5 keys to improve the positioning of a photography website

If you want to improve the visibility of your website, you have no choice but to learn how to improve the positioning of a photography website. This, if you have never read about the subject, may at first seem somewhat cumbersome, but if you inform yourself well you will see that with a few small actions and without having previous knowledge on the subject, you will be able to improve the visibility of your photography website in a very short time.

In today’s article we are going to tell you about 5 techniques for beginners that help you to improve the positioning of a website.

Learn about website positioning and give visibility to your photo shoots.

What is the purpose of positioning a website?

The positioning of a website serves to bring more organic traffic to a website, that is, to get more users who may be interested in the photographic reports that you make, to visit your photography website, without having to pay to advertise on the Internet. The visits that come in this way are called organic traffic.

In addition, we are sure that you will have heard on more than one occasion many more terms related to this topic, such as: SEO, search engine optimisation, search engines, organic traffic, keywords, backlinks, external links, etc. These are all terms that are closely related to each other but each has its own meaning. Let’s look at some of them:

It could be said that positioning is the place where your website is found in search engines and this can be improved if you apply SEO techniques such as the ones we are going to explain here today. And search engines are really Internet pages, such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. that users use to carry out their searches.

The rest of the definitions will be given to you throughout this article.

Definition of SEO and its relation to photography

The term SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation, or “Search Engine Optimisation“. Is SEO important and so that we all understand it, are the techniques and set of strategies that help to improve the positioning of a website.

Within SEO, there are many actions that can be done to improve your website and one of them is the treatment you give to your images, since search engines, nowadays, still do not know how to interpret photographs, only texts. In other types of business, the treatment of images will be important but secondary. On the other hand, in photographers’ websites where the galleries are full of images, knowing how to name and optimise them will be very important to improve the desired positioning on the first page of Google.

Below we are going to share with you an article where we discuss this interesting topic in more depth.

>> SEO guide for photographers to help you improve your web positioning

Factors influencing the positioning of a photography website

The main factors that will influence a better positioning of your website can be many, some of them easy to apply, others in which you will need to have a series of extra knowledge and some of them that will depend on where you have created your photography website. Let’s take a look at some of them:

• Key words.
• Internal links.
• External links.
• Relevant information.
• Image labels.
• Loading speed.
• Responsive design.
• Domain authority.
• Titles, subtitles.
• Meta title and meta description.
• Customer testimonials.
• Presence in networks.
• Updated content.
• User experience.
• Etc.

Importance of visual and textual content

As we mentioned a moment ago, it is not the same to have a website dedicated to showing photographic reports as it is to have a marketing company where images are more secondary.

In the case of photographers, having well-kept image galleries with all the information in order will make the engines and the users themselves who visit it, be pleasantly satisfied with what their eyes see.

But photographs are not enough, as we have already mentioned, Google and the rest of search engines do not know how to interpret images and although the descriptions of each photo can be very useful to know what you do, if you do not include texts in your website, your position in the ranking for appearing at the top will not be very good.

1# Image optimisation

When preparing the images before uploading them to the web, you have to take a series of prior considerations into account, such as, for example:

• Upload them at the right size for an optimal user experience.
• Name them correctly so that Google and other search engines know what the image is about.
• Add ALT tags so that if at some point some of the images cannot be displayed, at least you have a quick description of the type of content that was included.
• Etc.

Importance of images on a photography website

It goes without saying that the most important content of your website is your photographs. Thanks to them you captivate your audience and make them want to hire you without even having met you. Because images transmit how you work, generate interaction, get visitors to stay a little longer on the web and can help you improve the positioning of a website if you know how to get the most out of them.

Techniques to optimise images and improve SEO

When uploading photographs to your website, with Arcadina you have the possibility of uploading them at high resolution and then our own programme will display them on your website with web resolution. This, in addition to being a fantastic mechanism to avoid misuse of images, will allow you to have a better loading speed of your website and therefore, a better user experience.

But in addition to uploading your photos in the right format, in order to help you climb the Google rankings, it is important that you apply a number of other techniques to your images. Let’s take a look at some of them:

• Use ALT tags to describe images.
• Optimise file names.
• Incorporate additional information by adding text to the images.
• When creating web content, make sure that photographs and text are related.

To help you with all these processes, which we know are more cumbersome for you, we are going to give you a series of recommendations so that the information that accompanies your photographs helps you to gain positions in Google.

Tips for choosing file names and ALT tags

When dealing with your images, as we have just mentioned, you will have to create a series of texts for ALT tags, file names and additional information.

About the extra information of each photo, you have it very simple. Explain in very short words what is the scene that is being presented in the image, this way the search engines will know the exact content that you are showing on your website.

As for the ALT tags, the idea is that if at some point the images cannot be displayed, at least a small text is displayed as an explanation. If you notice, the descriptive text and the ALT tag can be very similar.

And finally, to properly name your images, we are going to give you some guidelines that you can follow:

• Remove spaces between words, capital letters and accents.
• Separate words by hyphens.
• Use keywords, your brand name and some more descriptive information when naming images.
• Avoid naming images as: photo1, bodajuan58, newborn20, etc.
• Avoid less common letters, such as ñ or symbols that do not provide information.

>> Image positioning: get traffic with your pictures

2# Key words

Keywords are those terms for which users search for services such as yours on the Internet and that you should add to the text of your website so that you appear in those searches carried out by your ideal clients.

These types of terms summarise the type of work you do, where you do it and the style that can represent you and therefore it is very important that you choose them very well in order to be found thanks to them.

The importance of keywords in SEO?

As we mentioned before, keywords are very important to improve the positioning of a web page, but we know you are wondering where to place them.

Before answering you we want to make a clarification. If for example your main keyword is: wedding photographer in Madrid, it doesn’t mean that you are going to place it all over the web without rhyme or reason. Ideally, you should use a related keyword for each of the pages (for example, on the services page you can use, reportajes de boda en Boadilla del Monte). This way, each page will have its own keyword.

Now where do you place the keywords).

• Titles. Every page of your website should have a title.
• Subtitles. Not all of them, but at least one on every page should have this term.
• Text. Include your keyword in the text of each page in a natural and unforced way and try not to overuse this term, using synonyms and similar expressions.
• Images. As we have already mentioned, when naming the photographs and writing their descriptions, bear these types of terms in mind.
• Meta title and meta description. In Arcadina, in all the text type pages you will find a tab where you will be able to write these data.
• Blog. Create blog articles with long tail keywords that are related to the main one. What this term means is that the keyword of an article, so that it does not compete when it comes to positioning with the page of your website, can use a much more detailed expression, for example: documentary style wedding photographer without posing in Boadilla del Monte.

How to choose the right keywords for a photography website?

To decide which keyword you want to use in each of the pages of your photography website, the first thing you have to do is to find the target of each one of them. For example:

• Home: this page is usually where your visitors land and can have a more generic keyword, for example: photographer in Segovia.
• Services: here you can be a bit more specific, for example: children’s reports in Segovia.
• About me: if you have a brand name, you can use it to position this page.
• Etc.

As you can see, you can use different terms on each of your pages because you never know how the next customer might find you.

Keyword research tools

To help you find your own keywords you can use all kinds of free and paid tools. Here are a few of them:

• Google. The search engine itself, when you include a term, will return several related keywords.
• Ubersuggest. This is a free and paid search engine where you can perform searches.
• Google Analytics. This has to become an essential tool in your work because in addition to being able to measure how visitors interact with your website, you will also be able to perform keyword searches.

These are just 3 examples but you will find many more on the web.

4# Quality content

A website without text loses part of its potential, so when it comes to the content of your website and blog, it is important that you dedicate some time to it. We know that writing is not your thing but think that your website is part of your business and you have to take care of it as much or more than your own photography studio.

In addition to reviewing your image galleries more or less periodically, you should also keep an eye on the texts you upload to the pages of your website, because remember that a page without written content will not rank as well as one with texts where all the information is explained in detail.

How to create quality content on a photography website?

When it comes to creating quality content, never face a blank page, it will be more difficult.

Think about what you want to convey in each section: how you work, your experience, types of sessions, etc. and then organise the information using headings and subheadings.

Then in each section write down everything you can think of on that topic, think of it as your work and your life, so the information will come very easily to you.

Once you have placed all the information you want to upload to your website in each section, shape each part, add images to lighten the text and remember to add, only from time to time, the chosen keyword.

When you have finished, let the text rest for 1 or 2 days and then read it again to correct small details and don’t forget to pay attention to spelling mistakes.

Tips for creating relevant and useful textual content for users

In addition to including texts explaining what your service is like, how you work or what your style is, it can also help you to get a better rating for your sessions and a better position for your photography blog.

Another recommendation when creating the content of your website is to add testimonials. In Arcadina you can activate the testimonials page where customers will be able to write a few words of thanks.

Another idea that works very well is to solve the most frequent doubts at the end of the content, in the following article we explain it in more detail.

>> Use FAQ on your photography website to improve visibility on Google

The importance of updating and diversifying content

Another detail you have to take into account is the updating of your content. Especially in the blog. Propose to review your articles, unpublish those that do not provide too much information to customers, such as customer reports, and keep those that give advice and recommendations. Of all of them, make a periodic review and update the content, we are sure that if you have written them a long time ago, you will have things to add.

The same goes for the website, review the services pages, create new ones for the sessions you are offering this season and unpublish those that are temporary.

5# Links and social networking

Nowadays there is a lot of movement on the networks and not having a presence on them is closing doors unnecessarily. You can use them to capture the attention of your followers with impactful and innovative publications and redirect each post to a part of your website.

To do this, you can connect “both worlds”, in your networks remember to include your website and in each publication, and on your website add links to the main social networks where you have a presence.

In Arcadina you can also create an Instagram gallery where all the photographs you publish on this social network will appear, without having to leave the website.

The importance of links in SEO

Is SEO important and another technique that it is advisable to take into account are the outbound links (external links) and inbound links (backlinks) that you add to your website.

The idea is to link all the pages of your website together, this way the content will be much richer and visitors will always know where to go once they have ended up on that page.

You can leave the external links for the articles, but don’t abuse them, just add 1 in certain posts. In the articles, remember to add a link to your website and other related articles.

How to get quality links for a photography website?

When it comes to promoting your website or your blog articles, you can make use of various means to promote them. One of them we have just mentioned is social media. When you publish a post or launch a temporary campaign, don’t just do that, share it with your followers on social networks.

Another strategy to get more visibility is to contact the companies you have named, for example, a wedding venue, and encourage them to share your content. A variant of this idea is collaborations with, for example, a wedding restaurant, a designer or any other professional who has the same type of clients as you.

Photography directories can also give you a boost in terms of visibility and most, if not all, let you link your profile to your website.

These are just a few ideas but there are many more, such as media communications, attending events where you know your clients will be present or even from photographers who do the same type of work as you.

The role of social networks in web positioning

But without a doubt, one of the strong points when it comes to sharing your content on the Internet are the networks. Here visibility can be enormous if you know how to attract the attention of your audience, the type of content that may be of interest to them, schedules and habits, etc.

In the following article we are going to show you 7 Instagram accounts of fellow photographers who are taking this network by storm.

>> Check out the 7 best Instagram accounts for photographers

The positioning of a photography website: your best ally for getting found on the Internet

Is SEO important and in order to achieve a good positioning of a photography website it is important to follow a good strategy:

• Take care of the images on your website and upload them with the necessary written content to help you improve your visibility.
• Don’t neglect the written content of your website and blog, it will help you to position and win over customers much more easily.
• Use social media to give your publications more visibility.
• Do a keyword search for each part of your website.
• Link your website thanks to backlinks.
• Create collaborations with external links.
• Etc.

The better your positioning, the more potential customers will reach your website and the less money you will have to spend on paid advertisements.

Today we are going to share with you the interview we conducted with the photographer Rafael Ojeda.

>> “The web is an infallible resource” Rafael Ojeda: sports photography

And to finish this article on SEO positioning, tell us: Did you know the 5 keys we have explained today? We’d love to read about them in the comments.

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