The Beginner Photography Podcast

480: Connor Walberg: Expert SEO Tips for Photographers

• Raymond Hatfield

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In this episode of the podcast, I chat with Connor Walberg, an experienced action sports photographer and SEO expert, who shares invaluable tips to kickstart your online presence. From understanding the power of Google My Business to crafting compelling image descriptions, Connor provides a clear roadmap for SEO success tailored for photographers. 

The Big Ideas:

  • Utilize Google My Business: An optimized Google My Business listing can significantly improve your ranking in local search results, making it easier for potential clients to find you.
  • Craft Meaningful Content: Focus on producing helpful and relevant content that answers your audience’s questions and highlights your expertise. Personal experiences make your site stand out.
  • Proper Keyword Use: Effective SEO involves natural keyword integration in descriptions and alt text without stuffing. Relevance and locality should guide your keyword strategy.
  • Inbound Links are Crucial: Obtaining backlinks from quality and relevant websites increases your site’s authority. Think of it as a popularity contest where credibility is key.

Photography Action Plan:

  • Optimize Google My Business Listing: Fill out all sections with accurate information, including hours, services, and engaging photos. Encourage your clients to leave reviews and share their experiences to build trust and improve local SEO.
  • Create Helpful Blog Content: Identify common questions or problems your audience faces and address them in your articles. Incorporate personal anecdotes and real-world experiences to make your content relatable and engaging.
  • Correct Use of Keywords: Integrate keywords naturally into your website copy and image descriptions to enhance SEO without overwhelming the content. Focus on local keywords and niche-specific terms to attract the right audience and improve your search rankings.
  • Build Quality Backlinks: Reach out to relevant industry websites or local businesses for guest posting opportunities or collaborations. Participate in podcasts or write articles for other sites to earn credible inbound links to your site.
  • Monitor and Adjust Using Google Search Console: Regularly check your site's performance metrics and keyword rankings in Google Search Console. Optimize your Meta Descriptions to be compelling and relevant, potentially increasing your click-through rates from sear


RESOURCES:
Check out Connor Walberg's website with helpful SEO tips for photographers - https://connorwalberg.com/

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Thanks for listening & keep shooting!

Connor Walberg:

Anything you make or do, if it contributes to these factors Google, will help you with SEO. So the experts who run Google's search division,

they

Connor Walberg:

have guidelines for creating helpful content. content should be helpful to people. So they're trying to get their algorithm to actually understand what's helpful and what isn't. Which is a very big job if you think about it. This is the whole world of information. So there's four factors that they talk about now. Your website should demonstrate E E A T. Experience, expertise, authority, and trust.

Hey, welcome to the beginner photography podcast. I'm your host, Raymond Hatfield. And to date, we are talking with Connor Walberg and action sports photographer turned SEO expert just for us photographers. But first the beginner photography podcast is brought to you by cloud spot. Impress your clients with a beautiful gallery that is easy to view, share, and download literally on any device. Control image size, add a watermark and even download limits. You can grab your free forever account over deliver photos.com and only upgrade when you are ready. Now, Connor is a really interesting dude, had a background, as I said, in action sports. And then got into SEO. Uh, but it's not a traditional path that many take, but, uh, you know, who knows where life is going to take us. Right. So today we talk a lot about SEO specifically for you photographers. We're kind of in this weird time. Uh, where, uh, you know, AI writing tools are, are pumping out blog posts faster than ever. And Google has to figure out what content is relevant and how do we show people exactly what it is that they're searching for. And if they're looking for a photographer, you are the one who wants. Uh, to, you know, be right there at the top of the search results. So today we're going to learn, uh, all about SEO fundamentals, right? Understanding why focusing on, uh, local search results, uh, is, you know, hands down the most important thing you should be doing, or we're going to talk about how to set up a Google, my business listing. It's absolutely free. And it's going to help you boost that visibility. Uh, in those local search results and also be able to collect reviews. And then also we're going to talk a lot about creating content, because as I said in this new era of AI generated. Uh, text and blogs. How do we make sure that we are still getting in front of the people looking for us? So Khan is going to talk a lot about the importance of creating meaningful and experience-based content rather than just relying on AI. So, uh, there's a lot in this one. If you grab a notebook and a pen. Uh, I think that you're smart for that. So with that, let's go ahead and get on into today's interview with Connor Walberg.

Raymond Hatfield:

Connor, my first question for you is when did you know that photography was going to play an important role in your life?

Connor Walberg:

Oh, this is a great question. So I would say that I could go way back to when I was a little kid and I had this like really, really low quality point and shoot film camera that I found in our house and I was taking pictures of my stuffed animals and getting

Raymond Hatfield:

was there too,

Connor Walberg:

processed. And I was setting them up like a studio. But then I would say I didn't have a whole lot of interest. I wasn't like driven to be a photographer until. my senior year of high school and my friends and I were hitting some big bike jumps that we'd built and we dug them out and I was using one of the early digital cameras. It had like a, I'd probably say it was a two second shutter lag, maybe a three second shutter lag from when I hit the button. And we're only in the air off these jumps for like a half a second. So I would, I would track them perfectly and time it out. And I was getting like, I was getting the shot. It was lined up. Obviously there's a whole lot more to photography than just the timing of getting the person in mid air. But my friend was becoming a professional skier at the time. And he said to me, like, Connor, you need to get a pro camera so you can take pictures of me skiing and help me grow my career. And I was like, yeah, right. Like, I'm going to go home and spend money on that. That's 500 probably. So,

Raymond Hatfield:

Wouldn't that be nice, yeah.

Connor Walberg:

wouldn't that be nice? So I went home and. It just, it stayed in my head because I loved taking photos. I was having a good time with it. And I was like, well, maybe I should get a pro camera today. And I ordered one that night. And it was like a thousand dollars and just started shooting. It just became exactly what I wanted to do. And mainly action sports, because I viewed it as a way to tie together my interests. So I could go explore the backcountry on my skis. I could go ski off cliffs and, and ride my bike to remote locations and take pictures of my friends doing it as well. And that way I could combine my passions with my passion. With just together, all my passions, photography, plus all the tech that comes with photography. Cause I've always been tech obsessed. But it just kind of brought it all together.

Raymond Hatfield:

I remember, uh, one of my first digital cameras it was similar. Every time you'd press the shutter button, it'd be like a 2 or 3 second delay. And I remember we got it right before the 4th of July. So, like, I didn't understand the shutter lag at all. But I was so excited to finally be able to, like, capture photos of fireworks. Right digitally so that I could then put them on a computer I didn't get a single photo of a firework that year because because of that lag It's like the worst feeling in the entire world. So Totally get that congratulations to you for actually figuring out that timing and and getting everything in the air

Connor Walberg:

It was amazing. That's when I knew I had a skill.

Raymond Hatfield:

Yeah so tell me how that progressed did you did you go to school for photography like when did you know that That it was going to be bigger than just i'm going to take a few photos of my friends

Connor Walberg:

So I took a year off after high school and I was like, I'll take a year off and then decide if I want to go to college or where I want to go to college. And during that year, I just skied like crazy and shot photos every single day, all day, I would carry my camera with and shoot everything. Everything I saw, I was probably knocking out 500 pictures a day and just always shooting. So it kind of took. Took off just because I was so passionate about it and interested and I wasn't like necessarily landing clients or selling anything yet, but I had this vision that I would just that I would start submitting to magazines and they would publish my images. And then a friend of my mom's had a house she was listing to sell. So I went and shot photos for her and, and that kind of got me into real estate photography as well. But it just, I almost feel like it just was, like, meant to be at that time of my life. Yeah. So after that year off, I moved from where I was living to Vail. It was like a half hour away, which is ski resort here in Colorado. And I lived there and I'm surrounded by professional skiers and all I want to do is ski and shoot photos. So it just, it just worked together perfectly.

Raymond Hatfield:

When you got into photography, like, as you said, like the first, point and shoot, it's not that great, you know, film cameras, not that great. What was the learning curve of photography for you? Because that's a big part of it. If you want to start taking professional quality photos, you got to know how to use the camera. But you also said that you're pretty technically minded. So was learning photography difficult for you or, was there anything specifically that you struggled with?

Connor Walberg:

I feel like at that point in time, because I was, so I ended up being a bellman for a little bit just to make ends meet while I was doing this. But at that point in time, it was really just having fun with my camera and I wasn't putting pressure on trying to get things perfect. And with, action sports, that can be tough because you have athletes there that are essentially putting their life on the line. Like my friend would maybe be doing a backflip off of a 40 foot cliff and it's like, well, I don't want to miss the shot. And occasionally I would miss the shot and he'd be like, no. So like there's that pressure, but really I just kind of started figuring it out. I was reading blogs online, um, and different articles and the advantage of learning with digital gear. Like I was saying, shooting 500 shots a day or a thousand shots a day, I was just constantly experimenting. And I really loved experimenting with strobes. So I had several like SB 800 and 600 strobes for my Nikon. And I was running them all wirelessly. And just I was shooting all the time in my parents basement. I remember setting up a shot where I had flashes set up and I had the camera set up and I did 12 exposures of me in different parts of the room. Like laying on the couch and all this stuff and I merged it into one photo of me just all over the room. And it was just fun for me to just experiment with that. So there wasn't a lot of pressure because I wasn't necessarily taking on a lot of clients at this. So I had an advantage in that I just got to have fun with it.

Raymond Hatfield:

And that is, uh, that's the goal, right? everybody wants to have fun with photography. So, uh, I always feel like the slower that you can make, uh, the journey of learning photography, the better you're going to be, because like you said, you're not up against that time pressure or yeah, just pressure of having to perform in a certain way. Like you can just mess around and have some fun with it. So that's, that's great. I want to know when did it change for you? Because today you're not focused fully on photography, but you got something else going on. So tell me where you're at today.

Connor Walberg:

Okay. So the path meandered all over the place. I was shooting extreme sports. I had images published in a lot of major publications for skiing, for mountain biking. Like outside magazines, skiing powder, had images published in Japan, for all these magazines and that was great, but it didn't necessarily pay the bills. So I also started shooting stock for Getty images, and then I also shot real estate for a lot of realtors in the Vail Valley and it's, houses are very expensive there. So they're willing to pay a high rate to have a photographer get really good shots to list the property. But from there. I would say I kept getting more and more into backcountry skiing and that sort of stuff. And eventually I actually had some, some back issues. And I think it was from carrying my heavy backpack and dropping off cliffs with camera gear. I had a rule for a while that I wouldn't go off anything bigger than 40 feet with my camera in my back. Cause I didn't want to break the camera if I landed wrong.

Raymond Hatfield:

Only 40 feet. I love how you capped it at 40 feet. Not 6 feet. 40 feet. Okay,

Connor Walberg:

That was my rule. Because honestly, if the snow is right, and if it's deep enough, you can fall head first off a 30 to 40 foot cliff and you'll be fine. You'll land on your head and you'll be fine. It sounds crazy, but you, you wouldn't even like, you might be rattled, shaken up a little bit sore, but you'll be fine. So, so I started having some back issues and then I also wanted to make something, I guess, kind of tangible cause I was always in the digital space with photos. So I started a clothing company, a skate clothing company. And from that. I progressed into selling long boards, like skate long boards that I was having people design and running design contests, through this, though, and this is where I sag into what I do now. I learned SEO, so I tried every marketing channel out there there. I even read a book called traction and it had something like 16 marketing channels or 17 marketing channels that it talked about that anyone can take and I experimented with all 17 selling T shirts. but I also was kind of becoming tired of the consumerism mindset and just always needing more. And it just felt wasteful in some ways. So I learned SEO. I created this article for my brand. It was called concrete coast. And I went from one to two visitors a day to my website to over 200 a day with one article. And yeah, which was a significant jump. And people were actually ordering some stuff after I did this article because it was on point for my brand. So I quickly saw the power of SEO and how it can work when you're not working. It can bring, once you get it set up, right, you get it dialed. You're not paying money on it like ads to run it. And it's just bringing, customers at that point in your way. So I started my own SEO company called single track. And I started working with a lot of different, different companies in all kinds of areas. My biggest client was actually a company that printed t shirts for me for my t shirt brand.

Raymond Hatfield:

Full circle.

Connor Walberg:

full circle.

Raymond Hatfield:

That's awesome. but today, uh, we're talking specifically, obviously to photographers, uh, you educate photographers, you were a photographer, like you have this knowledge, right? So I'm excited about this because we are, I don't even know how to describe this, but I feel like we're entering a post social media. era, which I know sounds weird, but there's, there's a lot of social media has changed so much from what it was before to what it is now that it almost doesn't feel like it's the same thing that it once was. People are, once again, Not only leaving their blogs to go to social media, but now people are leaving social media to go back to blogging so that they can share stuff and kind of do it on their own terms. And for a lot of new photographers, that's exciting because now we know that it's possible to put out exactly what it is that we want and possibly get some traction without having to deal with, the quote unquote algorithms of, of social media. But. SEO is also one of those things that's like kind of ever changing. So I want to kind of preface this by saying like, this is 2024, right? And all the things that we're going to be talking about today might not work in 10 years, but like today it's working. and these are things that we can be doing. is that, is that fair to say?

Connor Walberg:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, things are always changing. The core of SEO, the core principle behind it should stay the same

Raymond Hatfield:

Perfect. there may be a number of people listening have no idea what SEO is, right? can you give me a brief overview of what is SEO why is it important for us? Photographers? optimization,

Connor Walberg:

which is a very technical way of saying it's that you're getting your content found online. You're getting your website found through places like Google, Bing, Yahoo, duck, duck, Go whatever's out there. But it's setting our site up right so that people find us. So for photographers, we have a really strong advantage when it comes to SEO. there's different types of SEO. There's like national SEO or worldwide SEO. And then there's local SEO. Let's say you wanted to release a brand new electric car. You're selling it to the whole world or the whole country, whatever. That's national SEO. You're competing with every electric car company and everybody talking about electric cars in the country or the world with local SEO. Google is pinning us against other photographers that serve the same niche as we do. So if you're a senior portrait photographer and you live in Denver, Colorado, and you're in a specific region in Denver, a specific neighborhood, and there's two other senior portrait photographers, And you all get your SEO right, you're going to be competing against each other to show up for that first spot to attract anybody in your area and people are searching for things like this, like senior portrait photographer near me on Google. What you want is to show up for that result and you want to be near the top because people generally click near the top of the results.

Raymond Hatfield:

Right, that's, uh, that's me. I can't remember the last time I went to, uh, page two of Google, but now, am I wrong? It's just kind of like an endless scroll, but regardless, it's still kind of the same thing, right? So it's, uh, you're not going to go very far down that list.

Connor Walberg:

what we're, we're doing is we're making our website speak to the search engines so they know where they should rank us. Where we're supposed to be. So, unless that goes away, search engines go away. I believe the idea of search. We're always going to need to search for things in some way, whether it's with our voice or video or our is searching for us, but there has to be a catalog of this information. And somehow that catalog has to be sorted so that we get the right answers to our questions, or we get the right photographer that we're looking for. Because at the end of the day, if Google stops giving the best possible results to people, people will stop going to Google.

Raymond Hatfield:

So they're incentivized to give the best results.

Connor Walberg:

They, they have to, because that's why people are searching there, because they need to find an answer to the question. If the result doesn't match what they're looking for there. And that keeps happening. And we are very quick. I think people are very quick to just flip on tech or flip on brands and companies. It's like 1, 1 strike 2 strikes. Like, I'm done with that. Yeah.

Raymond Hatfield:

you know, it's funny I don't know so when the Like I'm not like really into video games or anything, but when the Xbox one came out, I don't even know what Xbox we're up to now, but when the Xbox one came out, if you searched Google for Xbox one, it would show you images of like the newest Xbox that came out. But if you searched being the Microsoft owned. Company, which also owns Microsoft or Xbox. If you search Xbox one, it would show you photos of the first Xbox. So clearly there was a disconnect there and what people were searching for and what, they were given. And I think very, very quickly was abandoned by a lot of people. So, I'm right there with you. So with, those listening, we're new photographers, you know, we're beginners we maybe we've only spent time on social media We haven't even explored a website. Everybody says if you want to get your name out there got to be on Instagram a tech, you know, whatever it is for those who maybe Either have privacy concerns or whatever their issue is with social media and they do want to start Focusing on a website and creating a blog Where should we start? I know that you created a little list of, things that, new photographers need to know about SEO. Uh, where do we start?

Connor Walberg:

So the very first thing that I would set up if you're doing this is Google my business and what Google my

Raymond Hatfield:

Even before a website?

Connor Walberg:

Okay, so you don't have a website yet. Okay. So I would have, I would, I would go ahead and make a website because you need to have a portfolio. once you have a nice looking website and everything, I think Google My Business is probably going to be your most powerful point with regards to getting your SEO started. And it also provides a place where clients can review you, where you can share photos as well. Google My Business is indexed with the maps. On Google. So if you search Google Maps, or even if you type in a search, usually the first results, which it's kind of changing right now, but Google's going through a very turbulent time this last month and a half, as they're updating a lot, but you'll see the map. And then you see the photographers that are near you. And that's Google my business. That's the thing you need to have set up to rank for that. Okay.

Raymond Hatfield:

is there anything else that we need to know about Google My Business or are we ready for, uh, for what is the next tip?

Connor Walberg:

Okay. So for Google, my business, these there's actually 2 tips here, 1st, dial in your description, because this will contain keywords that will help Google better understand what you do and where you're based. So the description gives you, I think it's 750 characters that you can write about your business. I would recommend filling it out. Make it interesting and enticing because think if this is somebody's first impression of you, they want to be enticed to work with you and you want to attract the right clients your way, the people who you want to work with as well. So dial this in by making it enticing and also including what would be like your main keyword. So your main keyword, there's kind of a quick formula for this and it's where are you based? So let's say I'm Littleton, Littleton, Colorado or something. What's your niche? And then the word photographer. So location, niche, photographer. So I would say Littleton, senior portrait photographer. So

Raymond Hatfield:

Okay, and that needs to be in the description.

Connor Walberg:

yes, I would incorporate that into the description. the other places to incorporate it onto your homepage as the main tag.

Raymond Hatfield:

So, coming up with a description like These things are hard, right? Like, I could say that I'm an Indianapolis wedding photographer because I, like, I shoot weddings. So, like, what more should I be adding into a description?

Connor Walberg:

So one way to do this would be to jump into AI, like chat, GPT, something like that, and type in a prompt, just asking it to create a description that is no longer than 750 characters hits on these main points about your business. one thing to note here is generally we want to write about the experience that the person's going to get, not about what we care about. So a lot of photographers will jump into like, I have an. Amazing flash system and I have the newest and latest gear and people are not They just look at your photos and if they like them, they'll hire you for that reason. They're not, they don't care if you shot with the latest Canon or Nikon. So typing it into chat, GPT and running a prompt and you can work back and forth, but then go ahead and adjust it. So it's your voice. That's something I, I think needs to happen with AI in general. If you're going to use it as a tool, especially for SEO, you still need to incorporate your real world experience into it. And this is something Google does talk about.

Raymond Hatfield:

Uh, what do you mean, how so? How does Google talk about it?

Connor Walberg:

So the experts who run Google's search division, they, they have guidelines for creating helpful content. And this is their main focus right now is content should be helpful to people. So they're trying to get their algorithm to actually understand what's helpful and what isn't. Which is a very big job if you think about it. This is the whole world of information. So there's four factors that they talk about now. Your website should demonstrate experience. So it's E E A T. Experience, expertise, authority, and trust. So anything you make or do, if it contributes to these factors to Google, will help you with SEO.

Raymond Hatfield:

What, could you, break down, what is the difference between experience and expertise?

Connor Walberg:

So experience is where, from my understanding, when you're writing, let's say you're writing an article and you actually share a real life story of something that happened. Experience was added after AI became a big deal in the last couple of years. So it's really AI can talk about stuff, but it's never had the experience. It's just pulling data off the internet.

Raymond Hatfield:

Right, right. Okay. Oh, that's interesting. yeah, because that's, that's obviously a big thing, right? Because if AI is kind of an amalgamation of everything that's like ever been written before. So if we're just using AI to write our website, essentially, it's really not going to stand out in any meaningful way. So adding in our own experiences is how we're going to do that.

Connor Walberg:

Yes. Essentially. It's like, I would say it's the personal touch.

Raymond Hatfield:

Wow. Okay. So, help me figure out here then like what, maybe what are some things that we should be using AI for? And maybe what are some things that like we definitely shouldn't be using AI for, for, uh, uh, for helping us with SEO?

Connor Walberg:

So it really depends on your strengths as a writer. if you're not a very competent writer or you just don't like writing,

Raymond Hatfield:

That's me. Yeah.

Connor Walberg:

like there's, there's nothing wrong with that. You can jump into chat, GPT or whatever tool is available at this time and have it write the article that you want. Generally, I would recommend having it write an outline and then writing it yourself because it's going to sound like your voice. But if Chad, GPT writes an article for you, don't just take that and immediately just dump it on your website. This is what people are doing. Anytime I try to, anytime I think of marketing and efforts, people are taking to improve something or beat the competition. If it's low lying fruit and it's super fast and easy, it's probably not going to work because everybody's doing it. So if you're just typing in a bunch of prompts and you're like, I published 400 articles on my site today from chat GPT, that's probably not going to do anything for your site. It might actually harm your site because Google is going to see that and say, where did these 400 articles come from every day for 5 days? On this individual's business, and it's going to, yeah, it's going to know that that's not real. So what I'd rather see would be to write a meaningful article that actually helps your client gives them information. They would like to know, not just fluff and talk about it from experience. So, as you're writing through the article, you have your own experiences to apply to it. maybe you can tell a story from a recent shoot. You did this is something is not going to be able to do.

Raymond Hatfield:

Right. That's really interesting to think about. okay. I want to, ask, because while there are, there is a percentage of listeners who will eventually use, photography, like as a business. There's also a number of people who use it like just as a hobby, right? so how can SEO be helpful for just like hobby photographers? Is it, is it helpful for them?

Connor Walberg:

generally, it's going to be more for the business side. cause if you're not looking to land other clients, if you're just doing it for fun, then I don't see a gain from getting more exposure unless that's just what you want is you just want more people to see what you do. In which case you're going to be taking a different approach because you're not trying to land a local client. You're just trying to show off what you do. So it's, that's the It's almost like the difference between being an influencer versus being if you were going that path.

Raymond Hatfield:

Uh huh. Uh huh. Okay. So like, uh, influencer and like a business owner, like two, two different things like that.

Connor Walberg:

I'm not quite sure. I understand.

Raymond Hatfield:

said it's almost like the difference between being an influencer and, uh, and then I don't think you finished it. Like the difference between being an influencer and being a business owner, like why you would use SEO one for business. And then one, that was a terrible phrased question. I, let's move on.

Connor Walberg:

I might have messed it all up with my direction of the influencer, but my whole point is I guess, an entertainer rather than an influencer. If you're a hobbyist and you're not going to really gain anything from SEO, unless you're just trying to get more people to see your work.

Raymond Hatfield:

Okay, I gotcha. I gotcha. So, okay. So what's, what's next? So we, uh, we got our website, right? We kind of came up with a description for our website. We created a Google My Business listing and, we're focused. Google My Business is going to help us stay local. Is that right?

Connor Walberg:

Yes. Yes. So this is going to help us show up for local searches. And something about Google My Business is we can either submit our home address and have it show up in the listings or our studio address, whatever we have. But if we don't want to do that, we don't have to. generally Google My Business can rank you a little higher if you have a physical location. Which is unfortunate because most photographers are going on location, but there's no issue. If you don't want to list your location, you can now select an area on the map that you serve. So you can say I serve this suburb and this suburb. And now you're only competing with the photographers in those suburbs. And you might show up out of that area a little bit, but generally that's where you're going to show up in results for.

Raymond Hatfield:

Gotcha. Okay. So, what is, uh, what's next after we get up Google, my business listing set up.

Connor Walberg:

Okay, so you have this set up request reviews with any clients that you've had in the past. this will help with that trust factor for Google and the authority factor and the expertise. Honestly, all of those, I believe it helps with because when we get reviews, we show people that we deliver results. We show Google that we deliver results. We also show Google that we're in business and we're actually. Working still, because if you think about the Internet, there's probably a lot of sites and photographer sites that are just sitting there for photographers that just kind of keep paying the bills to run the site. But they're not really doing it right now. So Google doesn't want to put those guys at the top of the ranks because it doesn't really make sense to you. So we want to show them that we're current and we want to show our customers that they can trust us as well. Our potential clients. I mean,

Raymond Hatfield:

So by getting reviews, will help us rank higher in Google just because it shows activity. Oh,

Connor Walberg:

tiny bit that we can say, because you might ask, like, yeah, couldn't we just ask all our friends leave reviews, which that's possible. Right?

Raymond Hatfield:

it's possible.

Connor Walberg:

But generally, they look at every little factor as an additional factor of trust. Or authority.

Raymond Hatfield:

Okay. Should we, uh, do you have any tips for getting reviews? Because I know that this can be a, a scary thing for, for new photographers. What about like people like yourself, you know, when you were doing action sports, are you reaching out to like the athlete, the, you know, the person participating, or is it like a larger organization?

Connor Walberg:

So for action sports photography, I wouldn't generally be focused on the local SEO because I was shooting for kind of national clients and magazines and that sort of stuff. So it's not the best Avenue, but let's say you do shoot newborn photography or weddings or senior portraits, anything where you are on location and it's generally a location near you is where Google my business is going to work best. Everything other than that. That is where you need to focus on your website to get it to rank for key terms because it's not going to show up in the map.

Raymond Hatfield:

Hmm. Does that segue us into step four? Is it key terms? Is that what it is? Did I guess it right?

Connor Walberg:

That's, that's one of the step four, step four would be picking your main focus niche for your website. So yes, key terms. So like we talked about location, niche photographer, this is a big one because most photographers, you go to their site, especially when they're starting out and they have 16 portfolios, all showcasing different styles and skills. They might even have one of their pet in their backyard

Raymond Hatfield:

Yeah, I did.

Connor Walberg:

yeah. yeah. I had these. This is the way we, we get into it, right? We're experimenting and dabbling in everywhere. And a lot of photographers don't want a niche because they don't want to limit themselves. So like, if I make my site all about one thing, then I can't shoot these other things. People aren't going to hire me for this. But in truth, You can still shoot the other things and anybody that you talk to, especially when you're starting out, you're probably mostly word of mouth if they're like, Hey, can you shoot this? Can you shoot real estate? I know you're a wedding photographer. Can you shoot my house for this listing? And you're like, sure, right? but that doesn't need to be a big focus on your website. If that's not the direction you want to take your business. So I think it's important to know. Which direction you want to take your business, what niche you actually want to have. And then we need to make our website speak to that niche. So if you dial it in and have one niche, which is the easiest way to do this, to start ranking well, because you're only competing against other photographers in your area. With that niche, then we want to have that keyword like Littleton, senior portrait photographer, and that needs to be the H1 tag on the homepage and only one H1 tag per page. What an H1 tag is, is a heading tag. And it tells Google, this is the most, this is what this page is about. This is the key content.

Raymond Hatfield:

Ah, okay. So when it comes to, coming up with keywords, right? Like, should we only be trying to rank one? I guess keywords is a hard thing to, like, figure out, right? Like, there, there are tools that, help you figure out what are the keywords so that you can start ranking for these things. But I think one area that I got into trouble when I had first started was You know, trying to rank for like 19 different things, like for my homepage, is that was that the wrong approach? Or how should I be finding different keywords to try to rank for?

Connor Walberg:

So if you're just starting out, you don't need to do a whole lot of keyword research for the local SEO side. The best way to do this to get going is simply that one keyword. Photographer or, um, location, niche photographer that each page on your site. Ideally you want to target one keyword.

Raymond Hatfield:

So then, I'm gonna play devil's advocate here, right? I have a homepage. Now I want to write a blog. Obviously, the point of this blog is to get more traffic to my website. In my head, I'm thinking, okay, location, niche. Photographer right there. I'm going to put a Indianapolis wedding photographer in every single blog. Is that going to, I don't know, cannibalize results for my homepage and other blog posts, or should I be doing something different?

Connor Walberg:

it is. And you use the correct word. So they call that cannibalization

Raymond Hatfield:

Oh, perfect.

Connor Walberg:

and it's where you have the same keyword repeated on multiple. You have a lot of content that's trying to compete for the same keyword. So you're about pages, India, Indianapolis. I think he said wedding photographer, maybe, but you're about pages, your homepages, your contact page. You have another article that you wrote that's really in depth that has the same keyword. And Google says, well, which one should I rank for this keyword? And then in my opinion, from what I've seen, Google says, I'm not going to rank any of these because none of them are really targeting this keyword. I can't decide which one's the best one to go with. So our homepage, if we're going to have one niche needs to have that keyword. And that's the only page that targets that keyword on our whole site. Then if we build, if we wanted to have two niches. We could have a second page that's like our homepage that targets the other niche that's also on our site. So you can target multiple niches. And I think that's a big relief for a lot of people that I talk to. They're like, wait, but I shoot this and this. I do pets and senior portraits. It's like, okay, well, you can have both of those. And you, generally want your homepage to target one because the homepage is going to be the strongest page on your website because of something called backlinks. This is where other sites link back to you. And this is how Google crawls the web. And hopefully I'm not getting too deep into this right now, but

Raymond Hatfield:

Just in case, let's slow down just a little bit. Google's crawling the web. We got links to our website. Who's linking to our website?

Connor Walberg:

So other websites, like let's say we work with a vendor or something and they want to refer people to us, they might have a link on their site that comes to our website.

Raymond Hatfield:

And that's good.

Connor Walberg:

That's great because that's how Google crawls the web. That when I say crawl, they also call it the spider. And think of Google as a giant, like set of files in a filing cabinet. And if they read one file and it tells them to go read another file, they jump over to the other one and they read that file and it tells them to go to another file, but it's, it's all connected like a spider web and links are how Google finds our site and how it decides if our site should have more trust or authority. Based on the site that's linking to us.

Raymond Hatfield:

So the more sites that we can get linking to our site, the more Google sees us as an authority and can trust us and will be willing to rank us higher in search results.

Connor Walberg:

Yes, assuming that these are quality websites. So, people will try to game the system and they'll go and they'll buy links. Or, so definitely never buy links. get real links. So, iview links is something actually somebody would want to click. So if you get a link from a website where somebody wants to click to go to your site because they're like, you are what they're looking for based on what they're reading on that site, that's a great link. And if it's relevant, so like we don't want to be on the, like, you know, some, food blog website. linking to our website when we're just, when we're shooting senior portraits or something, that's not even related and Google connects the dots here. So if the other site is about, is a vendor and they're related to you, like they're, maybe a location venue for a wedding photographer and they link back to you. It sees that this is a wedding location and you are a wedding photographer and Google connects those dots.

Raymond Hatfield:

then can we do the reverse of that? Can we, will it help us to link out to, to other vendors to start building those links?

Connor Walberg:

We can, but it generally, we want links to come to us, but we don't necessarily want them to go out to the other. It one sided is better because it's like, Hey, this, site's awesome. I view it like a giant popularity contest. And it's like, Hey, this guy's awesome. But if, it's a bunch of people together in a room and they all raise their hands and say, they're all awesome. Then it's kind of like, which one's the awesome one

Raymond Hatfield:

Right, right. Okay. I.

Connor Walberg:

And yeah, so the idea with links is we want to. We want those people on that site to want to click through to our site. And if we have a link right back to them, it's kind of like neutral. Google doesn't, value it as highly.

Raymond Hatfield:

Gotcha, okay. So, we got the website up, we got the Google My Business listing, set up. We got, uh, some reviews coming in. And we picked our main niche. What's next?

Connor Walberg:

Okay. So this was going to be links was the next one. So

Raymond Hatfield:

Oh, perfect.

Connor Walberg:

Outreaching related businesses, vendors, family that, that has a actual connection. So relevance is what I was talking about earlier, to grow links on our site. And one way we can do this is by offering to guest posts on their website. So a guest post is where we write like a blog article. another great way is if we go on a podcast, Then we probably get a link back from that podcast. a lot of different ways to gain links, but it's really, you have to think about it from most people get hung up on thinking about themselves. What's in it for me? Like I want a link. How do I get a link? Give me links. It's kind of like thinking, give me money and I'm not doing anything. I just want money. It's like, what can I do for them? Now to get them to link to me. So if you create a great piece of content that they can put on their site and the author bio links to you, or maybe there's some text in it that links to you naturally, and it makes sense, then you're helping them out. They have new content to share with their readers and visitors. And you have a link to your site. Now

Raymond Hatfield:

I see. So, reaching out to other venues, so let's say, as a wedding photographer, you could reach out to a venue. Say, um, hey, can I Write a blog on your website, something helpful to their potential brides because that's helpful to them and in the hopes that they then link your website at the bottom or wherever and that tells Google to come back to you and that you build that relevant. Does it matter if people are like actually clicking that link or it only matters if there's a connection there? Does anybody know?

Connor Walberg:

it can help Google can see that people click links. So it can help if people are clicking it, that's going to be a more quality link, but at the same time, having a link on an authoritative site or a good site. That Google already sees as good that comes to you, even if people aren't clicking on it, Google will crawl the site, it'll see that link and it'll jump over to your site. I kind of think that like you're collecting your SEO in a bucket, like collecting rain in a bucket. And each time Google's crawl, Google's always running around the internet trying to find things. Each time it stumbles over your site again. I think it was like, Oh, it's another drop in the bucket and it's like starting to fill up. So it's like this, this site's starting to become more important to me because I keep seeing it. It's like, just like the, um, the fact that when we hear about something seven times before we buy it, it's like, Google has to hear it so many times from people that trust to be like, okay, or websites that trust to say, okay, yeah, I trust this site now too.

Raymond Hatfield:

Mm hmm. Okay. Makes sense. What is, uh, what's, what's the next step after we get some links and do some outreach?

Connor Walberg:

Okay. So I would set up your Google search console. This is a free tool. On Google, if you type in Google search console, and there's a little bit of code that they'll ask you to insert on your website, just to say that, Hey, Google, I own this website. And what this is going to do is it's going to track what people are searching to get to your website. It's going to track how many people are going to your website. It's going to tell you how many times you're showing up in search results and what your position is that you're showing up in. Because if we're in those top 10 positions, we're getting clicks and below that we don't really get much. this is just your way of tracking all your efforts because doing this work and not seeing any results for a long time, because maybe your SEO will take three months. Maybe it'll take six months. Maybe it'll take a year to get to where it's really doing well and where it's just bringing clients in. That first year can be kind of like painful to watch because you're like, why am I doing all this? Nothing's happening yet. But from what I've seen most people, and even for me, I lose patience in those first three to six months. And then all of a sudden results start happening and I see them. And I'm like, Oh, wow. Why wasn't I continuing my efforts all those months? Cause now I am getting results. And so I'll do like waves of SEO sometimes because of that. But this is your way of knowing if you're starting to get to show up in things. If Google's indexing your site for keywords.

Raymond Hatfield:

Ah. That was a hard thing for me. I know that, one of my first years shooting weddings, like you were saying, I got a lot of, uh, bookings just based on referrals, right? Friends of my wife, friends of family and whatnot. To the point to where I booked like a good amount I booked like 20 weddings that year or something and I was so I thought I was in a groove I was like I got this figured out, you know, I'm brand new to this got it figured out No worries that I didn't like market at all that year because I was so busy like shooting weddings and whatnot And then that the following year was extremely difficult because I didn't do any marketing the year before I didn't set up anything. So that next year is when I had to figure out like, uh, how do I figure this out? and I had to go into like marketing mode hard. And, and that was the, the learning, uh, a little bit of SEO myself and, and, and trying to figure out those things. and one thing that I'll say is that it seemed like. Putting in the time for SEO, even though it was hard up front to try to learn all these things and physically do all these things with very little results to show immediately, once it did start to take off. It really smoothed out the uh, the the peaks and the valleys of the roller coaster and Made it a much easier ride while there are of course still other things to do I would say that it was probably one of the most helpful things that I did for my website and uh on top of that Trying to get those trying to do that outreach get those links I formed genuine relationships with, with other vendors. so not only did it help me on an SEO side, but also it helped me from a, uh, from a referral side as well. So I can totally attest to that. That's great. That's great. so what's next after search console, which by the way, great tip. I don't think a lot of people know that, that we can, that Google will give us the information about where we're ranking and what we're ranking for. So that's, uh, that's wonderful. I appreciate that.

Connor Walberg:

Yes, that one's completely free too. That's the best part, right?

Raymond Hatfield:

Of course. Yeah.

Connor Walberg:

just there. It's a tool that you can just use right now. the next one I was going to say, and I'm jumping back to the site. I didn't put these in a specific order necessarily. It's, it's, it's, it's, It's mostly in an order, but this last one is your homepage made a description. The made a description is what shows up when people search on Google. So they see the title of an article, and that's usually the blue part or the headline up top. And then they see the description below. Now, they call this an indirect factor of SEO because according to Google, they don't look at the keywords here and say, like, oh, I'm going to rank this higher because the key word is. in the Meta Description. So instead, so we still want to treat it like they do factor it that way, but what we want to do is almost make our Meta Description click baity. We want people to click. We want them to click our link and go to our site, because when people click links on Google, That does influence the results, because it shows that people typed in a certain term, they skipped the top three and they clicked on your link. Why did they click on your link? Probably because you wrote a better description that was more accurate to what they were looking for, more enticing. So we have roughly, I believe it's 160 characters now, to write a meta description. You can do up to like 320, but then you have the little dots after it. And no one likes the little dots. Cause then you're like, what's going on? I don't know. I I'm mixed on it though. Sometimes I'm like, maybe they want to learn what's going on after those little dots, they have to click, but generally I try to make it fit in those 160 characters. And I want people to say like. Oh, this is the photographer for me because this is, enticing. This is interesting. This little description, because we have, you know, like one shot at a first impression and we're competing against all these other websites, if ours stands out to that person, they will want to click on it.

Raymond Hatfield:

Do you have a formula for what our meta description should include? If it's not necessarily our description?

Connor Walberg:

Not necessarily a formula because I don't want to say, like, have a call to action, like, learn more or something, but I would say, so I talked about the keywords and it's not an, it's an indirect factor of SEO, but if you incorporate the keyword that you want to rank for right in the title and also in the description, Google bolds, those. If that's the keyword somebody types in. So whenever we type in a text, you can do this on any search on Google. When you type in the text, the search results, any results in the headline or in the title or the meta description that have that text that we typed in is going to instantly be bolded. People are more likely to click on bolded things.

Raymond Hatfield:

Huh. I never, I don't think I've ever noticed that. I don't think I've ever specifically looked for that, but that's a, that's a great tip. Okay. So try to include things that people are searching for because. It'll be bolded and then they'll be more, uh, apt to click on that. Okay. many tips do we got left?

Connor Walberg:

I think there, those were all in there. And just shuffled around. and then just the last one I wanted to say was just make your website. This is not an SEO tip. This is just a first impressions tip right back to that first impression thing. Make it beautiful, make it speak to what you do and your style and the results your clients get. and one kind of quick way to do that is to. Through your images, because, and this goes right to our editing, even if we can edit our images in a way where they are cohesive. Whether it's the similar tonality through all of them in a gallery or something like that, where it's, connected, it looks that much more polished. It's like you consistently get this is your style. You have a style and people want to hire someone who has a style, so they know what they're going to get, whether your site's very bright website and your photos, just they're very high key. They're bright, beautiful photos, or maybe you have a more polished Subtle color palette as part of your photography, or maybe it's very vibrant and punchy, try and figure out a style for yourself. And this will set you apart from, I mean, honestly, like, 95 percent of people who have websites, maybe more of photographers, like, just having that little thing that you do, whether it's just a quick filter, you drop in. Lightroom or whatever it is that just makes your images more tonally connected.

Raymond Hatfield:

That, that could be a hard thing to figure out in and of itself, but, um, like you said, I mean, it's like SEO. It's a long game. You know, you got to get it figured out and you got to spend some time to, to get to that point. I got one question because I, I can already, foresee either the emails or the messages that are going to be coming in. what about, image descriptions? I've heard a lot about this. Should we be worried about this? Is this something that we don't need to worry about? What's, where do we stand on that?

Connor Walberg:

So are you referring to the alt text specifically?

Raymond Hatfield:

Yeah, yeah, alt text. That's the phrase that I was looking for. I somehow got cannibalized, but not, this one right

Connor Walberg:

there well, some some tools, I think Squarespace will call it image description. Other sites say alt text other sites. like 3 or 4 that I keep hearing. Um, so it'd be nice if they would make that all uniform, but the, the alt text is technically an accessibility. So if somebody is visiting your site and they're visually impaired, they can hover over the image and it's the text that will show up and their screen reader will read that image to tell them what it is. So, from the standpoint of first off, we want to make our sites accessible and we want to make it so everybody can use them. So we want our images to have all text. It's just a, they call it the best practices of SEO in general, but just having all text on your images. We want the image to be, the alt text to be different between images, and we want it to be accurate describing what's going on in the image. Now, SEOs love to game this, and for a while, you could enter your keyword in several of your images on your homepage, and it would help you rank.

Raymond Hatfield:

Oh. Weird.

Connor Walberg:

And it's possible that still helps a little bit, though Google claims it does not. They say just use it for accessibility. So what I like to do is any page or article that I'm writing, if I have an image that I can incorporate the keyword in a natural way, I will incorporate it. Otherwise, I'm not going to try and force it. I'm just going to be accurate in my descriptions. And this is just me saying to Google, Hey, I put the time and effort in to follow your, your standards. And I also made my site accessible.

Raymond Hatfield:

Okay, so, if, uh, we'll just stick with the wedding photographer example here. If we have a photo of a flower girl, I don't know, standing like walking down the aisle or whatever, don't put in Indianapolis wedding photographer captures flower girl walking down the aisle. But if you have a couple who may be, they're standing in front of the Indianapolis skyline.

Connor Walberg:

Yep.

Raymond Hatfield:

put in like a, couple on their wedding day, getting. Photos taken in front of Indianapolis skyline. Does that make sense? Yeah.

Connor Walberg:

That's it. And now you're hitting that Indianapolis term, which, which helps, even if it's not the full keyword, like that's there. and it's just think of it as a, another signal to Google that this page is about Indianapolis photographer. Right, but it just needs that 1 keyword to just kind of start connecting dots, but don't go in and stuff your keyword all over your alt text. It's, it's not actually going to help anymore.

Raymond Hatfield:

uh, another side question here, and I know that we are running out of time, so I will make this one quick. I technically live like 40 minutes outside of Indianapolis, right? But I knew that for me, I wanted to shoot weddings in Indianapolis. However, that's not like where I live. So I guess, two part question, how important is it that like my address is not technically in Indianapolis? But then the other thing is that, what about writing potential like blog posts, would it help to write blog posts or would it hurt us to say like, a suburb of Indian, let's just say, Fishers, Indiana, wedding photographer, Greenfield, Indiana, wedding photographer, Avon, Indiana, wedding photographer, would those things signal to Google that it is more local or that it just is kind of all over the place and would it end up hurting us? Mm

Connor Walberg:

where generally a photographer will put links in their footer and then they will essentially duplicate their homepage, but then modify the text on it and make it cater to a different town or a different suburb. These will not affect where you show up in the map results. Which is your Google, my business, but it will affect where you show up in results. Just standard search results. it can make a difference to do that generally. So with Google, my business, that's going to be the place the lower hanging fruit to get it going and that people are going to click on a lot. I would suggest selecting the area. And including Indianapolis, they say, as long as it's within a 2 hour drive of you, you can select that area,

Raymond Hatfield:

okay. So

Connor Walberg:

but the bigger you get, the more photographers you're competing with.

Raymond Hatfield:

Good point. Good point. Okay. so, uh, I remember at least like when I was, I don't not being in SEO so much, especially with, like, with the Google, my business and whatnot. I feel like there wasn't as much importance. Placed on it, say 2011, 2012 or so as there is today. So it's like we, I was always taught, write a bunch of blog posts about, you know, best places to get married in and then start listing all the suburbs. Today does Google my business, like just by having the Google my business and selecting your area, kind of remove the need to start creating additional content specifically for outside suburbs.

Connor Walberg:

No. So I would still continue to create content, but maybe, like, you were saying the 10 best photo shoot locations around or family photo shoot locations around. This is just going to reiterate to Google that this is the area you serve. And if you want to open it up and serve another area, Google, my business isn't going to, it shows results that are relevant to your location. If you now are trying to target a location that's outside of that, or that's on the far end of it or something, creating articles on your website will rank. They can rank for that area and get people to your site as well. So it's almost like there's. Two sides of SEO. There's the Google, my business, local side, which you can only handle a certain way and only handles a certain area. And then there's your website side, which you can market anywhere. And I've seen photographers with, who are ranking well for Google, my business, because they have a studio in LA or something. And then they have Another, they also shoot family portraits or something. So it's like a family portrait studio in LA. And then in Nashville, Tennessee, they have, a vacation home and they go there and they also shoot there. So they created a second homepage or a second page on their site that caters to Nashville family portraits. And that's not going to show up in the map packs unless they set up a second Google, my business location, which you can only do if you actually can register that second location. So. Now that page will show up in the results though.

Raymond Hatfield:

Okay. Connor, there was a lot here today. There was a lot going on, especially for, uh, for new photographers, even though I feel like you did a really good job breaking it down and, uh, helping us try to figure it out. for those who are still thinking this sounds a bit difficult, give us some encouragement. what is the first thing we should do, and, what should we pay attention to? what should we not?

Connor Walberg:

The simplest steps and the simplest way to do this all is essentially no nonsense and just caring about making good stuff for people. So your first step, obviously Google my business, set that up on after you have a website, your website, make it look good and speak to people, make it about the people. and put what they need to know on your website. Those are your first steps of SEO. just speak to people. Make it for people.'cause Google's emphasis is helpful. Content. Content that helps people get what they need and what they're looking for. And if you're the answer for that and Google knows that too, then they're gonna rank you so. Focus on real world activities that would grow any brand like reaching out to people to guest posts would grow any brand because it's going to get more people to learn about your brand. So any PR related type of stuff, just getting your name out. There is going to help grow your brand. Social media is signals for SEO. That's going to grow your brand. If you're continuing to post on social media, you don't have to post all the time, but just do it. Google sees that you're active there. There's every, everything's a factor that you do online. So rather than getting in the weeds about it or worrying if you're doing it right or not, just start creating what you want to create and what answers your people's questions, what they can expect from their shoot, what it's like working with you. If you convey all of this to people, then you're doing, you're going, you're off to a great start for SEO.

Raymond Hatfield:

I couldn't have, uh, have asked for a better answer than that. That was great. Connor. for those who do want to learn more about SEO and go deeper down this wild rabbit hole, where can we find you online?

Connor Walberg:

All right, so that's where I've branched to from my SEO business. I teach photographer's SEO and I run a membership. my website is conorwalberg. com. It's C O N N O R W A L B E R G. And then you'll see up top the button for membership. I run a membership where you can go in. It has a complete course. That is way easier than maybe the way we covered stuff today, but it's, it's all bite size, organized videos that are about three minutes long with actions you can take right now to get your site on the right path and get all of your efforts in order. So it makes it very, very simple to get started with SEO. Plus I'm in there answering everybody's questions and running live Q and a calls. So if you're hearing all this and you're like, wow, this is just chaos. I don't know where to begin. Hop in there and check it out. And for anybody that references this podcast specifically, I'm happy to, do a free website audit for you. I'll record a video for your site and I'll, I'll tell you what your first actions are, what you need to do. I'll use my tools to crawl just like Google does and see your website. And I'll say, Hey, you need one H one tag on this page. And this is what it should say. So I'll get you off to the right start.