rather than being a jack of all trades, the rationale being that photography buyers are more likely to hire someone who has high-quality images only of, e.g. outdoor sports and related topics on their website, rather than a photographer who has diluted their approach by mixing in outdoor sports along with their pet, wedding and baby photography. There’s nothing to stop you presenting a multi-faceted approach for your clients, and, if you’ve chosen a CMS that supports it, optimising each page from an SEO point of view, but industry commentary would suggest that the best practice is to specialise. On that basis, I’d recommend you create a separate website for each genre of your photography (or instead, put all your efforts into one genre).
c.) Adding page meta data
Once you know how many pages you’re going to create for your website, think about how you’re going to describe each page for search engines. This is valuable because when Google or other search engines crawl your website, they attribute value to it and you build up this value over time as more people visit or link to your content. (The more value your site has for a specific topic, the higher you will rank in search engine page rankings for searches related to that topic). Meta data is simply information you’re able to add to your web pages which enables search engines to understand better what you offer
Page URLs - If you can tell from a page URL what is going to be on a page before you visit, then it’s highly likely a search engine will be able to as well. Aim to keep your page URLs clear and concise and ensure they are relative to the content of your page. Unlike domain names, do use hyphens to separate keywords, which help search engines and will aid usability.
Examples from my website;
Page titles and description - A page title and description is a simple summary of your web page that describes what it contains. The goal from a technical perspective is you’re telling search engines up front what they can expect to find in your website but, as the information is displayed publicly in search engine page results, a good title and description can help clients clearly understand your speciality when they come across your name (and can also help your name to be front of their mind when they think of, or search for, your speciality).
An example from my website;
Page title - Outdoor photography | Sports, adventure, lifestyle - Colin Henderson Photography
Description - Photographer based in Scotland, UK. specialised in a variety of subjects such as sports, outdoor recreation and employment, adventure tourism, travel and landscapes.Tip - Your page title is also displayed on a browser tab so it will be visible to your clients when they’re on your website. Ensure your page titles are easily readable and place your most important keywords (i.e. those most relevant to the content) at the start. Page descriptions apparently contribute little in regard to search engine rankings but have clear usability benefits as they help to pique your clients’ interest.
d.) Writing page copy
You’ve set up your web pages, labelled them so they make sense to your clients and appended meta data so they’re optimised for search. Your next step is to add relevant content to your web pages which you’ve researched and you’re confident will interest and engage your client.
My simple advice for writing online copy is to find something you care about, write naturally and don’t stuff your text full of the same keywords. Decide up front what your primary keywords are for each of your web pages and mention these on the page. Avoid repetition, as far as possible, and use synonyms where appropriate to help round out your writing and give search engines a broader view of the message you’re trying to get across.
e.) Formatting your web pages
Formatting your web pages (using bold text, italics, margins, tables, etc.) makes it easier for clients to view your content and understand what you’re trying to say. Categorising your content using headers helps search engines and makes it easy for clients to scan your web pages and identify key information. Keywords in your page headings is an SEO ranking factor (especially H1) and bear in mind that search engines (and humans) like order and structure.
For example;
H1 - Outdoor sports photography hints and tips
H2 - Essential camera gear
H3 - Camera bodies
H3 - Camera lenses
H2 - What to photograph
H3 - Athletes
H3 - Landscapes
f.) Describing your images
The need for image search first materialised back in 2000, when Google began to support people searching for photographs (the instigator its said being multiple searches people made for ‘Jennifer Lopez’s green dress’). Google developed image search and you can use keywords to help your images rank in search as well as your web pages.
Image descriptions (also known as 'Alt text’ or 'Alt attributes') are used by search engines and also by visually-impaired users who use screen-readers. They allow you to describe what is in your image. As with page titles, keep them short and descriptive and aim to include your keywords.
An example of an image description on my website;
Athlete Donnie Campbell mountain running at Desert de Platé near Chamonix, with Mont Blanc in the background
g.) Considering page weight
Finally, but just as importantly as all the above (potentially more so but it’s at the foot of the page), keep in mind that the more images you add on a page the greater your page weight. Google and other search engines will very likely penalise your website if it loads too slowly. Bear this in mind when you’re creating your site map and consider breaking content into two or more pages if you wish to share lots of images. Aim to keep your image file size as small as possible (say between 500KB and 1MB per image) but note there may be a trade off because, if the image isn’t big enough and your web template has a full screen option, it may not render very well on larger screens. My advice would be to know your target audience - if they always use fast internet connections and larger desktops it may make business sense to optimise the experience for them. (Not many clients will have this luxury, especially when they’re on the move - think mobile). Alternatively, you may wish to choose a web template where your images are presented in a smaller size if page speed will become an issue. As ever, it’s a consideration of all of the above that will help you to be most successful. I’d recommend making use of Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool to get a feel for how weighty your page is overall and Chrome DevTools to get more detailed information.