SEO for Photographers: 8 Steps to Rank #1 on Google + Free tools

Hey friend, if you’re feeling intimidated by SEO, you’re in the right place.

SEO (search engine optimization) sounds super techy and overwhelming at first. Maybe you’ve tried looking it up before and felt like every explanation was too complicated or full of terms that made no sense.

Trust me—I get it.

That’s exactly why I created this guide:

• No techy terms
• No complicated coding
• Just simple, easy-to-understand steps to get your website found on Google and bring in more inquiries from your dream clients

So, let’s dive in!

Who Am I & Why Should You Listen to Me About SEO?

Hey! I’m Maddie Mae, an elopement photographer and photography business coach.

I’ve been photographing weddings since 2010 and went full-time with elopements in 2015 after finishing my marketing degree in business school (yep, I actually have a business background, not just photography).

Since then, I’ve:

• Photographed over 300 elopements across 20+ countries
• Built a multi-6-figure photography business
• Increased my average booked package price to $14,000+ per client (before albums & prints)
• Found a website and marketing strategy that gets me 1-3 inquiries per day—without ads
• Booked over $4.1 million in photography services through my website. 

And I credit a huge amount of this success to my SEO strategy—because that’s where over 50% of these bookings have come from.

Now, I want to teach you how to do the same!

Let’s Start With the Basics: What Is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.

That’s just a fancy way of saying:

“How do I get my website to show up on Google when someone searches for something?”

That’s literally all SEO is.

When someone Googles something related to your business—like “best places to elope in Colorado” or “Yosemite elopement photographer”—SEO helps your website show up on the first page of results.

The goal of SEO? Get your website found by your dream clients—without paying for ads.

What’s the Difference Between SEO & Google Ads?

This is a big question I get ALL the time: “Why should I even bother with SEO when I can just pay for Google Ads?”

Here’s the truth: SEO is WAY more effective than ads.

Yes, you can pay for ads to show up on Google, but SEO is free, while ads get expensive quickly. And SEO works better.

It’s been proven that organic (non-paid) search results get WAY more clicks: 

• 20x more clicks than ads on desktop 
• 10x more clicks than ads on mobile

And, paying for Google Ads does NOT improve your SEO.

If you want long-term, FREE traffic from Google—SEO is where you should focus.

Why should photographers care about SEO? 

As someone who’s been a wedding and elopement photographer since 2010 and has booked clients at every price point from $1,500 weddings to $15,000+ high-end elopements:

SEO has always been the biggest source of my inquiries and bookings (it’s always been where more than 50% of my bookings come from).

And it doesn’t just work for me. I poll my community of over 25,000 photographers every year on what their biggest lead source is, and without fail, SEO is always the #1 way wedding and elopement photographers around the world are getting clients.

This poll from February 2025 shows SEO as the #1 inquiry source for wedding & elopement photographers with over 330 photographers sampled.

Why do photographers find SEO so effective for marketing themselves?

SEO is a type of free content marketing (also called pull marketing) which is a type of marketing that you attract clients to you without chasing them down.

Instead of interrupting people with ads, you create helpful content that people actively search for.

They come to you because they’re already looking for what you offer.

And SEO is one of the BEST forms of content marketing. It works by helping your dream couples find you on Google—when they’re already searching for planning advice, inspiration, or photography. 

It’s the kind of non-slimy marketing that people love to encounter, and photographers can feel great about doing.

Why SEO works so well to get you inquiries from your dream clients

It all starts with how Google completely changed how people make purchasing decisions.

Before Google, if you wanted to buy something big—like a camera, a car, or a laptop—you had to:

Businesses and salespeople used to have all the power because they controlled the information.

But once Google became a daily tool people trusted, that completely changed.

Now, people:

Basically, buyers have become the experts.

Think about the last big purchase you made. You likely didn’t just go to one brand’s website, trust all of the info you found only on that website, and hit purchase. 

Nope, you did your research. 

You probably:

Because you, like everyone else, don’t just blindly trust a business’s website anymore. 

And your dream clients are doing the same thing when planning their wedding or elopement.

Google has also changed the way couples plan their weddings. 

The Stats: Couples are planning their weddings online using Google

According to The Knot’s Real Wedding Survey:

• 90% of wedding planning happens online
• 73% of couples use Google to find vendors & plan their day
• 70,000+ searches per month happen for terms like “wedding photographer”
• 68% of couples use Pinterest for wedding inspiration

Couples aren’t just picking a random photographer—they’re researching, learning, and gathering inspiration before they inquire.

And here’s the crazy part:

By the time a couple reaches out to a photographer, they’re already ⅔ to 90% through the decision-making process. 

How you can use your dream clients’ natural planning process to get more inquiries from SEO

Instead of waiting for couples to search “Dallas wedding photographer” when they’re ready to hire, you can get in front of them earlier with the right SEO strategy.

The key?

When couples find you through content that helps them in their planning process, they already trust you by the time they’re ready to book.

Here’s a real example. 

When I say, over 50% of my bookings come from couples finding me on Google, I don’t mean just Googling “Destination elopement photographer” and landing on my homepage.

95% of my website traffic comes from pages that AREN’T my homepage.

Couples find my blog posts and planning resources when they’re in the early stages of their wedding planning process.

Here are real examples of what my clients have Googled before finding me:

• “Small family wedding ideas”
• “Outdoor wedding ceremony locations”
• “What states allow self-solemnization?”
• “Best free places to elope in Washington”

They weren’t looking for a photographer yet—but a resource on my website helped them in their planning process.

And because I gave them valuable, free information before they were even ready to book, I became their go-to expert.

When the time came to hire a photographer—who came to their mind first? Me. 

And they already trusted me and saw me as an expert before they even reached out.

This is why the inquiries I get from google are highly qualified and easier to book. 

You can also see that this type of marketing is so much more targeted than:

With SEO, you have control over who you want to attract with your marketing by what type of content you create.

For example, If someone Googled “where to elope in New Orelans”—what does that say about them? 

There’s a certain type of person Googling that keyword. They’re probably someone who’s thinking about eloping, and they’re considering eloping in New Orleans but they don’t yet have a spot picked out. That’s why they’re typing that into Google.

So if you’re an elopement photographer near New Orleans, it would be really smart for you to make the most valuable blog post about that, because that topic is something your dream clients might be Googling. 

When they find you via that content and enjoy it, it positions you as an expert in New Orleans elopements. 

You’ll learn more about how to figure out what content you should create in Step 4: Do Keyword Research the Right Way below, but let’s first go over how Google works so you know can get your content to rank on page #1 and get inquiries from your dream clients.

How Google Decides What to Rank on Page 1

So, we know why SEO is powerful. Now let’s talk about how Google actually ranks websites. 

And spoiler alert, it’s not as technical as you might think.

The #1 key to ranking on Google is thinking like a user.

Understanding Google’s #1 goal: giving users the best answers so they can make money

Let’s start by looking at Google from a user perspective. Think about the last time you Googled something.

Let’s say you got a pizza oven and wanted to make dough from scratch.

You Googled: “How to make a pizza base” (because you weren’t even sure what it was called).

Then you hit enter and BOOM—you got a bunch of results on the 1st page:

Google read your mind and gave you EXACTLY what you needed—even though you didn’t use the perfect terminology. That’s what we expect from Google, right?

This is why Google has billions of users. And as a business, that’s Google’s goal. The more users they have, the more money they make (from ads and other things).

If Google gives bad results, people stop using it—and Google loses money.

That’s why Google is obsessed with showing the best, most relevant answers when someone searches for something.

So if Google’s goal is to give users the best results, your goal is to make sure your website is one of those results.

That means:

When Google sees that your website is valuable & relevant, it ranks it higher—which means more dream clients find you.

A simple explanation of how Google works

Google has to sort through over 1 billion websites to decide which ones deserve to be on page 1 when someone types in a search.

So how does it do it?

Here’s how it works in 3 simple steps.

1. Google crawls the web (sees what’s out there)

Google sends bots (called crawlers) to scan all the public pages on the internet. These bots click through every link they can find and build a massive index of the web.

2. Google indexes (stores) the information it finds

Once a page is discovered, Google stores its content in its database (its index). Google takes note of what’s on the page (text, images, links, etc.) so it knows what it’s about.

3. Google ranks pages using its algorithm

When someone searches for something, Google scans its database for the pages that are most relevant to that search and uses a ranking algorithm to decide which pages to show on page 1 

Now let’s talk about how Google decides what actually ranks on page 1.

Here’s the truth: No one knows exactly how the Google algorithm works. Not even Google.

Why? Because it’s always changing and relies on AI and machine learning to make decisions.

BUT—there have always been three main ranking factors:

Let’s break these down in super simple terms.

Relevance: does your page answer the right question?

This is super simple:

If someone Googles “Best places to elope in New Mexico,” but your page is about “How to pose couples for engagement photos,” your page won’t rank for that search term (i.e. keyword). 

What is a keyword?

A keyword is just the word or phrase someone types into Google when they’re searching for something. That’s literally all it is.

For example, if a couple is thinking about eloping in Colorado, they might Google:

• Best places to elope in Colorado
• Colorado elopement photographer
• Rocky Mountain National Park wedding permit

Each of these search phrases is a keyword. It’s also often called a search term or query.

A keyword can be a single word (like “elopement”) or a longer phrase (like “How much does it cost to elope in Oregon?”).

For the sake of simplicity, think of a keyword as a “topic” because Google will rank the same resource pages for multiple keywords such as:

• Where to Elope in New Mexico
• Best places to Elope in Mexico
• Top elopement locations in New Mexico

These search terms are all asking the same question, so the search results will be almost identical for all of these keywords. 

How Google Measures Relevance

Google acts like a matchmaking service—it wants to match people with the most relevant information.

So when someone types a keyword into Google, it’s looking for websites that are the best match for that keyword and it looks for things like:

Example: I have a blog post about the definition of an elopement. 

It ranks for over 200 different keywords (search terms), like:

• “What does elope mean?”
• “Definition of an elopement”
• “Eloping meaning”
• “What qualifies as an elopement?”

Even though people type slightly different phrases into google, Google knows they all mean the same thing (they’re looking for the same info).

How Photographers Can Improve Relevance

Authority: How trustworthy is your website and the content on it?

Think of authority like credibility.

When you Google something, you want trustworthy answers, right?

Google doesn’t want to send people to random sites with bad information. That would make people stop trusting and using Google. 

Google is BIG on trust. So, it asks: “Can trust that this page of this website will have accurate information on this topic?”

How Does Google Measure Authority?

• Expertise on a Topic: Does this person have the necessary knowledge or skill on this topic for it to be a trustworthy source? 
• First-hand Experience: Is this person an expert or have first-hand experience on this topic?
• Depth of Knowledge: Does this website have a lot of content on this subject? This is called “topical authority;”
• Physical Location: For topics about locations: Is the person or business behind this information local to the area? (This is called “local authority”) 
• Backlinks, Publications & Features: Are other trusted websites linking to this page and overall website? Has this person been quoted, interviewed, or published on trusted websites?

You might come across the term E-E-A-T when talking about “authority” with SEO. This is straight from Google’s ranking guidelines where they say that “Experience” (E), “Expertise” (E) and “Authoritativeness” (A) are what makes up “Trustworthiness” (T).

How Photographers Can Increase Authority

• Start by writing blog posts that you have a lot of first-hand knowledge on
• Get creative and share information that isn’t already online or in other resources
• Write about your local area the most (and first, before writing about other destinations)
• Submit your work to wedding blogs, contests, and publications
• Collaborate and share images with vendors as long as they include a direct link to your website 

I recommend several free tools and give more tips on this in Step 6 (creating content) and Step 7 (backlinks) below.

Bottom line, authority isn’t about tricks or shortcuts—it’s about proving you’re an expert in your niche.

Experience: Is Your Website Easy to Use?

Google cares about user experience.

If your website is slow, confusing, or hard to read, people will leave fast—and Google will rank it lower.

How does google measure “experience”?

• Fast load times: Does the page load in under 3 seconds?
• Mobile-friendliness: Does it look good on a phone?
• Easy navigation: Is it clear where to click next?
• Readable text: Is the font and color easy to read?

Example: Have you ever clicked on a website that took forever to load? Or seemed broken or unreadable on your phone? You probably hit back immediately.

When Google sees stuff like that, it tells them “This page is not a good experience.”

How Photographers Can Improve User Experience

I recommend several free tools and give more tips on this in Step 3 below.

So what should a photographer’s goal with SEO be?

At the end of the day, SEO isn’t about gaming the system, hacks, or tricks—it’s about understanding what Google and the users of Google want.

It’s about being:

• A trusted expert (Authority)
• A relevant answer (Relevance)
• A great user experience (Experience)

When you nail all three, Google will rank your page higher—and your dream couples will find you without paid ads.

And since your dream clients are using Google every day, your goal is to:

Next, I’m going to share 8 practical tips and steps to create content that actually ranks on page so your dream clients will start finding YOU.

The 8-Step SEO Strategy for Photographers

You can think of this as your simple, step-by-step SEO Checklist for Photographers. 

If you’re a photographer looking to improve your SEO and get more dream clients finding you on Google, here’s a clear, no-nonsense list of the exact steps you need to take—in the right order. 

No theory, no fluff—just action steps you can start implementing today to rank higher and get more inquiries.

Step 1: Set Up Google Business Profile & Google Search Console

Before you do anything else, you need to set up the two most critical tools for tracking your SEO performance and showing up in local searches.

Create & Optimize Your Google Business Profile

Why every photographer needs a Google Business Profile

Ever wondered how some photographers show up like this on a map when someone searches for a term like “Maui Wedding photographer?”

These are Google Business Profiles, and they have a big positive effect on your SEO, plus they’re one of the most trustworthy places that clients like to read reviews. 

And they’re free to set up (you just need a Google account).

How photographers can set up a Google Business Profile to show up in their local area:

1. Go to Google Business Profile and claim your business (or set up a new one).
2. Follow Google’s clear guidelines on how to represent your business by adding your business name, category (e.g. Wedding Photographer), service area, and contact info. If you have a physical location which has signage and is staffed during business hours, add your physical address.
3. Upload at least 5-10 high-quality images of your work.
4. Write a compelling business description using relevant keywords like “[Your City] Wedding Photographer” or “[Your State] Elopement Photographer.”
5. Once you’re finished, verify your Google Business Profile. Here’s some tips on getting a successful video verification  
6. Regularly add new photos and posts to show Google you’re an active business.
7. Ask clients for reviews and respond to your reviews as they come in

Resources:

• Step-by-step guide directly from Google on how to sign up for a Business Profile.

Set Up Google Search Console

Why every photographer needs to use Google Search Console

Google search console is the only way to know how your SEO is doing (how many clicks you’re getting and what you’re raking for).

Below is a screenshot of what Google Search Console looks like for my website for a 30 day period.

• Clicks: tells me exactly how many clicks any page of my website has gotten from google search results
• Impressions: tells me how many google users have seen a link to one of my pages show up in their search results
• Average position: tells me the average ranking of all of my pages across my entire website 

Yes, there are many 3rd party tools that claim they can tell you what your SEO “rankings” are, but in reality, these tools are all just “guessing” by just looking at Google’s search results. The issue with this is with how complicated Google’s algorithm is, no 3rd party tool can give you accurate information on your rankings or traffic.

And unlike many 3rd party tools, Google search console is free (you just need a Google account).

How to set up Google Search Console

• Go to Google Search Console and connect and verify ownership of your website.
• Submit your sitemap (usually found at yourwebsite.com/sitemap.xml). Here’s a tutorial.
• Use the Performance Report (under “Search Results” > Performance) to see what pages are bringing you the most traffic already and what keywords (queries)  you’re already ranking for.

Resources: 

• A step-by-step guide directly from Google on how to set up Google Search Console.
• How to build and submit a sitemap to Google Search Console

Step 2: Fix what’s hurting your SEO and dragging your rankings down

A bit of bad news: outdated and harmful SEO advice has been spreading like wildfire around the photography industry for years.

And unfortunately many photographers following this advice have accidentally been creating huge issues that are killing their rankings.

Common photographer SEO mistakes:

So if you’ve accidentally done any of these, you’ll want to listen up. But don’t worry, these are easily fixable.

Stop competing with yourself on Google: avoid “keyword cannibalization”

This is a HUGE mistake that so many photographers make—often without even realizing it.

What is keyword cannibalization?

Keyword cannibalization happens when you overuse the same keyword (like “Colorado Elopement Photographer”) on multiple pages or blog posts of your website.

You may have thought this was helping your SEO by putting same or similar keywords in your page titles, headings, URL’s, and paragraphs. 

Instead of helping your SEO, it actually confuses Google—and your site ranks lower as a result.

Not sure what a keyword is? Read this non-technical explanation.

Why keyword cannibalization hurts your SEO

Google wants to show the BEST, most relevant page when someone searches for a keyword. 

If every page on your site is labeled “Colorado Elopement Photographer,” Google doesn’t know which page is the most relevant.

So instead of ranking one strong page, it spreads your SEO power across multiple competing pages, which weakens your rankings. And you end up competing with (or “cannibalizing” yourself).

How to find and fix keyword cannibalization

The easiest way to start finding keyword cannibalization issues is to do a Site:search.

I mean literally type site:yoursite.com “your primary keyword” into Google like this.

This is a quick way to find all of the pages on your website that mention that keyword (or have it in a page title, headline, etc.)

Next, here’s basic steps to fix keyword cannibalization:

• Find pages that are potentially competing against each other: Scroll through the list of pages/posts that Google found in your site:search and look at the titles and URL’s of these pages to look for repeated keywords on multiple pages.
• Choose just ONE page/post to be your “main” page for each keyword: For example, your homepage should probably be your strongest page for your “[Location] Wedding/Elopement Photographer” keyword (read more in step 5). If you’ve overused that keyword elsewhere, remove it from extra pages.
• Use different keywords for each blog post & page: Instead of having 5 blog posts all titled “Yosemite Elopement Photographer,” use variations that match the content that couples are actually searching for (such as the exact venue name like “Glacier Point Wedding”). Learn more about this in Step 4 and Step 6 below. 
• Think about what couples are actually googling: Instead of stuffing your pages with the same or similar keywords, focus on creating helpful content that answers real questions. More in step 4 and step 6 below.

Stop letting low-quality pages drag down your SEO: Delete or hide useless content from Google

This is another HUGE mistake that so many photographers make—often without even realizing it.

What is low-quality content that’s useless for SEO?

Low-quality content is any page on your website that doesn’t serve a purpose for SEO or isn’t helpful to real people searching for information.

If a page isn’t useful to your dream clients and doesn’t help Google understand your site, it’s not doing you any favors. 

Plus, having too much low-quality, outdated, or useless content hurts your rankings—because Google sees your whole website as less trustworthy and relevant.

Why low-quality content hurts your SEO

Google wants to rank the best, most useful websites. If your site has tons of low-value pages, Google might think your whole website isn’t worth ranking highly.

That means:

Cleaning up your low-quality content helps Google focus on your best stuff—so you can rank higher for the pages that actually matter.

How to find low-quality pages on your website

The easiest way to find low-quality content on your site is to do a site: search.

Literally type this into Google (as above, just without a keyword).

site:yoursite.com

This will show you every single page on your website that Google has indexed (aka stored in its database).

Now, scroll through the results and look for pages that don’t need to be indexed. 

You can tell Google to ignore these pages (i.e. “no-index” them) so they stop dragging your site down.

The most common culprits of low-quality content

Here’s what to look for (and probably remove from Google’s index):

What should be indexed vs. no-indexed on a photographer’s website?

You want Google to index (store and rank) the pages that actually help your business:

You don’t want Google to index pages that don’t serve an SEO purpose or could hurt your rankings (like the low-quality pages listed above).

How to no-index pages you don’t want Google see

Once you’ve identified pages that shouldn’t be indexed you need to tell Google to stop storing them in its database.

The easiest way to no-index a page is by adding a no-index tag to it.

Here’s Google’s official tutorial on how to no-index pages.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Make sure you do NOT delete or no-index any pages on your website that are ranking well already and getting you clicks. A good rule of thumb is that if a page or post has gotten less than 10 clicks in a 6-month period, it’s safe to no-index or delete (you can check this in Google Search Console > Performance > Pages).

See more about important pages to keep indexed in Step 5. 

Once you no-index a page, Google will eventually remove it from search results—helping your most important pages rank higher instead of being dragged down by unnecessary content.

PRO TIP: If you want help no-indexing a page on your specific website platform, type this prompt into ChatGPT:

I am a wedding photographer that uses Showit for my website. I am trying to figure out how to no-index a page on my Showit site. Please explain this to me step-by-step, in a very simple manner that’s so easy a 8-year old could do it. Include a clear explanation of where menu items are on a page and where I should look for different things and exactly what to click on. It needs to be as simple as a “Wiki how” article. Don’t use any technical terms or technical jargon what-so-over, and is just a very simple list of the steps I need to follow to no-index a page on a Showit. Make sure you also include links to the best step-by-step tutorials on the internet, especially any videos or guides with screenshots, for this that you are sourcing this information from so I can read more information about it. 

You can also delete pages that you no longer want or need at all on your website (just make sure you set up a re-direct from that URL to the most closely related page of your website that is still live and indexed).

Bottom line: Cleaning up your website by fixing keyword cannibalization and removing low-quality content is one of the easiest ways to improve your SEO. 

If Google sees that your site is focused, helpful, and valuable, your rankings will go up—and your dream clients will have a much easier time finding you. 

Step 3: Make your website more google-friendly and user-friendly

Photographers love beautiful things—we’re visual artists! So naturally, when we build our websites, we want them to be stunning, unique, and artistic.

But here’s the problem: Google doesn’t care how pretty your website is.

Google cares about user experience—and that means speed and usability matter more than fancy design.

Google wants to show searchers the best, fastest, most user-friendly websites—so before you start blogging and creating helpful content, your website itself needs to be optimized.

Speed Up Your Website

How to Fix It

• Test your website’s speed: Google’s PageSpeed Insights (pagespeed.web.dev) to see how fast your site loads and to identify what might be causing slowdowns.
• Optimize your images: Resize them to the size they will be displayed. I like to use this free “Page Ruler” Chrome plugin to measure the display size of images on my website and then after re-sizing them down, I compress them with a tool like ShortPixel on the “glossy” setting and use WebP image formats where possible. Aim for a 150kb or smaller file size for all images on your site.
• Reduce fancy animations & moving elements: Keep the design clean, and avoid too many sliders, pop-ups, or auto-play videos that slow things down.
• Get better hosting—if your website is slow, switch to a faster hosting provider (I use Cloudways hosting for my WordPress site).

Tools:

• ShortPixel (Image Compression)
• “Page Ruler” Chrome plugin
• Google PageSpeed Insights
• Cloudways Hosting

Make Your Site Mobile-Friendly

Most photographers build their websites on a desktop computer, so they assume their site looks and functions great. But here’s a reality check:

Over 70% of Google searches happen on a phone—so make sure your site looks great and loads fast on mobile.

Google also looks at your mobile site first when it’s indexing, so if your website doesn’t load well on a phone, you could be losing 50-75% of potential clients before they even see your work.

How to fix it:

• Check your website on mobile: Pull out your phone right now and look at your website. Is it easy to navigate? Do images load quickly? Can you read all the text without pinching and zooming?
• Use a responsive design (your website should automatically adjust to different screen sizes).
• Simplify your mobile layout:
  • Use larger, easy-to-read fonts
  • Make sure buttons are big enough to tap
  • Remove clutter that makes navigation difficult
• Fix slow loading times: If your website takes more than 3 seconds to load on a phone, optimize your images, hosting, and theme to speed things up (see above).

This step is where photographers often realize that the website platform they built their site on is naturally very slow, not mobile friendly, or not ideal for SEO.

And this is naturally frustrating, so I want to share… 

What photography website platform is the best for SEO?

Truth is, you can rank well with a lot of website platforms for photographers. The 3 best are definitely WordPress, Showit, and Squarespace. 

But from my experience mentoring hundreds of photographers about their SEO and analyzing their Google Search Console data, photographers with WordPress sites (particularly Kadence themes) are getting the most clicks and ranking the best. 

You can read first-hand experience from photographers on different website platforms and their SEO results on this photographer poll in my free Weddings & Wanderlust community.

Step 4: Do keyword research the right way

Before you start writing blog posts or optimizing your site, you need to know what your dream clients are actually searching for on Google and what keywords you have a chance of ranking for so you don’t waste your time creating the wrong content.

Start with what your dream clients are Googling

If you’re trying to figure out what content you should be putting on your website to get dream clients to find you, it all starts with understanding their journey and what they are Googling BEFORE they’re actively looking for a photographer.

This is where you have the opportunity to use the knowledge you already have about your niche and what goes into a successful wedding, elopement, or photoshoot to get your brand in front of your dream clients and help them, so they see you as the trusted expert they should hire.

Example: Couples don’t just wake up one day, type “Seattle Wedding Photographer” into Google, and immediately inquire. Their decision-making process is long—and they go through different stages before they are ready to reach out.

In my THRIVE program, I teach in-depth about the the 5 main stages couples go through to planning a wedding or elopement and the matching blog posts or resources pages that you can create that answer them using the knowledge and expertise you already have.

I have tips below on how to prioritize these ideas so you know what to focus on first. 

Stage 1: Pre-Engagement: Before they’re even thinking about the wedding

This stage when couples aren’t seriously wedding planning yet but they are thinking about a bigger commitment, such as:

• Getting engaged
• Buying an engagement ring
• Planning a proposal
• Booking an engagement session

Keyword / Blog Topic Ideas for Stage 1 (samples from my THRIVE program)

• “How to Plan a Surprise Proposal in [Your City]”
• “Best Places for an Engagement Session in [Your Area]”

Stage 2: Ideas & Inspiration: What kind of wedding do we want?

Now, they’re engaged or actively talking about getting married, but they don’t have concrete plans yet. They are searching for big-picture ideas such as:

• What type of wedding do we want? (Traditional? Destination? Elopement?)
• What kind of scenery do we like? (Mountains? Beaches? Forests?)
• What’s the best time of year to get married?

Keyword / Blog Topic Ideas for Stage 2 (samples from my THRIVE program)

• “Rustic barn wedding ideas”
• “Can you elope in [area]”
• “Small beach wedding ideas”

Stage 3: Highest Priority Decisions: When & where do we want to get married?

This is often the best stage for attracting ready-to-book wedding/elopement clients. They’ve decided they’re getting married and now need to make their biggest decisions:

• Where should we get married?
• When should we get married?
• Who do we want to invite?
• What’s our budget?
• Who are our must-have vendors? (Photographer, planner, venue, etc.)

Keyword / Blog Topic Ideas for Stage 3 (samples from my THRIVE program)

• “Best Wedding Venues in [Your Area]” 
• “The Ultimate Guide to Eloping in [Your State]”
• “How Much Does a Wedding Photographer Cost in [Your Area]?”

This is when couples start reaching out to photographers—so ranking for these types of questions is GOLD.

Stage 4: Executing the Vision: Making the big decisions happen

By this stage, couples have locked in their date and location, but they are still filling in important details.

• Booking a hair & makeup artist, florist, caterer, officiant
• Planning wedding attire, decorations, details
• Organizing travel & lodging
• Creating a wedding day timeline

Keyword / Blog Topic Ideas for Stage 4 (samples from my THRIVE program)

• “Best Wedding Hair & Makeup Artists in [Your City]”
• “Where to buy a [style] wedding dress”

Stage 5: Filling in the Details: Finalizing plans before the wedding

Most couples have already booked their vendors at this point, but they are looking for last-minute guidance on the small things:

• Finalizing their ceremony script & vows
• Shopping for accessories (veils, jewelry, shoes, rings)
• Organizing transportation & wedding day logistics

Keyword / Blog Topic Ideas for Stage 5 (samples from my THRIVE program)

• “Unique [style] Bridal Hairpieces for [style/type] Brides”
• “Best Places to Get Wedding Bands in [Your City]”

If you’re a wedding or elopement photographer, these 5 planning stages should get your creative juices flowing about all of the keywords your dream clients might be Googling, and the matching blog posts or resources pages that you can create that answer them using the knowledge and expertise you already have.

What about Portrait Photographers?

You can do the same process of thinking about your dream client’s journey and questions on a smaller scale for portrait sessions.

Portrait client journey examples to brainstorm content ideas:

• Boudoir: think about a woman who is curious about doing a boudoir photoshoot but isn’t sure what it’s called exactly, what it means, what types or styles of boudoir there are, what to wear, etc.
• Maternity: think about the process a mother would go through in her journey to planning a maternity shoot and how you could help her: when to plan it for, what kinds and styles of maternity photos she could do, unique and flattering outfit ideas.

Free & low-cost keyword research tools for photographers

Once you have a good idea of topics that will help your dream clients, my favorite (and free) way to find specific keywords people are actually searching is to simply use Google search. 

I’ll literally just type one of the keyword ideas I brainstormed into Google, then look at suggested “autocomplete” searches, then hit enter and look at the “People Also Ask” boxes, and “People also Search” boxes in the search results to find what Google says real people are commonly searching for.

Google “autocomplete”

“People Also Ask” and “People also search for” in Google Search Results

To find more ideas and get a bit more info on keywords (like search volume and competition) you can use free or low-cost tools such as:

• Keywords Everywhere (Ultra cheap Google Chrome plugin / $1.50 for 100,000 keyword suggestions). Extremely easy and convenient keyword research tool that shows you keyword volume, related keywords, trend data, and site domain authority right on top of google search results.
• AnswerThePublic (3 daily searches for free, 100 daily searches for $9/month) Powerful keyword brainstorming & research tool by Niel Patel, shows questions around topics.
• Ubersuggest (3 daily searches for free, 150 daily searches for $29/month) Great tool to do Keyword Research, see your own and your competitors top pages & keywords and backlinks. When you start getting serious with SEO but don’t want to pay $100/month for an expensive tool, this is a great lower cost tool to start with.
• Google Keyword Planner – Honestly not the best keyword research tool (lacking a lot of specific info) but it’s 100% free

Tips on using 3rd party keyword research tools:

• Don’t get hung up on exact numbers for “search volume” and “competition” when using these tools. No 3rd party tool is going to give you accurate information so use these tools to generally see what’s searched more or less or has more or less competition.
• If a tool says a keyword gets less than 10 searches a month it can actually bring you much more traffic than that (because Google will rank your content for all the “similar meaning” keywords as well). 

How to prioritize what keywords/topics you should write about first

Not all keywords/topics are worth your time to write content about. Some are too competitive for you to rank for anytime soon, so if you want to get results from SEO faster, you need to be strategic about which keywords you go after first.

Keyword research term definitions: 

• Search Volume: Are there people searching for it? 
• Competition: Are you competing with a lot of strong websites that have already made really good content for those top 10 results?
• Value: Will ranking for this keyword help you get dream inquiries quickly or help with the “long game”?
• Long-tail keywords: These are longer, very specific phrases people type into Google (e.g. “How many witnesses do you need on a New York marriage license?”)

Tips to pick the right keywords / topics to write about:

• Start with topics clients Google right BEFORE looking for a photographer: For wedding/elopement photographers, start with Stage 3 topics as these couples are closest to booking, so answer their big “when & where” questions first—venue roundups, elopement guides, budgeting guides. Stay niche and avoid high-competition keywords that big websites already dominate. Then, expand to Stage 2 & Stage 1 to attract dream clients earlier in their journey. Then move onto vendor guides (Stage 4) to continue showing Google you’re an expert in the whole topic.
• Don’t underestimate low-volume keywords: If you’re new to SEO or have a new website, start with niche, low-competition keywords (aka long-tail keywords). These are easier to rank for and help you build momentum before tackling higher-volume searches. Remember, keyword research tools aren’t 100% accurate—they often miss that Google will rank your post for similar meaning keywords too.
• Use location-specific keywords: The more specific, the better. “Best Mountain Wedding Venues in Asheville” is way easier to rank for than “Best Wedding Venues in North Carolina.” You can even write a full guide on just one venue.
• Prioritize your local market first: Your local content will rank faster than blogs about destinations you don’t live in. If you want to rank for other destinations, prove your expertise locally first. Then, tackle one new destination at a time—starting with the one you know best—and create multiple posts about it before moving on.

Now that you have a ton of ideas on what kind of content you can write to attract your dream clients with SEO, let’s start optimizing your website so it can rank!

Step 5: Optimize Your Main Website Pages for SEO

Your website’s main pages are some of the most important pages because they tell Google (and your dream clients) exactly who you are, what you do, and where you do it.

Before you start blogging, you want to optimize your homepage and other main website pages to make sure Google understands your website and ranks it for the right keywords and locations.

Optimize Your Homepage

Your homepage is your most powerful page for SEO, so you want to make sure it’s optimized for your primary keyword while clearly telling couples who you are and how you can help them.

How to pick the right “primary keyword” for your homepage

Your homepage should be optimized for your single, most important keyword that you want your website to rank for. 

Yes, you need to pick just ONE keyword for your home page and it needs to be niche enough that you actually have a shot at ranking for it, but also a common simple phrase that people would actually type into Google to try to find you.

For most wedding/elopement photographers this will most often look like: 

• [your area] wedding photographer 
• [your area] elopement photographer

If you photograph weddings/elopements along with other types of portraits, you still may want to optimize your home page for a wedding/elopement keyword if weddings/elopements are responsible for the majority of your business’ income. 

If you photograph mainly portraits or other niches you might want to consider a home page keyword like:

• [your area] family photographer
• [your area] senior photographer
• [your area] branding photographer
• [your area] photographer

Do not try to rank your home page for multiple keywords. Choose ONE that represents your most important type of client and biggest source of bookings/income. 

Your homepage is the strongest page on your site, so you can reach a bit higher for a more competitive keyword than you normally would, but make sure you check what other websites are already ranking, and if the first page is full of businesses that have been established for years, you might want to consider going for a smaller city or region in your keyword.

Example: “Bend Wedding Photographer” will be easier to rank for than “Portland Wedding Photographer.”

Top tips to optimize your homepage for your primary keyword

Optimize Your Service Pages

If you offer multiple services (like weddings, elopements, and engagement sessions), don’t try to rank your homepage for ALL of those keywords.

Instead, optimize separate service/pricing pages for one relevant keyword / topic each.

Example: if you’re a Seattle-based photographer that photographs elopements, small weddings, and engagement sessions your navigation & page optimization might look like this:

• Home → Optimized for: “Seattle Elopement Photographer”
• Elopement Pricing → Optimized for: “Seattle Elopement Packages
• Wedding Pricing → Optimized for: “Seattle Wedding Photographer”
• Engagement Sessions → Optimized for: “Seattle Engagement Photographer”

Each service/pricing page should:

How to Optimize Other Key Pages on Your Site

Not every page on your website needs to be optimized for a keyword—some pages should simply exist for user experience.

• About Page → This page should be indexed but optimize it for your name/brand name ONLY (not any service-related keywords).
• Pricing Page → If you only have ONE service, think about whether it makes sense to optimize this page for an additional different keyword. 

Example: Instead of “Seattle Elopement Photographer” (which should be on your homepage), your pricing page could be optimized for “Seattle Elopement Packages”

Otherwise, don’t force a keyword on this page—just title it “Pricing” or “Info & Pricing” so it doesn’t compete with your homepage and make sure it is indexed. 

• Portfolio Page → This page should be indexed but you usually don’t want to try to optimize this page for any particular keyword (you don’t want it to compete with your home or pricing page).
  
• Contact Page → This page should be indexed but doesn’t need a keyword. Just title it “Contact” and make sure it’s easy to find in your main navigation.

Once these main pages of your website are optimized, Google will understand your business better—and you’ll have a much better chance of ranking for the keywords your dream clients are searching for.

Step 6: Create high-quality, unique content your dream clients are searching for (blogging and resource pages)

Blogging is one of the BEST ways to rank higher on Google—but only if you do it strategically.

Google ranks pages that have quality and valuable information that answers real questions—so your content needs to be helpful, specific, and unique. 

I have a “High-Ranking Content Creation Template” inside of my THRIVE program that guides you through this step-by-step. 

In general, this is the process to write blogs and resource pages that rank.

Choose the Right Topic

Prioritize topics based on the right approach to keyword research (see: step 4)—meaning they are real questions that your dream clients are already searching for.

Prioritize your brainstormed topics with keyword research tools and strategies to ensure they have at least some “search volume” and aren’t too competitive (go back to step 4 for all the tips).

Understand the Searcher & Find Your Unique Angle on the Topic 

To rank on the first page, you need to make sure your blog post or resource page:

1. Fully answers what all of the searches for that keyword are looking for
2. Demonstrates to human readers (and Google) why you should be trusted as a source of information on this topic

To fully answer the searcher’s question, you need to first put yourself in the shoes of someone Googling that keyword, and figure out what they’re really hoping to find. 

Before you start writing, Google your chosen keyword / topic.

Look at the top-ranking pages and ask:

Don’t try to copy what’s already there. To rank, you’ll want to find a gap in the existing information that you can fill with your piece of content.

Creating content that is more valuable (by more closely matching what the searcher really wants) and being clear why you’re an authority on this topic, is the key to getting in that #1 slot. 

As “authority” is arguably the most important factor in getting your content to rank, this is a huge focus of my SEO education in my THRIVE program and have a whole list of brainstorming prompts for how you can show Google you’re a trustworthy source of information when you create each piece of content (even if you’re new to the industry). 

But here’s some quick tips:

• Start your SEO journey by writing about things you have a lot of first-hand knowledge on (they’ll be easier to write and rank better)
• Anytime you write anything, prioritize doing off-line research or getting your own unique info or data from a primary source rather than just regurgitating the info that’s already online. You want to add something new and unique to the topic that everyone else isn’t already talking about.

Write a Helpful, Well-Structured & Optimized Blog Post or Resource Page

Blog Post Outline:

• Intro (100 words): State the problem, what they’ll learn, and why they should trust you
• H2 Section: Answer the most important question first
• H2 Section: Break it down into steps, examples, tips, locations, or FAQs
• H2 Section: Address common specific concerns (legal info, permits, weather)
• Conclusion: Summarize and add a CTA (Example: “Thinking about eloping in Texas? Contact me to start planning!”)

Tips to optimize your post/page:

Publish, Share, and Keep It Updated

Once you’re done, share it ASAP (Google prioritizes fresh content that gets traffic quickly)

Then update it yearly to keep it ranking (refresh info, add new tips, improve formatting)

Bottom line: Google ranks content that’s helpful, clear, and valuable. If your blog fully answers the question better than anyone else, you’ll rank. No tricks, just helpful content.

Step 7: Build Authority with Backlinks & Internal Links

Google ranks trusted websites higher—so besides showing Google you’re an authority through creating strong content, these are other ways you can show Google that your site is an authority.

Get High-Quality Backlinks

When other websites link to you, this is a signal to Google that you’re “legit.” You can think of each link you can get from someone else’s site as a “vote” for you in Google’s eyes. 

Ideas of how photographers can get backlinks

• Reach out to venues & vendors you’ve worked with and ask them to link to your website when they use your work.
• Submit your work to wedding blogs, contests, and publications: e.g. Wandering Weddings, Junebug weddings, IWOPTY awards, Rock n Roll Bride, etc.)
• Get listing in online directories or local guides (ideally for FREE): e.g. “Best Wedding Photographers in Nantucket” lists).

Pro tip: The more trusted the site that links back to you, the stronger the signal that is to Google that your website is trustworthy. 

Aim for quality backlinks rather than a ton of low-quality backlinks (this can be seen as scammy by Google and hurt your rankings).

Use internal links between your own content to strengthen it

An “internal link” is when you link one page or post of your own website to another one.

When you interlink your related content to each other, Google gets a better understanding of the depth to which you are covering a topic on your website. 

Internal linking also creates more opportunities to have more “breadth” and “depth to how much you’re covering a subject. You can link your more in-depth guides on smaller subjects to your broader resources (and vice versa).

This increases what’s called your “topical authority” in Google’s eyes and helps strengthen your rankings for pages and posts related to that topic.

Tips to improve your topical authority

• Whenever you publish a new blog post, go back and edit older posts to link to it.
• Link strategically—make sure your most important pages get the most internal links.

Over time, by gaining more links to from other trusted websites and covering your topic area of expertise in depth, you will prove to Google that you’re an authority and you’ll see your rankings improve. 

Example: One year as an experiment, I didn’t create any new content at all, but rather focused only on improving my backlinks and internal linking, and my clicks doubled that year. 

Step 8: Track & Improve Your SEO Over Time

While SEO is probably the most passive marketing platform out there once you do the initial work of creating your content, SEO is not a complete “set it and forget it” thing—you do need to check your progress and make updates regularly.

Use Google Search Console

• Track which keywords are driving traffic and which pages are ranking.
• Look for opportunities to improve underperforming pages.
• Identify new keywords / topics you can write helpful content on.

Update & Refresh Old or Underperforming Content

• Once a year, go through your top-ranking posts and update outdated info, add new images, and refresh your internal links.
• If a blog post isn’t ranking well, add more FAQs, internal links, and better images to improve it.
• Watch for unintended keyword cannibalization, and combine posts when needed

Final thoughts

SEO isn’t instant—but if you follow these steps, you WILL see results over time. 

The key is to keep creating valuable content and regularly improve your site.

Want hands-on help implementing this? 

Join THRIVE and get all the tools & templates you need to rank higher, book more dream clients, and take control of your SEO strategy! 

Questions Photographers Frequently Ask me About SEO

Can I do SEO myself?

Absolutely yes. I know a lot of educators made SEO seem very complicated and hard to do yourself, but trust me, you already have the most important skills you need to succeed: your knowledge and care for your clients. 

You likely already have dozens of “FAQ response emails” and maybe resource guides you’re sending to your clients because: you know what they need and how to help them succeed.

This is truly the most important factor in getting your content to rank. Sure there’s a few technical things here and there that you’ll want to learn, but if you can learn your camera settings and gear, I promise you can learn SEO. 

Should I hire someone to do my SEO?

I don’t recommend photographers to hire SEO help until they understand the fundamentals, because there’s so many SEO scammers out there, and they are often difficult to spot. 

That might be a frustrating answer if you’re currently feeling overwhelmed and confused by SEO, but even just by reading this guide a few times, you’ll have already learned a lot. If you don’t feel like you have time to do your own SEO, my recommendation is:

• Invest in quality education from an SEO professional who you feel explains things in a way you can understand. The SEO section of my THRIVE program has helped hundreds of photographers who knew nothing about SEO rank on Page #1 if you need help.
• Take the time to do the fundamentals yourself: Set up your Google Business Profile and Google Search Console, get a clear understanding of what pages you want indexed on your site and not and why, do your keyword research based on your own understanding of your clients and market. 
• Ask questions if you need help: Many reputable SEO educators have dedicated VIP communities in which you can ask questions to get help. For members of my THRIVE program there are monthly live Zoom calls and 24/7 access to a Q&A forum where I personally answer SEO questions within 2 business days. 
• If you want to outsource something, outsource writing after you outline it. As you learned in Step 6, having a blogger regurgitate information that’s already online to write blog posts for you is unlikely to rank well on Google because it includes no new information or personal experience. What’s been working well for many of my THRIVE members is to use the “High-Ranking Content Creation Template” inside of my THRIVE program to outline their blog post and then sending that along with a “voice memo” of thoughts to a copywriter to outsource the writing to save themselves time. 

How much does an SEO person cost? 

If you’re looking for someone to “do your SEO for you” I wouldn’t recommend trusting any SEO expert who charges less than $1500 for an audit and basic cleanup or less than $1500 – $2000 per month for ongoing services. Unfortunately, even then there are so many unethical scammers out there who know that SEO is an easy way to prey on photographers because of the knowledge gap (if you don’t understand SEO, it’s almost impossible to figure out if they’re really helping you).

As I explained above, I don’t recommend hiring someone to “do your SEO for you”—I see good results for this less than 1 out of 10 times that photographers try this.

The cheapest and safest way to outsource your SEO is to learn and do the fundamentals yourself by selecting the right topics, researching and outline your content with your own first-hand experience, and then hiring a contract writer for $30-75 per hour. You can find content writers or blog writers with great reviews on Upwork and Fiverr. 

Hasn’t AI Killed SEO?

Another big question I get is:

“Now that AI (like ChatGPT) is here, will SEO stop working?”

The short answer: Nope!

Yes, Google is rolling out AI-powered search results (where it shows a summary answer before listing websites).

But here’s the thing:

Google makes ZERO money if people don’t click on websites.

If users stop clicking on things, Google loses ad revenue—which is NOT what they want.

That’s why even with AI-powered search, Google is still giving priority space to websites and encouraging people to click on them—even in AI summaries.

So SEO isn’t going anywhere.

If anything, it’s going to become even more valuable—because as AI search grows, Google will still need trusted, high-quality content to pull from and to list as reputable sources.

More questions?

Feel free to ask me in my educational Weddings & Wanderlust community (it’s free!)