Podcast Ep 380 - Mindset Meets Marketing: How SEO Can Grow Your Photography Business

In this episode of the Flourish Academy Podcast, Heather chats with photographer and SEO educator Connor Walberg about how photographers can use search engine optimization (SEO) to get found online.

They break down why SEO isn’t just a technical skill—it’s also a mindset game. If you’ve ever wondered how to attract clients who are already looking for your services, this conversation is for you.

Show Notes:

• Why SEO is more about mindset than just strategy

• The difference between direct seekers (actively searching) and indirect discoverers (stumbling across your work)

• Why consistency and the “compound effect” are key to long-term SEO success

• Common myths photographers believe about SEO and how to overcome them

• How to shift your thinking so that you actually take action on SEO

Links:

• Learn more from Connor: connorwalberg.com

• Join our next free coaching workshop: www.getcoachedbyheather.com

How to Support the Podcast:

• Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. Please like, share, and leave a review.
• If you like the content, please share with your friends by posting on social media so that we can reach and impact more people.

Connect:

Heather Lahtinen: Website, Facebook, Instagram

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TRANSCRIPT

You're listening to the Flourish Academy podcast and today we are talking about

marketing your business My name is Heather Lahtinen and I'm a photographer educator and

entrepreneur and I founded the Flourish Academy as a resource for photographers of

all levels We want to help you pursue your passion on your own terms because we

believe there is room for everyone in this podcast We focus on creating breakthroughs

with your mindset to discover the things that are really holding you back in

business and life. I'm doing something a little different in this episode.

I'm talking with my good friend, Connor Wahlberg, about SEO. And the reason this is

different is because I typically focus on how you think about your business. Most

people call that mindset. I prefer cognitive optimization rather than technical

strategies like SEO. But as Connor and I discuss, you will see why the required

action to implement something like SEO is directly related to how you think about

it. For example, if you don't think it's going to work or it's a waste of time or

that it will take too long to see results, then you aren't going to do it.

But if you know that your efforts will pay off, you are more likely to take

action. I hope you enjoy our conversation.

Welcome to the podcast, Connor. Thank you so much for being here. Could you please

introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what you do? All right. Thank you

so much for having me, Heather. This is awesome. I teach photographers SEO.

So I run the simple SEO membership. And in there, I break down the concept so that

photographers can start getting found online and, you know, stabilize their business

through people finding them rather than spending all of their time out trying to

market and grow their business. Okay. So that's interesting because really there's, I

mean, tell me what your thoughts are, but there's like two types of clients, right?

There's, I call them the direct seekers, which are the people that are actively

searching for a photographer, like they might search for a family photographer in

Denver or whatever, or near me or something. So they're like, looking, but then

there are indirect discoverers. And these are people that might not be actively

seeking a photographer, but they just come across their work. So with this in mind,

I guess SEO would mostly be about these direct seekers, yes, people looking. - Yes,

so the whole idea is that if you're based, like I'm based in Denver, and you are

a senior portrait photographer, or I'm a senior portrait photographer in Denver, and

somebody here searches for senior portrait photographer, I wanna show up first. Their

intention when they type that search in is clearly that they wanna find a

photographer to shoot their senior portraits. So if I come up first, there's probably

a good chance they're going to click on my site and be interested in learning more

about my process and working with me. Yeah, you know what I love about that is

like if they're looking, they want to hire someone. I always say if you get an

inquiry, this person wants to hire you. So your only job is to just allow it and

not block it. But these are, I I think, okay,

I don't wanna say easier to book, but these are better, not better. It's just

different, but someone looking specifically for a senior photographer wants to hire a

senior photographer, and that's a little bit easier than if someone just happens upon

your Facebook ad or something like that. So, okay, but let me back up.

For someone who maybe is new to the business, How would you explain SEO to them

and why should they care about it? Well, this is a great question. So SEO sounds

complicated when I say what it stands for, search engine optimization. It sounds very

robotic and cold and not very fun. But the whole idea is we're making our website

speak to the search engines. Search engines are things like Google. So we're making

changes on our website so that Google better understands what we do, who we work

with, where we're based, and then Google wants to feature us towards the top of

searches for what we do. So I guess, really, you have to have a website.

I mean, that's pretty important when running a photography. It's not necessary to

start a photography business, but to have and maintain and grow a photography

business, You need a website. - Yes, absolutely. Because you want people to be able

to find you, you want people to see your work. People like to do this research for

themselves. I know that anything I buy now, I research online first for the most

part, and then I'm gonna go buy it. I don't like when I go into a store and

people try to sell me things. I just know what I want and I'm gonna get it. And

then back to What you were saying about the direct seekers, I would compare that to

a store too. If you go to a store and you're like, "I'm going to buy this new

shirt," or whatever it is, you go in and you get that shirt. That was your

intention. That's the same with SEO. These clients, potential clients' intention is to

hire you. They're in the right mindset. They're ready. They know what they're doing

and what they want to get.

But when back to the person in the store, they go in and they get the shirt, but

maybe you see something else that you also want to grab. Now how do you position

yourself to be that thing that you also want to grab? And I think of that as like

accidentally stumbling over something. And sometimes that's what I would consider a

social media approach or a Facebook ads approach where we are targeting people with

our stuff based on their interests, but they might not actually be in that mindset

and they might stumble over us and want to hire us, but that wasn't their

intention. Oh, is this like, I was at TJ Maxx yesterday. Is this like the checkout

aisle you're talking about when you get in the aisle and then you're like, "Wait a

minute. I need that candle. I need those cups. Do I need any dish towels?" And

because they're right there. Okay. So would this be Maybe in that regard, a mother

who has children, and we could be talking about a family photographer, so she has

children, Facebook knows she's interested in children stuff, and then she comes across

your ad for family photography. That would be that approach. Yes. Yes. So she

essentially, essentially, we are finding her. Right. The photographer is finding the

client that Um, and hopefully they're interested versus it resonates versus SEO where

they are finding us and they're already interested and they know what they're looking

for. So they're very qualified. There's a coach that I follow who has this model

called fast lane, slow lane, um, sidewalk and the idea is buyers are in any of

these three lanes at any given time. So someone in the fast lane, they know what

they want and they're ready to work with you. That represents generally about 3 % of

the whole selection of people. Then on the slow lane, these are the people who they

might be interested or they're interested and they know they want to get photos at

some point, but they're not actively looking. And that's where maybe social media,

they stumble over that. And then on the sidewalk, they're probably not looking not

interested and they're just kind of walking along. Oh, I love that. I had never

heard that before. So this is the 3 % the people who are looking for and want your

services. So I guess the reason we should care about this is because that's like an

easy booking, right? I mean, I don't know. How would you say that? Yes. Yeah. These

are the people who are qualified. It's a qualified booking. They're ready. They know

what they want. So It's so much easier to convince people to work with you when

they already know they wanna work with you. - Yeah, it's easy. - And they already

want what you have to offer. - Well, then all you have to do, you don't even have

to convince them, you just have to invite them, right? They just have to know you

exist, yeah. So how would they know you exist? A website and some search engine

optimization, which we can talk about in a minute, on your website. And then they

find you and then it's just an invitation, they contact you and then boom, you have

a client. Yes, yes, so they just they find you and if your website set up right

once they get to it That's like the conversion rate optimization another technical

word for saying that our site is what people are looking for They get to our site.

They look at the photos and they decide if you're a good fit If they decide you're

a good fit, they're probably ready to book you I know which is so nice, right?

Then you can just get inquiries and bookings and and it seems more direct and

straightforward. So what do you recommend photographers do today?

I don't know, maybe a few things they could do today to help improve their SEO. So

they have a website and they're like, okay, what can I do, small things? - Okay, a

few small things to get started. Is first off, make sure you have Google My

Business set up. - Okay, say more about that. - This is vital. So when we do a

search on Google for let's say you're searching for a restaurant or this we're

obviously we're talking about photographer So it's the same thing You will see a map

that pops up and it has a few different Photographers or restaurants, whatever it is

listed right there. That's called the map pack and it's run by Google my business

it's completely free to set up and Basically what you want to do is go in fill

out every single field you can to its fullest extent in here and make sure they

know that Google knows what you do, where you're based and who you work with. This

is why having a niche is very important. So if you're very broad and you have 75

niches right now, this is a good time to start considering narrowing down and maybe

picking your top two or three. - Yeah, your primary genre. Okay, but I've used

Google My Business. I had a listing for my wedding photography business, but what if

you don't have a studio? - If you don't have a studio, you can still list on

Google My Business and you choose an area of service. And a lot of people try to

game this and have tried to game it for the past few years where they list their

business out of their house, which technically if your studio's in your house,

technically you can do that, but they require that you have signage and all these

other things. And if Google finds out that you are doing this, sometimes they'll

just completely remove your profile. So don't do this unless you actually have a

studio. So you set up Google My Business, you choose your area of service, and you

want to pick an area that's like, if you're in a major city, pick that major city

and just a little bit around it. Don't pick a huge area because if we give Google

too much of an area, they aren't going to really want to show us in any of the

areas. Oh, really? Yes. And a big part of it too is even though it doesn't show

our address, our address is a pin point that Google knows when we set up our

profile, we do enter our address. And so they will make that the area of service.

Closer to that, you will show it more likely than in other places until the rest

of your site is ranking higher. Oh, okay. - Oh, okay, okay, hold on. So I live

about 45 minutes on a good day, an hour outside of Pittsburgh. And I live in a

really, really small town where I wouldn't promote my services.

My ideal client is not in my immediate vicinity. So I would wanna target certain

areas around Pittsburgh or just Pittsburgh generally. Is that, Would that work?

Is that okay? - That will work. So Google says you can have up to a two hour

drive from your point, so I would still hone in on Pittsburgh.

It will be a little harder to compete initially with those photographers, but as you

work on other aspects of your SEO, and that includes things on your website,

and as you get more reviews in Google My Business, Google trusts you more and is

more likely to start showing you higher in the search results in Pittsburgh as well.

Okay, so this is an important point. How long does this take to work?

How long should we expect before something like Google My Business starts showing our

business to our actual ideal client or any client for that matter? With Google My

Business, once you have some reviews around your area, it can be pretty fast. Okay.

You can start showing as long as your website is also, you know, closely matching

what you say on Google My Business. And then it really depends on how long you've

been around. So let's say you're listening to this and you are a photographer who's

had a website for 10 years, and you have a lot of other websites. These are called

back links. And this is getting more in the weeds. You don't need to know this

just yet. But your site might be more powerful in Google's eyes right now and you

make these changes and stuff can happen in the next month or two. But generally SEO

will take three to six months is a rough timeline that I tell people depending on

how much work you're willing to put into it which really you don't have to do a

crazy amount to get it started. Right and this is just one aspect of like an

overall SEO plan right? Yes this is just one one area So there's three areas I say

to focus on. It's your Google My Business, the content that's on your website.

So what you say because that's what Google reads and how they understand you. And

the other websites that link to your website. And that's why the internet is called

a web because all of the sites are linked together like a spider web and Google

crawls the website like a spider and jumps from site to site based on links it

visits. And as it does this, it hits sites that it says, "Wow, this is a great

website and I really trust it." And then it jumps to your site from that site and

some of that trust gets carried over and now Google trusts you a little more.

- Okay, I love that. And side note, did you know that the spider technology of the

web was first invented at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

I had no idea. Yeah, I worked for a tech company back in the day. And at least

that's what I was told. I mean, somebody could probably look that up and maybe it's

not true. But that's what we learned when I worked at likeos .com. It was the

competitor to Yahoo at the time. And that's where that that spider technology. Okay.

But anyway, so so you want to get your website, you want someone else to list your

website to link back to you is what you're saying. Yes. How does one do that?

These sites could be directories. It could be your town's or city's chamber of

commerce. It could be a blog post that you write for somebody else.

And that's actually something in the membership that I've been doing is having

photographers work with each other to write blog posts on each Because Google,

yes, and Google says, hey, this is a photographer linking to a photographer. It's

relevant and that relevance is important. It means something to Google. Because right,

they're saying that you're a real person. You can be trusted like you already said,

but I heard, so correct me if I'm wrong that getting like a backlink from a .edu

or a .gov address is highly valuable. Can you talk about that? - That is an

incredibly powerful link because Google trusts those sites more than just about

anything, because you have to meet certain standards to have that type of domain,

but getting those links can be harder. - Well, right, 'cause what are you gonna do?

Call up the IRS or the government and say, "Hey, could you please link to my

photography website?" So it helps with my SEO. - I paid my taxes, link to me.

- Well, the reason I ask that is because I knew that I was on page one of Google

for Pittsburgh wedding photographers back when I was shooting weddings full -time. And

I didn't realize this, but what had happened was I was teaching at the community

college and they had linked to my website and they were .edu. And I got so much

traffic from that. It was amazing. That was just sort of dumb luck. I actually,

there's something I teach inside of Elevate on how to work with a community college

or some type of somewhere where you can teach and establish authority. And I think,

man, if you could do a continuing education class at a community college and get

them to link to your website, it's like hugely beneficial to your SEO. But are

there any other ways to do that? Like I can't think of how else you would do

that. - Some ways that are popular are creating things like infographics.

around. Yes. Really, I think the best way to start with backlinks is think of who

you know, what they do, and the people around you. There's probably good fits

somewhere that you can say, "Hey, would you mind putting a link on your website?"

Or if I wrote a little article for your website or mentioning me, if you are a

wedding photographer, another option is like vendors, talking to them, getting them to

link to you, creating a partnership with them. Yeah, I had a lot of backlinks to

and from DJs, bands, florists, makeup artists,

bakeries. I mean, just about venues, like full venues. We had a lot of those links

going back and forth, and I think that was also hugely helpful. Yeah, because Think

about what that says about your business to Google. They see all these things that

are connected to weddings, and they see you as a wedding photographer and they're

all linking to you, and they're like, "Well, yes, she's definitely a trustworthy

wedding photographer and an authority figure in her industry." So there's a lot of

things that would contribute to you maybe showing up on page one of a result,

and it's never just one thing, correct? - It's never just one thing. So this is one

of the things I love about SEO is that as we put things into it, we're just

continually making our sights stronger and better. And once you do get into those

top ranks, there's like a stickiness to it. You can hold those ranks for a while

without really doing much. And if you do choose to keep doing some little changes,

like you're just Increasing the distance above your competition that you already have

like you're increasing the gap and being stronger and stronger and Google doesn't

want to just shake things up all the time because people don't won't trust it if

it jumps to the next thing too quick it's like it wants to find something good it

says this is good I'm sticking with it for now. Yeah okay great so we have Google

my business and these backlinks Anything else that's small, they could do. I think

the Google My Business is probably the most important if you're just gonna start

with one thing. Is there anything else? - The next thing I would do is, and this

goes back to having a niche. Like I said, Denver, senior portrait photographer, your

homepage or the niche page, if you happen to have a few niches on your site,

should have that keyword in to H1, which is like the main heading title. It should

be visible right at the top of your site because when people land on your site, a

lot of people are hesitant to do this because they think it looks kind of like

spammy or something, but when people land on your site, they need to know where

you're based and what you actually shoot. Maybe your picture says it all, but having

the text there is important too for Google to understand and to reiterate it to

whoever's visiting, that it's not just like a destination or something and then in

your content you want to have that keyword mentioned somewhere and We're just

reinforcing What we do to Google and we're saying hey this page is all about Denver

senior portrait photography So rank me for that keyword a lot of people skip this

and they have very imaginative things like make your dreams come alive On their home

page, which is great And it's a nice whimsical thing to say. You could put that

under this part, but let's go ahead and let Google and people know what we do. I

cannot tell you the number of photographers websites that I land on and I have no

clue where they're based.

It's usually pretty obvious what they do. You can sort of pick up on what type of

photographer they are, but you can't see like, well, but where are you? I don't

have any idea where you're at or who you are or

sense. And that's a great tip in general too, just to maybe have a friend who

hasn't seen your website, sit down with them and have them go to your website and

say, "Hey, if you're looking for this, is this what you need?" Right.

Just address what you're looking for because you'll find that there's a lot of holes

in our websites. And they're easy to plug if you have somebody else look at it,

right? It's hard when it's yours, but I actually had a business coach last week

take a look at one of my pages on my website. And it was the funniest thing which

she pointed out to me that is now so obvious that I was like, oh my gosh,

I cannot believe I missed that because it's just, I'm in it too deep.

You know, you have to have someone else look at it. - We look at our sites through

our own lens. - Right. - Our own experiences, our own life. There's this entire

backstory that we have that we don't even think about when we look at our own

website and we're just like, yup, everything's there that needs to be there and then

somebody else goes to it and they're like, what is this? What does this even mean?

- What is this? - Where is this? Why is this here? And it doesn't answer their

questions and that's a big part of Google and SEO is we wanna answer the questions

or what people are looking for and what they need. And if we're not doing that,

they're probably not very likely to go any further with reaching out to us. Yeah,

they bounce, they're out. Okay. Were there any more or can I ask you something

else? You can ask me something else. Okay. I mean, I know there's a lot more, but

that's enough for right now. Good work on your Google My Business. Okay, so you

know this about me and everybody that listens knows this about me, I'm always like,

well, how do I need to think about this? Or how am I thinking about this that's

holding me back? Or what do I need to believe? So with that in mind, are there

some common myths that photographers believe? Or what do you think they're thinking

that is preventing them from taking action on this? I think a lot of it is maybe

second guessing what they're, what they should be doing. So it's like they,

they get in their own heads. I know I do it. And I'm like, is this actually going

to help? Should I do this? And then I end up not doing it. So it's like they

want to know that it's a guaranteed outcome. Oh, okay. Wait, I'm actually writing

this down. They, they ask themselves, is this really going to work? And I want a

guaranteed outcome. So I was just teaching this yesterday when the brain presents you

with a question like, "Is this going to work?" What it's actually telling you is,

"This is not going to work. It is definitely not going to work. You're not going

to see results. How will you know when will you..." So it feels kind of vague.

You can't measure it, so then they just don't do it. Yeah,

so the result is inaction and inaction never delivers a result that we're looking

for so we fulfilled the prophecy. Literally yes it's a self -fulfilling prophecy if I

think it's not gonna work I'm gonna hesitate I won't take action and then it won't

work so I could see that being a thing where they're like well I don't know if

this is gonna work I don't have proof that it's going to work and I have 10

million other things I probably should be doing. So, how could we think about this

in a way that propels us into more action? That's a good question.

What

would we need to think or believe for certain that would lead us to say something

like, "Oh, I'm I'm gonna get started on that today. I'm going to do my Google

business listing. I'm going to make sure my keywords, I'm gonna identify my keywords,

I'm going to make sure they're on my website. What would somebody need to think or

believe to be excited? That's kind of a stretch, but willing,

willing to take the action. - Well, I think maybe one of the best things to do is

get some evidence, go look for the whatever keyword you want to rank for,

whatever the term is, your niche, type it in and look at the sites that are

ranking and see them sitting there in those top positions. And the cool thing with

SEO is we can learn everything we need about those sites. Google is showing its

hand, right? We can see everything. We're like, okay, this is the site Google's

picking for number one, this is number two and number three. And those are all very

strong sites if they're in those three positions. What do these sites say? What do

they do? What have they been working on that's gotten them to this point? Because

if I implement even just a little bit of those things, I am making progress and

I'm working my way towards it. And we have to believe, I guess we just have to

believe that we will get there based on evidence. And when sometimes there is an

evidence, but with SEO, there is. That's a fantastic thought. That's that I am

making progress. And I have all of the data and evidence I need in these other

sites. So therefore, you could tell your brain, this does work, this will work,

because it's working for them. So that that's the proof that I need to tell my

when the brain says, "What if this doesn't work?" You can reply with, "Well, it's

absolutely going to work because I have what I need to make it work." But SEO is

one of those things where it is a little bit of a commitment because you have to

decide that it's going to work for you and maybe you have to be a little bit

patient. You have to be patient. So what I like to think of it as is like I'm in

it for the long haul, but at the same time, you're running other marketing efforts.

So you can do your SEO, maybe you set a time limit per week that you sit down

and work on this stuff. So like two hours, two hours a week, I'm gonna sit down,

I'm gonna learn a little bit, and maybe I'm gonna write a blog post, maybe I'm

going to go on Google My Business and use my review link to request a few reviews.

Simple things like that, they're all adding up. And what you'll notice about these

sites that are evidence that it works is that they all have these things that have

added up over time. I love that. I love that because one of the thoughts that has

built my business is, it's this simple. I believe in the compound effect. So,

I believe that if I do those small things over time, I will always and invariably,

I will see results. Consistency over time. Always. Always. Generate results.

Connor, I have built my entire life. The success that I've experienced personally and

professionally is built on this principle. I've never done anything that's been like

some huge breakthrough. It's always been, I'm willing to do those little things over

time because I know the compound effect works.

Hardy, let me back up. Darren Hardy wrote The Compound Effect. Jeff Olson wrote a

book called The Slight Edge. They are extraordinarily similar. I think they may have

studied under the same person. Both are great. Slight Edge was my first book. It

was easy to read. Then I read The Compound Effect and I was like, yes, this is my

life. This is how I've done it. These small things that add up over time, even

when I don't have the evidence for myself, I believe that it's worked for others.

So of course it's going to work for me. And I operate from that belief of

possibility and inevitability, you know, my success is inevitable. So I believe in

the compound effect, my success is inevitable. So then I'm like, okay, let's just

get to work. It's pretty simple. - Just keep putting in the reps. - Oh, right.

- It's the only way you build muscle. - I can do that. Okay, so you've been a

guest speaker inside of our Elevate program a few times. So for those that are in

Elevate, they can watch those calls with you where you take this deeper. And you

and I had talked about coming on the podcast periodically with different things that

you can share around SEO. So everyone should keep their ears open for those. But

where can people find you and learn more? You can learn more at my website. It's

taunerwalberg .com, that's C -O -N -N -O -R -W -A -L -B -E -R -G.

And on there, I have some mini courses and an SEO guide so you can kind of start

the process and you can learn about the membership there as well. Because I think

the real way to, one of the greatest ways to overcome that doubt is to learn from

someone knows what they're doing and, and let them help guide you through the

process. Right. Because then you can, you can have the belief this is going to

work. So when you, when you don't believe that your brain is like, well, what if

I'm not doing the right things?

Yeah, you have to, you have to believe it's going to work. And if somebody else

believes it and is telling you, Hey, this works, this is what changes the game. It

really does because if you think, "I don't know if I'm doing the right things. What

if I mess this up?" Then you're going to hesitate. You're not going to put in the

effort. But when you have someone in your corner that's like, "Hey, this is what

works. You just have to do these things," and you just go do them, then easy

peasy, right? Yeah. It's the same for any athlete, right?

If you have a coach who believes in you, who keeps telling you what to work on,

you trust their program, and you keep making gains and improving. And you just do

it. Thank you so much for being here. Everyone can look forward to more episodes

with you. I will have those links for your site in the show notes. Thanks for

having me. I'd love to hear your thoughts on episodes like this.

If this is something that you are interested in, please let me know. I think this

is what sets us apart, both at the Flourish Academy in general, but of course our

flagship program, Elevate, is it's this dual focus on mindset and strategy because I

don't want to just teach photographers what to do. I want to teach them how to

think so they can execute consistently and thrive no matter what challenge arises.

I hope that you found this useful. I'll see you in the next episode.