Photography SEO - Landing Clients Through Search

Most photographers struggle to find their next client. It’s a sad truth that I was faced with years ago when I was shooting action sports in the Colorado Rockies. I remember needing 1-2 more clients to pay the bills and frantically stressing to land one *just in time, phew*!

The truth is that most creative types have a difficult time with the marketing/sales side of photography. They take great photos, know how to make their subjects shine, but can’t seem to figure out how to find clients. The go-to avoidance tactic is to rebuild their site, check their email incessantly, or order new gear. I know these all too well!

The quick and short answer to the client problem is to start talking about what you do with everyone you meet and know. The word will start spreading for you over time. In addition, outreach ANY and all past clients to see if they have any photo needs. Those are some of the most powerful and fast ways to land more work.

BUT… these approaches won’t create the automated machine that most of us would choose to have. Instead, you’ll need to keep after that approach day in and day out to keep things moving forwards. You absolutely should always take on these approaches, but why not add something else into the mix to help keep things steady and to land even more clients?

There’s one approach that just about every photographer goes to first to get things moving and more automated:

Advertising - Facebook, Google, IG, etc… 

We head here even though we don’t have the funds to properly build and test an ads campaign, it seems like just the quick shortcut we need to make things happen, and it’s sold by so many “experts” as essentially the only way to get clients… 

The problem? Advertising takes a solid chunk of money and time to actually learn and get right. In addition, most photographers go straight for the interruptive marketing approach taken by Facebook and IG. This means that people aren’t actually looking for you when they see your ads, so they aren’t necessarily in the right headspace to hire you and therefore a lot of ad spend is likely wasted. Google ads will perform much better but it’s a complicated system with a more difficult learning curve - and your site needs to be dialed in to convert + it still takes a lot of funds to get going.

SEO For Photographers - Getting Started

This is the part where I introduce the thing that I teach - I know, I’m one of the “experts” who’s pushing his approach… But hey, I truly believe in it and you don’t have to spend a dollar to do it!

That approach? SEO or Search Engine Optimization. Sounds VERY technical and difficult, but doesn’t have to be. There are people in your area who hop on Google or Bing looking for exactly what you do. And if you can rank near the top of the search results, they are likely to check out your site and potentially hire you!

The best part? It doesn’t cost anything other than the time it takes to start learning and implementing. It’s all about making your site speak the language of the search engines. It takes no coding skills, and largely relies on your ability to focus on just a few of the right things on your site and Google My Business listing, and it will build a real lasting asset - one that keeps working day in and day out and is truly automated compared to word of mouth marketing. I’m a firm believer that SEO is THE best approach for your second tier of marketing - the first tier being any work you do that will land clients in the near term, as SEO takes time before it starts to work.

A quick google search of SEO (see what I did there?) will reveal hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of results. Of those results, there’s some very solid advice, and some advice that won’t get you anywhere. AND, most of it is not specific to photographers. 

So if you’re ready to get going on this as a photographer, I’ve put together an in-depth free guide to get you started with this process. You can check out the SEO for Photographers Guide Here.