SEO for Photographers
SEO for Photographers to Build your Visibility and Grow Your Bookings
Your're about to be a booked out photographer by showing up in your local area.
Your next photography client is searching for you.
When you want to hire a new company or book a new service, what do you do?
You always Google the company.
That's what your eager photography subjects are doing, too.
Your photography can show up at the top of search.
Instead of being impossible to find,
Your photography portfolio could reach people when they're searching:
- Bringing in new inquiries in your sleep
- Showing up above other photogs
- Driving traffic & leads (aka growth)
Reach More Local Customers With Your Photos
Our SEO services specifically for photographers will help you get more local SEO visibility in your area.
As a small business owner, I get it - if you're not getting found, you're not getting booked. And when it comes to photography? Showing up in you local area is incredibly helpful for booking more shoots.
Local SEO is a great choice for digital marketing that can help you get your photography website seen by families, couples, and brands wanting to hire a photographer near you.
Every day, there are hundreds of people searching for photographers in their area. Every person you get in front of is another potential booking, when your photography portfolio website is set up right.
This type of digital marketing can be extremely effective because these people are already searching for your services.
Get More Local Visibility
Photography SEO Services
Your next customer is already searching for you.
Let's get you in front of them with our photography SEO Services.
What We Do:
One Time Audits
Full Site Cleanup & Optimization
Monthly SEO
Local Blogging
GMB Optimization
The Local SEO Process:
We evaluate your industry and geography, review your website and Google My Business listing, benchmark them against your competitors, and then turn them into the leanest, meanest SEO machines possible.
I'm so excited you're here!
Welcome to The SEO Kitchen
trusted by Small businesses all over
Let's discuss your photography SEO project
Get in touch for a quote and more information.
Photography SEO Basics for 2025
If you're a photographer and want to show up in Google when people in your area search for what you offer, SEO is your best friend. But ranking well isn't just about tossing a few keywords on your site and hoping for the best.
You need a strong foundation, smart strategy, and a website that helps both people and search engines understand exactly what you do and where you do it.
Here’s a beginner-friendly SEO strategy that works for photographers:
1. Start with Keyword Research for Your Photography Services
Before anything else, get clear on what people are actually searching for in your area. What are they typing into Google when they’re looking for someone like you?
Think:
"Lifestyle family photographer in Portland"
"Brand photographer for creatives in Dallas"
Use those insights to group your keywords by the services you offer. These will become the building blocks for your main pages.
2. Get Your Local SEO + NAP Setup Dialed In
NAP stands for Name, Address, and Phone number, and consistency is key.
Make sure the city you're trying to rank in matches where your business is located. Then, decide on a specific format for your NAP and use it exactly the same way on every platform: your website, Google Business Profile, directories, social platforms, etc.
That consistency helps Google trust your location info, which boosts your chances of showing up in local searches.
3. Build an Optimized Portfolio Website with Clear Structure
Your website should be:
Easy to navigate
Focused on user experience
Built to support SEO
Every major service you offer should have its own dedicated page. If you shoot weddings, elopements, and family sessions, each of those needs a standalone page with unique, optimized content.
That means no dumping all your keywords into one page. Google wants to see clarity and depth, not clutter.
Your homepage and main menu should link to all of your service pages. And if you write blog posts, make sure they link back to the relevant services they mention.
4. Add Geo Signals to Your Website
For photographers with one location, your full NAP should be on your contact page and in your site footer. Use Local Schema markup behind the scenes (your web designer or SEO can help) to reinforce your location to Google.
Bonus points for embedding a Google map of your actual Google Business Profile.
If you serve multiple cities or have more than one studio, create a location page for each one. Each location page should have that city’s address and be optimized for search terms relevant to that area. Your core service pages can stay the same and support all locations.
5. Optimize Your Google Business Profile
Your Google Business Profile (formerly GMB) is what shows up in the little map box at the top of search when someone Googles something like “photographer near me.”
Set it up (or claim it), verify it, and then optimize it:
Use your consistent NAP
Link to your site
Choose the right category (e.g., Photographer, Portrait Studio, etc.)
Add high-quality photos and a short, clear description of your services
This listing can drive tons of local traffic, especially for people searching from their phones.
6. Promote and Maintain Your Local SEO
Once your foundations are set, keep the momentum going:
Keep your info up to date
Add fresh blog content regularly
Look for places to get local backlinks (community directories, vendors, blogs)
Make sure your citations (online listings) match your NAP perfectly
Google updates its algorithm regularly, so maintaining your SEO isn’t a one-time thing. But with the right strategy in place, it doesn’t have to be overwhelming.
By following these photography SEO basics, or by working with me to improve your SEO, you’ll start showing up in front of more of the right people, right when they're searching for you.
And what that means for your photography busieness? More visibility. More bookings. Less relying on the algorithm gods of social.
You have two options: DIY it, or hire local SEO help.
Our Photographer SEO Philosophy
If You're Serious About Growing Your Business, You Should Be Serious About Getting Searchable
Your Local SEO Investment & Outcome
Local SEO plans vary depending on your location and industry. This final pricing is variable depending on your geography, your current website’s optimization, and the competition of your industry.
What’s the difference between an investment and an expense? A desk chair can’t get you new customers.
Put your marketing budget towards local SEO and you will rank in organic and local search for the services in your area.
How does the local SEO process work?
Research > Analyze > Implement > Evaluate > Refine
Local search engine optimization is based on what searches people are actually performing in an area. The goal is to identify the best or most profitable queries to make your business show up for, based on what people are actually searching, and then make changes to your website and your overall digital presence to ensure that you show up for this.
Let’s go back to that taco shop example from the top of the page. For a taco shop in Los Angeles, we would do local keyword research using Google’s tools and competitive research to discover what people are searching in the area (taco shops!!), and then make sure to optimize the website for all of those keyword variations.
We have access to data tools that come directly from Google (see screenshot above) which tell us approximately how many people are searching for variations of each phrase each month. So we dig into and evaluate this data, review what the competitors who are already successful have done, and then help you out-do them to rank higher.
Once your rankings have begun improving, we continue monitoring the results and refining the on-page optimization strategy as well as your digital presence strategy. We continue to refine and boost this with on page and off page signals, resulting in total market domination for your business in the long term.
How fast does Local SEO work for Photographers?
First your rankings will begin to increase. Then you’ll see more traffic coming in. Finally, you’ll feel the impact on your bottom line with more customers, foot traffic, calls, and sales.
Usually we see results on your Google My Business listing very quickly, within 1-2 months. We see organic search results within 1-3 months. As your rankings increase, you’ll begin to see the traffic increase as a result. We can’t control Google so we can’t make guarantees about how fast you’ll see results (and any company that does is lying), but we can tell you we literally never fail to increase rankings as long as you commit to the process and understand that SEO is not an overnight traffic miracle.
The goal of SEO is to increase your visibility in organic search, and we always achieve that because we’re picky about who we work with and we always ask that you mentally commit to 6 months of working together, although we have no contracts. If you don’t want to work with us anymore, we aren’t going to force you to stay! That’s why we aim to keep every client as happy as possible, because that’s what will keep you around.
Will Local SEO work for my Photography Business?
Local SEO isn’t for everybody, and we’re very picky with our clients because we only want to work with people we know we can help. Happy clients = happy business. Here’s how you can qualify for our Local SEO packages:
Own an established local business with a proven business model
Have an address in the geography you serve
Have an established website (or be willing to establish one with us – check out our design services too)
Be willing to allow the changes we recommend to the website
Allow us exclusive SEO access to the website (only one SEO provider working on the site at a time)
Allow us to make code and content updates to the website to fulfill the service
Allow us access to other local properties as needed such as Google My Business, Yelp, etc.
In short, SEO helps boost already successful business models long term by using existing market demand; it cannot fix a broken business model. It also can’t be very successful without full implementation.
Why do we set up these requirements? Because it ensures success. We can’t rank you in a city you’re not actually in, we can’t control the outcome if another SEO company is undoing any of the work we’re doing, and we can’t help you if you won’t allow changes to your website.