2 fantastic ways to drive more traffic to your photography website

You’re about to learn two fantastic ways to drive more traffic to your photography website. I’m also going to show you how to grow an impressive email list of clients that you can market to.

To begin with, you need to consider how you get traffic to your photography website in the first place.

The way I like to explain it is that your photography website has two entrances. It has a front door, and it has a back door, or it should have a back door. Your back door is your blog, and your front door is your homepage. To get more traffic to your blog, and to your homepage, you need to understand what I call “search intent”.

Search intent is what people intend to find. When they have a problem that they need to fix, or when they are looking for your services. It’s what they type into their Google search engine or Bing search engine.

So, there are two types of search intent. The first search intent is direct search intent.

If you’d prefer to listen to me talk about this topic, you can watch my YouTube video. Otherwise, let’s get stuck in.

Direct search intent

Direct search intent comes from people who are pretty much ready to buy. In my case, these are people searching for ‘photography mentoring’, ‘photography mentoring programmes’, or ‘photography business marketing’.

They know what they want. These people know they’re looking for a programme. And they know they’re looking to get some marketing support for their business. Those are the words that they’re typing into Google. These people are ready to buy or are doing their research. They are then making an informed decision about what they are going to buy.

If you’re a wedding photographer, they might be typing in ‘wedding photographers in my local area’. They might go further and define it even more. They do this by searching for ‘country style wedding photographers’, or ‘fun and relaxed wedding photography’. They’ve been to a few photography websites, they’ve seen different styles of wedding photography, and they’ve narrowed it down.

The person who is performing the search is saying “I like fun and relaxed” or “I like documentary-type wedding photography” or even “I like country-style wedding photography because I’m getting married in a country venue”. It started with the original search of ‘wedding photography’ and they narrowed it down. So that is the search intent.

How to use search intent on your website

To understand the search intent, and to get that traffic, you need to think about your clients. What are your ideal clients? Who are they? What are they searching for, and what keywords are they typing into Google?

This is where you start to get your keywords onto the homepage of your website. The first place is in the H1 tag, which is your big title at the very beginning of your webpage usually on your banner. Then you also want to use your H2 tag, which is your next title, and in your subheadings (H3 tags). These are your smallest headings.

You should be putting these keywords throughout your content on your photography website but not overstuffing it. It needs to flow, it needs to be very readable and take the client on a journey, what I call a “scroll to a sale” journey.

That journey takes them through the process of explaining your services, empathising with them, and then telling them the benefits of what you do. It then qualifies them with a price and then drives them to act.

Throughout this stage, you will use keywords that you know your clients are going to be searching for. So that is the direct search. That’s the first way that people will come to your website.

If you haven’t already, you need to start doing some keyword research. Think about what your ideal clients are searching for. Don’t simply try and get the word ‘photography’ or ‘photographer in your local area’. Niche down.

The more direct you can get the better. When someone has narrowed their search from ‘wedding photography’ to ‘country house wedding photography’ or ‘documentary wedding photography’, they are in a much clearer position about what they want. This means they’re in a better position to be ready to buy. They’ve gone from a broad search into a narrow search. They are now focused on something that they really, really want. They’re ready to make that purchase.

It’s like if you type in ‘new cars’ or if you type in ‘Mercedes’, but then you go a step further and type ‘Mercedes C Class AMG’. You have made some decisions. You have narrowed it down. You’ve decided what type of Mercedes you want, what class you want, and what specifications. You’re much closer to making a purchasing decision at that point.

Indirect search intent:

The second form of search intent is indirect search intent. This is where people aren’t yet in the position to buy from you. But they are potential clients.

And this is where your blog comes into action. Here are a couple of mistakes I see all too often:

1.) The photographer calls their blog “blog”, rather than giving it a name or a purpose.

2.) They then create blog posts about jobs that they’ve done or shoots that they’ve been on.

Does this sound attractive to those people who are potential clients? The indirect search people?

Imagine this: you write up your latest shoot as a blog post, as you think you should do something on your blog. You then post it onto your photography website. Who’s going to find it interesting or useful? The only people interested in a post like that are the people who were there. In this case, the photographer and the people who were at the shoot.

Now let’s imagine a different approach. Let’s imagine we are writing a pet photography blog post. There are lots of examples of great, interesting topics you could write about. You could start writing blogs about how to take great pictures of your pet on your mobile phone. You could share training tips, or ideas about good dog walks in your local area. You could even write a guide to teach people how to get their dog to sit or how to get their dog to stop pulling on the leash.

Who is going to be finding your photography website and reading these blog posts? People who are dog owners, people who are typing into Google “how to take better pictures of my dog”, or “best walks for my dog in Edinburgh”.

Attract indirect searchers with your blog

This is where your blog comes into its own because your blog is there to help inspire and educate people. These same people are likely to be your ideal clients. Maybe not today, but a little bit further down the line.

They’ll come to your photography website and blog because they find it inspiring. They’ll read your blog, and then sign up for your email list so that they receive regular current blogs from you. This is the way you get your blog to drive traffic to your photography website.

Get people onto your email list so you can remarket to them. You can send them emails about your seasonal offers. You can send them an email every time you create a blog post. You then get them to come back and read your next blog.

This builds relationships. Remember, people buy from people who they know, like, and trust. This is incredibly powerful and something a lot of photographers don’t do. They don’t utilise their blog correctly.

Repurposing your photography blog posts

It does take a bit of time to write a blog. But it is time well spent. Remember, when you write that blog, you can repurpose it.

I write blogs. My blogs are around 2,000 to 2,500 words and they are usually written in a step format. For example, I have written about “five points to a solution”. This is then broken down into subheadings.

You have the main title for what the blog is about, and then you break the rest of it down into sections. Those sections are all little tips, little steps to the perfect end solution. Each one of those subsections within the blog will have an image with it, a subheading and then some content. The blog is then summarised right at the very end.

Once you’ve written your blog post, it’s up there on your website, bringing traffic to your website on a regular basis. People are typing into the searches and being sent to your site.

But the blog doesn’t have to stay like that. That post can be repurposed.

• You can use each one of those individual steps as smaller social media posts over the course of a few weeks.

• You can also repurpose the blog post, rehash it slightly, and create a LinkedIn article.

• You can also create a helpful pdf document. I have lots of these on my site. You can offer this as a brochure for people to download.

• You can also create slideshows, webinars, and videos that answer your customers’ questions.

• When I’ve written a blog, I can design and create a nice pdf. Then if somebody has a question, or somebody reaches out to me on social media, I can send them the pdf. It looks professional, creates the right first impression, and elevates my perceived value. And it makes my brand look good.

It’s all about building those relationships. So, when you write a blog, don’t think that all you have done is a blog post. Don’t forget about it. Repurpose that post.

Why not write a book? It sounds crazy but you can write books as well. I have plenty of clients who have written several blog posts on a particular subject. They have then condensed those blogs together, and written a book.

It could be an ebook, or it could be a physical book that you have printed and can then sell on Amazon or elsewhere.

So those are two fantastic ways to drive traffic to your photography website.

You have:

Direct search for people who are ready to buy from you. They’re going straight for what they are looking for.

And:

Indirect search from people who are looking for things that relate to your niche.

That could be a bride who is in the throes of planning her wedding but hasn’t chosen a photographer. She might type in “how to have a stress-free wedding day”, “country wedding venues in Derbyshire”, “how to plan my dream wedding in Scotland” or “how to have a Scottish-themed wedding”.

Think of all the ideas, all the things these people haven’t thought about yet. They’re very early down the line. You know about this, it’s your speciality.

If you can make that connection with them early on, start serving them, and give them great content, they’re going to think about you first when it comes to photography.

I do hope you’ve found this post useful and that you now have plenty of ideas for your photography website. If you need any help, as always, reach out to me. You can connect with me on LinkedIn, or you can reach out to me on Facebook as well.

And when I say I’m here to help, I really mean that.

If you drop me a message, I always reply to every message.

If you’re looking to improve your photography website, you can also check out my new website www.thephotographerssuite.com

This is my new photography website business. It aims to help photographers grow their business by converting more website visitors into paying customers.