SEO, this Portrait Studio, and You.

Someday I will look at this graphic of my Camas portrait studio website traffic and think, “Awww, that was when my web site was just an itty bitty little young thing. So cute!”

In my first go at this photography business - shooting weddings, families, environmental portraits and the like - I focused on my art, and scoffed at search engine optimization (SEO). This time around, with my new Camas portrait studio focus, I’m ready to admit I ignored SEO at my peril. It’s not so effective to create great art where too few in this digital age can see it. This does not pay the bills.

In fact, I’ve been taking a short pause at building my new studio portfolio to focus exclusively on SEO. Upon sharing this with a colleague, she asked me to pass along any SEO tips I might have.

“Sounds like a great blog post!” I answered.

So, here are the top 5 SEO tricks that have started to get my web page on the portrait studio map in the Pacific Northwest region where I live, taken from the class “Helpful Hints and Tricks to Boost Your SEO” by Missy Fant of https://missyfantphotography.com. With apologies to Missy for all the points I’m sure I’ll miss, I’ve summarized my top 5 tips here, just for you. These are the efforts I’ve spent the most time on thus far.

Ready? Here we go:

1.) Keywords, keywords, keywords.

Ideally 1-2, but I’m wordy so it’s more like a top 3 sometimes branching into 6. What’s your focus, your location, your niche? Narrow that down to a handful of words and put ‘em in URLs, early in page text, image filenames. Sprinkle those puppies everywhere you can - naturally, of course, so that, if you’re me, it looks like you say “Camas portrait studio” over and over, as a matter of course, like some say “uh” or “like” or “dude.”

2.) Size image files to 1200px on the wide side, to keep your site loading quickly. Squarespace also likes me to stick to 500 kb per image, so I do that too. I’m very careful to mind this rule, as a portrait business web page is very photograph heavy!

3.) Blog. You can ChatGPT it, and it might make SEO happy, but I for one won’t read your blog anymore. Sorry. When more of our worldwide human population is gainfully employed I’ll get more excited about AI - maybe. BUT just about everyone I know is doing it, so, there’s that.

I’m posting steadily at a pace of one new blog every two weeks or so. I like to post them as I write them, instead of writing ahead and scheduling my posts, to preserve the organic nature of my page. I’m using my business blog as an extension of my journalistic/creative writing self, and having a lot of fun with it: https://www.charityfeb.com/camas-studio-portrait-photographer-charity-feb-blog.

4.) Update your Google business profile.

I hate to do it, complicit in g’cide as Google is, but I can’t be present to protest the empire if I can’t pay hellacious grocery, housing and medical bills, now, can I? So far I’m not doing any paid updates.

5.) Update your Bing profile.

I never use Bing, but some people do, and that’s actually where I’m finding my biggest search result success right now. I’m sure this will translate into customers any day now. Again, no paid updates at this point.

And that’s it. Oh, there’s more in the big book of all things SEO that came with Missy’s class, but spending time every week addressing at least one item in this list has gotten me much higher in the listings. I’m not always near the top, or even always on the first page of searches - yet. But I’ve seen progress since I started, and I know that as I persist, I will get there!

Bonus tip:

6.) Find inspiration to keep your fire lit, because the grind of capitalism wants to wear you down.

Capitalism doesn’t want you entrepreneuring. Capitalism wants you to be a compliant little cog in the wheel. My time in telephone customer service taught me this. I remember well: Many, many well-educated, talented folks are staffing the phones for big companies, answering inane questions for too little pay and paltry freebies. Not me; never again.

My kids are my number-one inspirations. We run a very tight ship of three, and we’ve gotten good at facing life’s storms together, and being each others’ cheerleaders.

But sometimes a little larger-than-life inspiration can really help. I’ve found just that by diving deeper into the history and storytelling of one of my very favorite Korean pop groups, ATEEZ. You might have seen my recent posts about last Sunday’s concert in Tacoma: https://www.instagram.com/p/C9d5jUKvuuM/?img_index=1.

ATEEZ is enjoying a skyrocketing popularity now, but that has come after years of striving and naysayers. If you’re an ATEEZ fan, check out this blog that delves into their lore, and the real-life struggles they turned into their art: https://www.ateezstoryline.com/blog.

Happy SEOing, and remember: Keep that spark sparking until it catches!