Photography is a highly competitive industry, and setting yourself apart from other photographers is one of the best ways to get the advantage when it comes to bringing in clients. One way to really get the edge on other photographers is to have a website that has great SEO – making it more likely to appear when someone searches online for possible photographers.
Know exactly what you need? Feel free to click on a link below to go directly to that specific SEO topic:
Search Engine Optimization: Best Practices
Edit Website Description
Editing the alt-text of your images
Adjusting the social media preview
Enable and use text blocks on your website
Ranking of your Site
Search Engine Optimization: Best Practices
1. The Power of Words: Text Content & Headings
Your website is visual, but search engines like Google read text, not images. To understand what a page is about, Google needs descriptive text.
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Actionable Tip: Write a few descriptive paragraphs on your homepage. This text should clearly state your services (e.g., wedding, portrait) and geographic location (e.g., "serving Austin, TX and surrounding areas"). Your page should also end with a clear call-to-action (CTA), like a button to your contact form or a visible phone number. |
2. Key Pages for SEO Success
Focusing on specific pages can maximize traffic and conversions. Here are the most important ones and how to optimize them:
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3. Your Digital Storefront: Meta Title & Description
The meta title and description are what users see in Google search results. They are a crucial first impression and a major factor in whether someone clicks.
Anatomy of a Good Meta Tag
Meta Title: The blue clickable link. Should be ~50-60 characters. On important pages, try to include your primary service and location (e.g., "Denver Maternity Photographer") to attract local searches.
Tip on Separators: Use a pipe | or a dash - to separate distinct parts of your title (like Primary Keyword - Brand Name). Google may sometimes rewrite your title and use a dash, so using a dash is often a safe bet.
Meta Description: The short text snippet below the title. Should be ~150-160 characters. Make it a compelling sales pitch and consider adding a phone number to encourage immediate calls.
Homepage Examples
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✓ GOOD
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X BAD
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Blog Post Examples
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✓ GOOD
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X BAD
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Contact Page Examples
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✓ GOOD
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X BAD
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Actionable Tip: Make optimization a breeze! In your NextZen Zenfolio account, you can navigate to the SEO Tools section to bulk edit titles and descriptions for all your pages in one place. This makes it quick and easy to apply what you've learned to your entire site. |
4. The Direct Line to Google: Search Console & Sitemaps
Your website is visual, but search engines like Google read text, not images. To understand what a page is about, Google needs descriptive text.
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Actionable Tip: Verifying your site with GSC and submitting your sitemap is a one-time setup that provides long-term value. We can help guide you through these simple steps. |
5. Winning Local Searches: Google Business Profile
Key GMB Success Factors:
• Complete Profile: Fill out every single section: services offered, service areas, hours, phone number, website link, attributes (e.g., women-led), etc.
• Accurate Categories: Select primary and secondary categories accurately (e.g., "Photographer," "Wedding Photographer," "Portrait Studio").
• Frequent Updates: Regularly add photos from recent shoots and use the "Posts" feature to announce special offers or share a link to a new blog post.
• Gather Reviews: Actively ask happy clients to leave reviews. Positive reviews are a massive ranking factor. Respond to all reviews, both positive and negative.
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Actionable Tip: Your Google Business Profile is as important as your website's homepage for attracting local clients. Set a monthly reminder to add new photos and a post to keep it fresh. |
Editing Your Website's SEO
Page Descriptions
Your website Page Title and Description are the main descriptive preview of your pages that potential visitors will see. This is also the description that will be seen when your website shows up in an online search result (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.) when a link to that particular page is indexed.
To customize the page Title and Description, follow these steps:
- In your Zenfolio account, click on the
SEO Tool icon on the left-hand side.
- Click on the Page tab.
- Click on a particular Page from your website to expand it.
Here you'll be able to customize the Title and Description of each page on your website. Keep in mind that your Home page Description and Title will act as your overall website description and title – when your base domain/website URL is shared this is the information that will be seen.
For the Title, a good tip is to create a short but descriptive representation of that page.
For the Description, you may want to provide a more detailed description of what you and that particular page of your website provides. Keep in mind that you want to create a description that potential visitors will respond to. Instead of creating a list of related keywords, write a descriptive paragraph that contains your keywords. Here is an example:
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Mark's Photography | Events and Portraits Experienced, Reliable, and Passionate event and portrait photographer serving Menlo Park, CA and the San Francisco Bay Area. Contact for a quick quote, and to schedule a consultation. |
Once you complete updating your SEO for all the pages you want to update, you can select another page to edit, if needed. And when you're all done making changes you can click on Save Changes.
Alt-Text of Your Images
Alt-text (or “alternative” text) for images is used primarily for the purpose of improving image accessibility for users with visual impairments and other accessibility needs. The alt-text accompanying an image is necessary so that it can be read aloud by assistive technologies, such as by a screen reader. If no alt-text is provided to an image, it will be skipped over by the screen reader and directed onto other interactive content - which is not ideal in most cases. Alt-text also replaces an image when the browser is unable to load an actual image, so it is especially important to craft alt-text that accurately represents an image whenever possible!
The use of alt-text and alt-text best practices can enhance your website’s SEO. It allows search engines to better understand which images are on your webpage. When a search engine crawls your website, it can only crawl through the text portion of your site since it cannot “see” your images. Alt-text allows these search engines to interpret the contents of your images so that it can index them properly.
To customize the Alt-Text of images on your website pages, follow these steps:
- In your Zenfolio account, click on the
- Click on the Images tab.
- Click on a particular Page from your website to expand it.
- You will see all of the Blocks on that page that contain images, select a specific Block to expand it.
In the expanded Block you will see all of the images that have been uploaded to that particular Block, along with the Title and Alt-Text for customizing.
Sometimes photo editing programs will automatically generate alt-text from the filename of the image. It’s important to note that applying a generic filenames (e.g. “image_001”, “image_002” etc.) to alt-text is a bad practice and is misleading for screenreaders, since it doesn’t accurately represent the contents of that image. Instead, it’s advised that you provide a short, unique description of the image to create a clearer understanding of what it contains. For example, an image of a bride and groom at their wedding may contain the alt-text "bride and groom exchanging vows" to describe what is happening in the image. Keep in mind that the alt-text should be as concise as possible. It can also include contextual information about an image’s contents. Check out this resource for more information on how to create alt-text effectively.
Once you complete updating your SEO information for all of the pages/blocks you want to update, you can click on Save Changes.
Social Media Preview
Just like the main Pages Titles and Descriptions, you can create a custom Title, Description, and preview image specific for social media for each page. This is the preview of the link that is seen when you post a link on Facebook, Twitter, etc.
To customize the Social Media sharing Title and Description of your pages, follow these steps:
- In your Zenfolio account, click on the
- Click on the Social Share tab.
- Click on a particular Page from your website to expand it.
Here you'll be able to customize the social media preview Title, Description and image for this page.
Similar to the main Pages Titles and Descriptions, you should create a short but descriptive preview of your page. You can even use the same text from the main Pages description. In addition to the Title and Description, social media will generate a image preview for you website as well and you can change this image using the pencil icon and upload an image from your device.
Once you complete customizing the Social Share information for all the pages you want to update, you can click on Save Changes.
Editing Your Website's SEO In the Website Editor
Website Description
Your website Title and Description are the main descriptive preview of your website that potential visitors will see. This is the description that will be seen when your website shows up in an online search result (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.).
To customize the website Title and Description, follow these steps:
- In your Zenfolio account, click on the
Website editor button on the left.
- Click on the Navigation icon at the top of the left panel of the Editor.
- Click on the vertical ellipsis
next to your website page. Note: you must first select the page you want to edit these options for.
- Choose Site SEO Options from the menu.
In the SEO OPTIONS window that appears, select the Main tab.
Here you'll be able to customize the Website Title and the Website Description.
For your Website Title, a good tip is to create a short but descriptive representation of your website.
For your Website Description, you want to provide a more detailed description of what your and your website provides. Keep in mind that you want to create a description that potential visitors will respond to. Instead of creating a list of keywords related to your website, write a descriptive paragraph that contains your keywords. Here is an example:
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Mark's Photography | Events and Portraits | Menlo Park, CA Experienced, Reliable, and Passionate event and portrait photographer serving Menlo Park, CA and the San Francisco Bay Area. Contact for a quick quote, and to schedule a consultation. |
Once you complete updating your SEO for a particular page, you can select another page to edit, if needed. And when you're all done making changes you can click on Save Changes.
Alt-Text of Your Images
Alt-texts of images serve a few important purposes: Visibility, Accessibility, SEO.
Sometimes websites may not load completely and the images on the page may not be visible. The alt-text is there to replace the images when the browser is not able to load the actual images. Alt-text is also read aloud by screen readers that provide accessibility to websites for those that experience visual impairment to be able to know what images are on the page.
But in regards to SEO, alt-text help search engines know what images are on the page. When a search engine crawls your website, they are crawling the text of your website, because they can't actually see images and know what the image is. Alt-text is present to tell the search engines what is contained within the images so that they can index the images properly.
To customize the image Alt-Texts, follow these steps:
- In your Zenfolio account, click on the
- Click on the Navigation icon at the top of the left panel of the Editor.
- Click on the vertical ellipsis
- Choose Site SEO Options from the menu.
In the SEO OPTIONS window that appears, select the Images tab.
Here you'll be able to customize the Alt-test of the images that appear on your website page.
Sometimes photo editing programs will automatically generate the Alt-text from the filename of the image. However, you can provide a short descriptive alt-text to create a clearer understanding of what the image contains. For example a image of a bride and groom at their wedding may contain the alt-text "bride and groom exchanging vows" to describe what is happening in the image. Keep in mind that the alt-text should be a very basic and short description of the image, the alt-text should not be used to provide longer descriptions of the image.
Once you complete updating your SEO information for your website, you can click on Save.
Social Media Preview
Just like the main website Title and Description, you can create a custom Title, Description, and preview image specific for social media. This is the preview of the link that is seen when you post your website link on Facebook, Twitter, etc.
To customize the Social Media sharing Title and Description, follow these steps:
- In your Zenfolio account, click on the
- Click on the Navigation icon at the top of the left panel of the Editor.
- Select a page of your website and click on the vertical ellipsis
- Choose Site SEO Options from the menu.
In the SEO OPTIONS window that appears, select the Share tab.
Here you'll be able to customize the social media preview Title, Description and image.
Similar to the main website Title and Description, you should create a short but descriptive preview of your website. You can even use the same text from the main website description. In addition to the Title and Description, social media will generate a image preview for you website as well.
Once you complete updating your SEO information for your website, you can click on Save.
Site Ranking
It is worth reiterating that having a higher Site Ranking is a crucial part of potential visitors seeing your website in their search queries, but much of this is outside of your control.
If you’ve done all you can do to improve SEO, and your website is still not listed in search results, it may be because your site is being compared to other websites with similar content and simply has a lower site ranking. Keep in mind that not only are you trying to earn a top spot in those search results, so are many others.
If other websites have better SEO (more content, frequent new content, more links, etc), search engines may rank and prioritize those sites higher than yours in search results. We recommend that you do all that you can do for search engine optimization, but be patient and recognize that improvements typically come slowly over time.