Photography Website SEO: The Essentials

More visibility for your Fabrik photography portfolio.

The team behind Fabrik all have senior-level industry experience running or working in leading agencies in the digital sector. Our extensive knowledge in writing clean, well-performing and solid code means Fabrik sites are easily indexed by search engines and conform to industry standards for good organic SEO.

However, there's more that you can do to ensure that your site is getting the best visibility.

Image Optimisation -— be less precious about large file-types

It's good to get into the habit of optimising your imagery for web - Fabrik has a max upload size of 10mb per image so your large exports are not going to make it past that hurdle. 99% of the inspirational imagery, beautiful photography and film you've seen online has been optimised for web. There really is no need to be precious over huge high-resolution files - your audience won't notice.

Now Fabrik will automatically generate perfectly sized and optimised versions of your images to make sure they look great on your site regardless of what device or screen size your audience are using - from mobile through to HiDPI and Retina screens. This optimisation comes with a degree of compression - if your images are optimised for web then nobody is going to see a difference (including you) however, incredibly large and unoptimised imagery may lose sharpness.

This goes for your moving imagery too - i.e. if you have a load of thumbnails with moving MP4 or GIF covers, your site is going to take way too long to load as far as the viewer is concerned. A handy way to check this is via tools.pingdom.com. This tool allows you to analyse your site load times and page sizes & we'd recommend aiming for less than 4 seconds.

Titles & Descriptions — communicate via search engines efficiently

Creating good titles and descriptions is essential for SEO. They help search engines understand your content better, improving your website's visibility in search results.

Titles and descriptions serve as organic search snippets visible on search result pages. Meta titles, in particular, are a critical ranking factor for Google when assessing your web pages. Therefore, crafting descriptive and relevant titles is essential for optimising your content.

Inside every project in Fabrik you have a details tab for your project description. Also you have a summary box located near the top. These are your most powerful tools when it comes to SEO. The summary box will be your projects meta description. Make sure the text is relevant.

The meta description is crucial for providing context to a page. Include an informative description with relevant keywords for indexing. Be aware that Google may alter your description based on what it deems more pertinent on the page. Additionally, having a project description alongside the summary is advantageous. The more content available for search engines, the higher the likelihood of favourable results.

So we've covered the basics for a project, what about your home page or a portfolio. Portfolios work exactly the same as a project, as do pages and blog posts - so nothing new there. For your homepage you will have to use the site description in your Settings > Site Profile section, again this will serve as the meta description but also if you don't add any summary for any projects, portfolios, blog posts, etc it will show there, so we have you covered if you forget.

URLs — score extra points with search engines

Alongside meta data is the URL, slightly underrated but contextual URLs can score some points with search engines. There are 2 parts we are interested in, the hostname (www.yourdomain.com) and the path (the rest of the URL after the hostname). If you wanted to get to the top of Google for your name, you will always stand a better chance if your hostname is your name. Remember in Fabrik you can have as many hostnames as you like pointing you to your site so you can always own the .com and .co.uk etc. Onto the paths, when you create anything in Fabrik whether it be a project or blog post we will automatically create the unique path for you. For example if you have a project with a title of 'Labrinth - Let it be' we would automatically generate the slug 'labrinth-let-it-be'.

When editing the slug make sure there are no spaces, slashes or illegal characters that cannot be in a URL. You can edit the slug anytime, but remember if you have any links elsewhere to that item you'll loose the link, in which case you would have to add in a redirect or go edit that link.

Social Media — better the devil you know

Engaging in social media activities, joining discussions, and occasionally sharing relevant links to your website or specific posts can attract high-quality traffic and generate new leads. Consistent and regular posting on social media not only fosters a strong connection with your audience but also serves as a constant reminder of your brand and its value. This approach helps establish and reinforce your brand presence and appeal.

Facebook and Instagram algorithms strive to predict your content preferences based on your past interactions, such as likes and comments on various pages and posts. Consequently, your news feed showcases selected updates, while other content remains hidden unless you visit specific profiles or brand pages manually. Get to grips with less obvious platforms like Tiktok and Lemon8 - Tiktok is a social media behemoth and it's introduced the ability to share carousel photos. It's not all trends and dances.

If you're active on social media and then take a hiatus for a few weeks, returning to post may result in a noticeable decline in post reach and engagement. To counter this, we recommend analysing insights for each platform, especially with business accounts. Identify peak active hours for your audience and consistently post during those times.

Treat each social media platform as an individual entity, adapting your posts in terms of image size, text, and the use of hashtags. Regularly engage with your followers' comments and interact with shared posts from others. This strategy not only benefits your SEO but also contributes to increased followers and engagement rates.

Redirects -— don't lose your ranking

If this is your first website on your domain you can skip this but if you already have a website and a good SEO rank, to make sure you keep that rank you should add in redirects, have a look at this tutorial on adding redirects if anything is unclear just ask us.

Metrics — because what's the point in doing all this if you don't check it?

Ideally, you should assess your website's statistics both before and after applying these tips and strategies. We recommend using Google analytics. Analyze your website's traffic and learn about your audience with Google Analytics. Setting up your Fabrik site couldn't be easier; no need to add any code or mess about under the hood. If you want more info on how to set this up with your site check out our guide here.

This also goes for your social media performance, most of the platforms offer free metrics tools to check your social media performance. There are so many variables that it can seem exhausting, but it can be imperative to getting the results you're after.

Inbound Links — score extra points with search engines

Getting links for your website is great, but focus on links from well-known and popular sites for the best results. A link from a big site like Huffington Post or Buzzfeed is more valuable than one from your friend's blog, unless your friend's blog is super popular. When you get links, use anchor text that includes your target keywords for better ranking. Don't use generic phrases like 'my new website'; use your name, job title, or project title for better relevance.

Don't neglect Pinterest, as a photographer Pinterest is your ally - each image has huge potential to increase traffic directly to your site or specified page. If you want us to share your content, just shoot us a message on Facebook or Twitter. We're happy to help spread the word for you.

The key to nailing your SEO is consistency - your audience habits are always changing, algorithms change and so does your content. Make sure you're paying attention to what's working and what isn't if you want to keep traffic heading your way.