Squarespace SEO for wedding photographers
As a wedding photographer, there is no telling the kind of reach you can have if you optimize your website with the right search keywords. In this post we’re going to talk all about search engine optimization (SEO) for wedding photographers!
You’re a brilliant and creative photographer, serving your clients, who are the happy couple and are embarking on one of the happiest days of their lives. So, while you get on with that important business, you should have your website SEO doing the work for you in the background.
The homepage tagline (the first sentence or two, which tells your future client what you do, who you serve and what problem you’re solving) and copy is one of the most important sections of your website because it’s function is two fold. It is an important piece of information for your site visitors, as well as playing an important role for your website SEO.
Keep reading as we unfold some tips and advice for good website SEO practices, but also how to research those keywords which you could use, as well as the places to implement those keywords on Squarespace.
Why website SEO for wedding photographers?
SEO is the method of updating your website so that it starts to rank higher for specific and chosen keywords on search engines like Google.
Niching your brand and business is a key way of letting Google know that you’re the authority in that niche. Which ultimately helps you rank higher in searches. However, don’t fear if you’re not just a wedding photographer, but offer other services like the other types of photography (e.g. for families). You can include this portfolio and information on a different page of your website.
Your niche would need to be displayed in the tagline (as mentioned above), so that your potential clients see this very early on in the website journey.
You may rely quite heavily on your social pages. For example, if you have a large Instagram or Facebook following, and get many clients this way. This is great! However it isn’t a long term strategy for your business, especially given that you don’t own any of your social media followers (those algorithms can shift at any time, or they can be taken away at any time). Your site visitors that find you through great SEO, are much more likely to become loyal customers.
SEO keywords for wedding photography
You can use sites such as Keyword Revealer (on a free account or subscription) or semrush.com (you can start a free trial, but then have to go on a monthly/annual subscription), to do your research on which keywords would be feasible to use.
semrush.com
semrush.com
As you can see from the above screenshots (taken from semrush.com), you’re able to take note of keyword variations as well as more of a detailed overview of that specific keyword.
For example above, we typed in the very broad term ‘wedding photographer’. Sem rush then shows you variations for that term, which may be better suited for you. You also get to see related keywords, and questions keywords which can often be helpful for future clients seeking information online. The site is brilliant as it gives you the monthly search volume compared with the difficulty to rank for it (which is a key factor to determine whether or not it’s worth using a term or not - you don’t want to spend a lot of time trying to rank for a ridiculously competitive keyword - hence, niching is also important).
When trying to find keywords that are good for you, simply start searching broader, and then you can start narrowing down.
Consider the following when you’re coming up with/researching keywords:
Your location; this is very important because it starts to narrow you down a little. This is very important if your service is dependent on your geographic location. You can be as specific as possible here. Name your city, town, subtowns and state (especially within your meta description; which we’ll get onto shortly in this post). Hopefully you get the gist, but when your potential clients search ‘wedding photographer near me’, you have the opportunity to rank higher.
If you’re willing to travel out for your weddings, then by all means make that known within your page content. If you are a photographer for elopements, then become specific with where you’re willing to travel. Instead of simply stating, ‘worldwide elopement photographer’, state the country/countries you’re willing to travel to.
If you also offer different types of photography, such as doing family portraits, lifestyle photography, etc, include information about those types on different pages. Then, you want to make the keywords specific to that type of photography, on the meta title/description for that particular page (we’ll go through where that goes shortly in this post).
Your niche/speciality; throughout your content you also want to mention your method of photography or speciality, for example do you take, classical photos, modern photos, candid wedding photography; whatever ‘kind’ of photographer you are, mention that in your page copy.
Your brand name; chances are that if you’re new to business, your brand name is not going to show up on Google search results. However, you want to start including your brand name within your meta title and/or meta descriptions, so that overtime Google recognizes you as the top search result for that brand!
Where to add your keywords
There are various places you can add your keywords into your Squarespace website, and the platform makes it very easy and self-explanatory as to what you need to do. So let’s run through the key places.
SEO Title & Meta Description
This is what will show up when your followers search for relevant keywords in Google search results. You can complete these sections for each page in your Squarespace website. By simply going to Settings > SEO.
The main place to make sure you’ve included this information is under Marketing > SEO. Below are our own examples for the SEO title and meta description, for the general niche and description of our business and brand.
Ensure you have the following character limits for both:
Site title: 50-70 characters
Meta description: 155-160 characters
This is specific to Squarespace, and the methods of doing this will be different on different website platforms. E.g. for WordPress, you would need to install a plugin specific for SEO, like Yoast SEO.
Homepage Tagline
This is the first copy your visitor will see, and this needs to be no more than a few sentences, describing what you do, who you serve and what problem you’re solving.
We like to use the following tagline formula:
I am [your name(s)]. I [what you offer] for [target audience] so that they can [result]. Serving [town, city, state].
Of course this is just the basic formula, you can customize this to your own tone of voice, for your brand.
As we mentioned earlier the tagline is a great way to attract your dream clients quite quickly, as well as help with your SEO.
Image Alt Text
As wedding photographers, you’re going to be uploading many images onto your website.
When you upload image blocks on Squarespace, you have the option to enter descriptive text into the ‘image alt text’ box. This text will show in place of the image when your users are not able to see them. Also, by describing the image in the alt text box, you’re helping towards the SEO for your site.
Blog Posts
We are giant fans of blogging. This is one of the best ways of building great content on your website, thereby providing your audience with amazing content, as well as helping your SEO!
This is your opportunity to include long tail keywords and get really specific with certain topics. There are so many things you can blog about, for example:
Previous client projects
Tutorial type information; perhaps ‘what brides should expect on the day’, ‘what you should wear to an engagement shoot’, etc.
Best places for photography shoots (e.g. in the area you serve, etc)
FAQ topics
To get more ideas in your field, you can definitely refer back to sites like semrush.com, to see what are the best long tail keywords.
On Squarespace, you should also go into the ‘SEO’ section and complete the ‘SEO Title’ and ‘SEO Description’ for each post. Remember to utilize your keywords in both these sections.
Check out our other blog post - 7 Squarespace blogging tips
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