Mastering Photography Content Writing for Attracting Clients from Google
In the ever-evolving world of marketing, showcasing your stunning images is just the beginning.
To truly stand out on Google and convert your passion into a thriving business from the help of SEO, mastering photography content writing is essential.
Whether you're a seasoned professional or an enthusiastic hobbyist, crafting compelling content can transform your website and blog into a powerful tool for attracting and engaging potential clients from search engines.
As an SEO expert who's been in the industry since 2016, I’ve seen firsthand how powerful well-crafted content can be for photographers.
Join me as I dive into the topic of writing photography content that not only showcases your unique vision but also drives leads and sales for your business.
Understanding Your Target Audience
Knowing your ideal client demographics — such as age, location, income, and profession — will greatly impact your approach to content writing.
It's not as simple as choosing individuals who might need a photographer. Delve deeper. Identify interests and lifestyle beyond photography needs.
The goal is to build a vivid, comprehensive picture of who your ideal customer would be - whether you are a brand photographer for female business owners or a wedding photographer for head-over-heels-in-love brides.
Researching Your Target Audience's Needs
This process helps you discover the type of content they're searching for, their preferences, and the problems they're looking to solve.
This is something I recommend doing before diving intokeyword research*, which I'll dive into later in this post!*
Some great ways to gather information are:
Surveys and polls
Customer feedback
Social listening through a blog comments section, social media, and photography forums
Observing your successful clients
Developing a Brand Voice
As a photography business, fine-tuning your brand's voice is an important step in content writing. It should resonate with the target audience and build an emotional connection.
With your audience in mind, what tone of voice do you want your brand to reflect?
Whether it's friendly, professional, or an engaging mix, ensure it aligns with your customer.
For example, the way you talk to a bride would be much different than talking to a CEO looking to hire you for corporate headshots.
Even if you do have more “buttoned-up” clients, it's helpful to infuse some personality in your content. Ignoring this aspect can leave your content feeling hollow and impersonal.
Overall, a clear and consistent brand voice enhances your online presence.
[Optional] Analyze Your Competitors
Reviewing your competitors can help to improve your content.
By understanding their strategies, what content they're creating, and how they're conveying certain topics, you can develop compelling content that addresses gaps you see.
A thorough analysis of your competitors offers an advantage in the saturated photography industry. It assists in recognizing trends, highlighting unique selling points, and differentiating your content to gain a competitive edge.
However, it's very easy to fall too much into a comparison trap which can lead to negative self talk. Or sometimes you emulate someone's work to the point that it's borderline copying.
So that's why I've marked this as optional - it's up to you! Sometimes it's just easier to get started without the extra noise of your competitors.
Performing Keyword Research
Before diving in, let's talk about what the heck a keyword is…
A keyword is simply a word or multi-word phrase that people type into search engines.
To master content writing that creates an ROI for your photography website, strategic keyword research is pivotal.
Understanding words your audience uses helps rank higher on search engines and attract potential leads.
These are keywords you'll want to incorporate into your content (more on this below!).
Examples of keywords relating to photography:
wedding photographer in dallas (1,300 searches/month)
wedding photography in dallas (170 searches/month)
dallas wedding photographer (1,300 searches/month)
dallas wedding photography (140 searches/month)
These will most likely be used on your core pages (about, services/investment, etc), but you can do keyword research for your blog posts that are more related to tips:
"how to find a photographer"
“how much does a wedding photographer cost”
“do you tip photographer at wedding”
“how to choose a family photographer”
There are a few key places to do SEO keyword research for your blog, but my favorites are:
Semrush (expensive and best for experienced SEOs)
Ubersuggest (great for monthly reporting and keyword tracking)
Keywords Everywhere (cheapest option for newbies)
You'll want to use a spreadsheet to keep track of all the keywords.
Creating Unique Content
Once you have your keywords, it's time to start writing content.
Two important kinds of content are:
Portfolio pieces that include mainly visual content (at least 500 words)
Tips, advice, and wisdom (1,000-2,000 words)
Your portfolio pieces might be optimized for the location or type of photography, whereas your other educational posts will be geared towards the SEO keywords you've gathered.
When identifying topics to write about, you mainly want to choose topics that have search volume so that you're writing with intention.
The key to maximizing audience engagement lies in picking out topics relevant to your photography business and appealing to your target audience's interests.
Crafting Titles and Headlines
Creating a strong title for your photography content can prove crucial for clicks and conversions. A compelling title captures attention while emphasizing the post's value to the audience right from the start.
Including adjectives and actionable words can create interest, encouraging the audience to click through.
Be concise, incorporate SEO keywords smoothly and clearly communicate the benefit to your audience.
While blog post titles should be straightforward for SEO, you can still infuse curiosity and personality.
For example, let's use the "how to find a photographer" keyword.
Blog post titles from that keyword could be:
How to Find The Perfect Photographer for Your Brand Photoshoot
Finding a Photographer for Your Wedding Day: Here's My 5 Top Tips
Is your photography content not getting the desired clicks and engagement?
The secret might lie in crafting more thought-provoking headlines by using an intriguing question or a promise.
Once you have your title, I encourage you to just write the content. You can worry about inserting the keyword later on (I walk through this in the next section).
Structuring Your Content
It's important to break up your content visually to enhance the user experience and keep people reading your post longer:
Use H2 and H3 headings to break down the main pieces of your post
Use bullet and numbered points
Use italics and bolding
With these visual elements, you make the content easier to scan and digest for your readers (which decreases bounce rate and improves SEO!).
Learn more about how to format your blog posts for SEO and optimal user experience.
Incorporating Visual Elements
Visuals can help make a blog post more digestible and enhance the user experience, reducing bounce rate.
Some visuals you can include are:
Stock photos that align with the content
Infographics to present data or complex subjects in an easy-to-digest manner
Illustrative visuals when discussing concepts or ideas
Videos or GIFs to demonstrate procedures or to create dynamic content
Optimizing Your Post for SEO
Once you write your content, it's now time to optimize it so it has the best possible chance of ranking high on Google!
Using Keywords Effectively
Marrying the art of photography with SEO can feel like a burden. Staying true to your artistic voice while optimizing for SEO can be challenging.
However, it's worth the time and effort.
Infusing your content with the right keywords is important.
But don't overdo it; Google may penalize you for keyword stuffing. And unfortunately, this is a common occurrence on photography websites.
It may be tempting to cram keywords just to try to get a boost in ranking. But you'll want to resist that urge because keyword stuffing will cause users to leave your website (which you obviously don't want!).
Remember this - readability is crucial.
If a keyword doesn't fit organically, rephrase or choose a different keyword — don't force it.
A good rule of thumb is a max of 1% keyword density. That means for every 100 words, you mention the primary keyword one time.
I'd even go as far to say that sometimes every 200 words is fine (depending on the length of the keyword).
By creating well-written content that mentions your primary keyword for the post, you entice both the search engines and your audience.
Add a meta description
A meta description is a brief summary of a webpage's content that appears beneath the page title in search engine results.
It's your chance to make a strong first impression and entice potential visitors to click through to your site.
Crafting an engaging and informative meta description is crucial because it not only boosts your click-through rate but also helps search engines understand the relevance of your content, ultimately enhancing your visibility and reach.
Keep your meta descriptions to 155 characters or less so they don't get cut off in the search results.
Make the URL slug short
Short URL slugs that focus solely on the keyword are important for SEO.
By keeping your URL concise and relevant, you make it easier for search engines to understand the content of your page, which can improve your rankings.
Additionally, a clean and straightforward URL is more appealing and memorable for users, increasing the likelihood of them clicking on your link.
For example, if your target keyword is "how to find a photographer," a URL slug like "yourwebsite.com/blog/how-to-find-a-photographer" is far more effective than a lengthy, cluttered alternative.
Optimizing Your Images for SEO
There are 3 elements to this:
Image size - if your photos are too large, they slow down page loading times, which harms SEO. Compress images to retain quality but improve load speed. One of my favorite tools is tinyjpg.com
Image file name - include the primary keyword of your blog post in the file name followed by a descriptor of the image
Image Alt text - descriptive alt text improves image searchability, aiding visually impaired users and SEO bots
Image optimization is so often overlooked but it's very important!
Leveraging Internal and External Links
Internal links can significantly enhance your blog's SEO. These are hyperlinks that point to other pages on your site. By seamlessly incorporating them into your content, you can establish a logical structure and hierarchy that search engines favor, improving your photography blog's visibility.
Remember to strategically use anchor text for internal links. For internal links, it guides users across your site, enhancing the user experience.
External links can bolster your website's authority in the photography field. By linking to reliable and relevant sources, you demonstrate to search engines and your audience that your content is anchored in factual information, which in turn lends credibility to your website.
Considerations for Mobile Optimization
In today's digital landscape, it's crucial to have a responsive web design. Given that more than half of all web traffic is mobile, ensuring your photography blog looks elegant and functions seamlessly on all devices is vital.
Implement a responsive design strategy that caters to screen sizes of smartphones, tablets, and desktops alike. Recognize that Google has a preference for mobile-friendly sites in its ranking algorithm.
Ensure faster loading times, easy navigation, and readable content on smaller screens. Small, hyperlinked text can be hard to click on a mobile device. Utilize larger, easy-to-tap buttons and optimize your menu for a mobile-friendly experience.
Monitoring and Analyzing Your SEO Performance
Harnessing the power of data analysis is essential to observe and understand the growth of your photography blog’s SEO performance.
Accurate tracking can inform strategic implementation, guiding content development, and keyword optimization.
Tools like Google Analytics provide invaluable insights into the audience, behavior, and traffic channels.
And Google Search Console is helpful in telling you what keywords people are typing into Google to find your website, what pages are ranking, and what keywords have the most clicks.
This allows you to refine your SEO strategy, ensuring targeted reach and better engagement.
Encouraging Lead Conversion
Transform clicks into clients by tailoring your photography blog's content to increase lead conversion. Strategies can include compelling calls-to-action, inviting opt-in opportunities, and customer testimonials.
Including Effective Call-to-Actions
Leveraging effective call-to-actions (CTAs) can enhance your blog's lead conversion rate exponentially. It's crucial to develop compelling CTAs which prompt your readers to take the desired action - such as booking a consultation or signing up for a freebie so you can nurture them on your email list.
You can even create a quiz lead magnet using AI if you’re finding that many clients don’t know the kind of support they need and need help (i.e. one shooter vs two, half day coverage vs full day, etc).
Make your CTAs stand out with compelling action words and an easily noticeable design to capture the attention of blog readers.
Test and analyze your CTAs regularly. Look out for click-through rates and conversions - these metrics will equip you with the insight needed to continuously refine your CTAs, making them more effective.
Consider varying your CTAs based on the content of each post. They should align naturally with the topic at hand to increase their relevance and thereby, their convertibility.
Developing Trust with Testimonials
Highlighting testimonials from happy clients is a great way to instill trust in your process and your work. These real-world examples of your success double as valuable social proof, affirming the quality of your service to prospective clients.
In fact, leveraging testimonials is just one of the ways to establish authority or expertise through your website.
Including testimonials in various forms - written, video, or even pictorial - helps build credibility, fostering trust among your blog visitors and potential leads.
These are a great addition for your portfolio-style blog posts!
There you have it! I hope you found this post helpful.
To recap, here are my top photography content writing tips:
Develop a brand voice you plan to use consistently in your content
Understand your audience and what their needs are to help you brainstorm ideas for your blog posts
With those ideas in mind, perform keyword research to gather data on exactly what your audience is searching for
Write both portfolio pieces and educational blog posts (tips, advice, etc.)
Format your blog posts with headings, short paragraphs, bullets, bolding/italics, and images/other visuals
Include the primary keyword of the post in the title, throughout the content, and in the image file names
Create short URL slugs that include the keyword
Write meta descriptions that describe the post in 1-2 sentences
Resize your images and add alt text
Add internal and external links
Use analytics tools like GA4 and Google Search Console to monitor performance
Add strategic CTAs and freebies/lead magnets
Quality content showcases your photographic expertise and creates a connection with readers. Leveraging SEO in your content writing process will help your business to expand in the backend without having to be as present on social media.
Are you ready to elevate your website's performance? Check out my SEO packages below - whether you have Squarespace, Showit, Wordpress, or another website builder, I can help you :)
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